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Johnson County Record Books

Wednesday, May 9, 2012 We have conserved a number of record books from the Flood of 2008 for the Johnson County Historical Society.  Most of them have been pretty straight forward in the treatment that was needed.  We were so close to being finished with all of the record books when we came across aContinue reading “Johnson County Record Books”

Andrea’s Awesome Flood Recovery Video

Thursday, May 3, 2012 Recovering from a flood can take years and can be overwhelming if you don’t have help. Luckily the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library and the University of Iowa Libraries have lots of excellent help. The UI Libraries Conservation Lab continues to act as a flood recovery lab for theContinue reading “Andrea’s Awesome Flood Recovery Video”

Moving out of 5th floor

Have you ever wondered what was in room 5065 “staff office” with the classification of the word typewriting across the door? Well, today is your lucky day. The room use to be a work space where PhD candidates’ dissertations were typed. Furthermore, this was our storage space for the items being recovered from the flood.Continue reading “Moving out of 5th floor”

Good-bye Caitlin, Hello Kathleen

Good-bye Caitlin, Hello Kathleen Caitlin Moore, our Flood Recovery Conservation Technician, is moving on to the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis.  We are sad to see her go but are so thankful for all the work she has done for the past three years. Good Luck, Caitlin! We welcome Kathleen Tandy to fillContinue reading “Good-bye Caitlin, Hello Kathleen”

Disaster Response Practice

Friday, May 27, 2011 The best way to be prepared is to practice. As school children we have practice drills on how to respond to a fire alarm. Constant practice turns into a habit. We all know how to respond to a fire alarm without even thinking. Today we had a disaster response practice drill.Continue reading “Disaster Response Practice”

Your Aunt’s Dinner Party

Thursday, May 26, 2011 What would you do if your aunt called you two days before her dinner party and informed you that due to a fire in her kitchen she wanted you to host her party at your house? OceanTeacher Academy students used this scenario to practice their disaster planning skills. We all haveContinue reading “Your Aunt’s Dinner Party”

Flattening A Book

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 Salvaging damaged books can be very time consuming, especially if they don’t dry flat. Today Caitlin Moore demonstrated how to flatten a book. First you lightly mist a page, using a mister that sprays a very fine mist, interleave with a blank piece of paper every few pages, put a boardContinue reading “Flattening A Book”

Preparing for Disasters

Tuesday, May 24, 2011 An important part of preparing for disasters is to practice and experiment before a disaster. An excellent drill is to get books wet in clean tap water and then air dry them. Get a broad range of books wet and see what happens as they dry. A couple of the booksContinue reading “Preparing for Disasters”

OceanTeacher Academy Disaster Response Session 2011

Monday, May 23, 2011 I am, once again, teaching a Disaster Planning and Recovery course at the OceanTeacher Academy in Ostend, Belgium. Today we learned about air drying books which can be very tedious and time consuming. Each book needs to have plain paper inserted between the covers and every few pages to wick upContinue reading “OceanTeacher Academy Disaster Response Session 2011”

Czech book project

Tuesday, August 24, 2010 One of the projects that we’ve just begun to address has been waiting two years. The Czech Slovak library has roughly 7500 books that were frozen post flood. They estimate that 20 % of the books are damaged beyond repair and will need to be replaced.  Nancy and I went upContinue reading “Czech book project”