Monday, July 13, 2009 Many of the files from the African American Museum contain various forms of correspondence. There are many postcards and letters with their original stamps. When these already fragile envelopes were faced with the flood, the stamps detached to end in a pile at the bottom of the file folder. The second project IContinue reading “Return to Sender: Reattaching Stamps”
Category Archives: Flood Recovery
Volunteer Kallie Making a Difference
Friday, July 10, 2009 We have a new volunteer! Kallie Holt, a Junior at the University of Iowa has volunteered to work 8 hours a week here in the Conservation Lab. The first project I gave her was the cleaning of a collection of small miscellaneous items from the African American Museum. These objects rangeContinue reading “Volunteer Kallie Making a Difference”
Material Instability and Other Woes
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 We have encountered every problem in the book (no pun intended) while treating these ledgers for the Johnson County Historical Society. These two pictures of the same ledger are good examples. The structure of the book was sound. It needed a little bit of cosmetic repair and hinge repair. The insideContinue reading “Material Instability and Other Woes”
Repairing Ledgers One at a Time
Monday, July 6, 2009 There are several different types of ledgers from the Johnson County Historical Society. This ledger was completely detached from the covers, but the case was intact. The spine and corner pieces were in good shape but the cover cloth was warped and bunched. I began with the text block. I tippedContinue reading “Repairing Ledgers One at a Time”
Peeling The Smells Away
Wednesday, July 1, 2009 This ledger from the Johnson County Historical Society was in bad shape. The boards were warped, the spine piece had come detached, and the covers were almost completely off but for one small area. The covers were so far gone I decided to replace them altogether. I kept the cloth fromContinue reading “Peeling The Smells Away”
Adherography
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 While processing manuscript archive documents from the African American Museum of Iowa we fortuned upon an old, mysterious and extremely problematic form of document duplication. What we believe we have, perhaps hundreds of, are adherography documents. A definition, found in “Guide to the identification of prints and photographs : featuring aContinue reading “Adherography”
Volunteer Dawn Completes Docket Project
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 One of our volunteers, Dawn Wellington, has been working on a project re-ordering and re-housing a collection of court dockets for the Johnson County Historical Society. She went through hundreds of dockets and put them back in order and into new document boxes. When she finished, we had Leigh Ann Randak,Continue reading “Volunteer Dawn Completes Docket Project”
Stuck Pages
Thursday, June 18, 2009 This week when Susan Hansen and I reviewed the work for the Art Library, she pointed out a book that had a block of pages stuck together. It felt like a brick. We were convinced that the book was beyond repair. However, before declaring the book a loss, we forwarded theContinue reading “Stuck Pages”
A Pressing Job
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 One of our biggest workstreams at the moment is the rescue of the files from the African American Museum. We have over one hundred boxes of manuscripts which unlike the working files, which can just be photocopied, need to be saved. They are mainly records and correspondence, there are some photographsContinue reading “A Pressing Job”
Commemorating Flood of 2008
Monday, June 15, 2009 We were invited to participate in the university’s special event, “Remember, Reimagine, Rebuild,” at the Old Capitol Museum commemorating the one-year anniversary of last year’s historic flood. The Old Capitol was open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. for the free event, which included displays of flood-related photographs and research, audioContinue reading “Commemorating Flood of 2008”