Wednesday, December 17, 2008 This gourd drum, an artifact from the African American Museum is a dried and hollowed gourd, the top has been sliced away to create an opening which has leather stretched across it. Two sticks intersect inside the gourd with the ends protruding from the sides, through the leather as you canContinue reading “Cleaning Gourd Drum”
Category Archives: Materials, equipment and procedures
Salvaging 45 Record Covers: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime
November 18, 2008 Unlike most of the LP covers, the 45 covers are typically printed directly onto the cardboard instead of printed separately and then adhered. This can be helpful or it can be a huge problem as in the case on the right. When this cover got wet, the image was transferred to theContinue reading “Salvaging 45 Record Covers: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime”
Making A Difference With Baskets
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 The African American Museum has a collection of baskets that were sent to us after being damaged in the flood. In September we were sent to the Campbell Center in Mt. Carroll, IL for training in cleaning and preserving these baskets. This is an example of one of the baskets I cleaned. This particularContinue reading “Making A Difference With Baskets”
Leigh Ann Randak Visits
Monday, November 10, 2008 Leigh Ann from the Johnson County Historical Society came to sort through the books that were freeze-dried and then stored at the UI Main Library –to see what we had here and take away anything she needed, or didn’t need us to work on. Since the boxes are stacked to theContinue reading “Leigh Ann Randak Visits”
Freeze-Drying Kills Bugs
Thursday, November 6, 2008 There’s more than muck that comes with flood water. But we don’t need to worry about finding any live creepy-crawlies as we unpack the books for repair. Freeze drying not only dries books out but also kills insects. ‘Course the dried-out bug is sent back with the book! Even books thatContinue reading “Freeze-Drying Kills Bugs”
Archival Boxes Provide Protection
Tuesday, November 4, 2008 Here’s proof that an archival box does what it is supposed to do, even under extreme conditions — provides protection! You would never guess that this box of newspapers was in a flood. This box of newspapers was rinsed before being sent to be freeze-dried. That’s the extent of treatment soContinue reading “Archival Boxes Provide Protection”
Tough Decisions
Monday, November 3, 2008 Stefanie Kohn, National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library curator, spent the afternoon with us. We reviewed all the objects with her, making sure we had correctly identified those that belong to the Czech/Slovak Museum. Although most items were well marked and quite obvious as to whether they belonged to theContinue reading “Tough Decisions”
LP Cover Prototype Developed
Thursday, October 30, 2008 After much discussion we finally decided on a structure for rehousing the records. Gary suggested a three flap structure so I came up with a prototype for the LPs and the 45s. The LP prototype was sent out to be manufactured for us. The structure has a T shape, the middleContinue reading “LP Cover Prototype Developed”
Documents Arrive From Freeze Dry Facility
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 The items that were sent off to be freeze dried came back today. The books from the National Czech & Slovak Library & Museum are back on skids in the NCSLM building in Cedar Rapids. The materials from the African American Museum of Iowa and the Johnson County Historical Society wereContinue reading “Documents Arrive From Freeze Dry Facility”
Sandals Almost as Good as New
Tuesday, October 14, 2008 These Sandals are one of two pairs from the African American Museum. They were both caked with mud and sludge. We chose to clean these sandals because they were in better condition than the other pair, which had some warping and cracking. For these I used a PVOH sponge to do an initial cleaning and thenContinue reading “Sandals Almost as Good as New”