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”
Category Archives: Materials, equipment and procedures
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”
Sometimes Duct Tape Is Not The Answer
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 Susan Hansen has seen and fixed a lot of books in her tenure in Book Repair, but every once in a while one stands out. Recently, a 1958 copy of “The Silver Spoon Mystery” by Dorothy Sterling came to Susan, and she knew she could make it more stable, as wellContinue reading “Sometimes Duct Tape Is Not The Answer”
Big Book Explained
Thursday, January 13, 2011 Binding a 10,000 page book is no small task! You can’t get your hands around all 10,000 pages at once so the book needs to be assembled into smaller units and then bound together using a specially constructed press to hold everything in place, nicely squared up, until the book textContinue reading “Big Book Explained”
Disaster Response Drill
Wednesday, July 7, 2010 Today we put into practice everything that we had learned over the five days. When students came to class they learned that there had been a “disaster.” They had to work in teams to recover the water and mud covered CDs, photographs, and books. They even had to deal with theContinue reading “Disaster Response Drill”
My Aunt’s Dinner
Monday, July 5, 2010 We checked our books after 5 days of air drying to see if they were dry. None were completely dry. Although several looked dry, when we touched the pages with the palms of our hands, the pages felt cool which meant they were still damp. A few books were ready toContinue reading “My Aunt’s Dinner”
Book Drying Continues
Friday, July 2, 2010 After close to two days of air drying many, but not all, books were ready to press. We used a make shift press of books and bricks. Fans were set up to create good air circulation to continue the drying process over the weekend. We began discussions on disaster planning andContinue reading “Book Drying Continues”
OceanTeacher Academy Course on Disaster Planning and Preparedness
Thursday, July 1, 2010 Today was our first session on disaster planning and preparedness at the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Office for the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange in Ostend, Belgium. This is a five day course. One of our activities was to dry a wet book. Each student pulled a book out of aContinue reading “OceanTeacher Academy Course on Disaster Planning and Preparedness”
Banner Repaired
Thursday, April 15, 2010 This banner from the African American Museum was signed by Jesse Jackson. The signature and surrounding illustration were sprayed with some sort of fixative which didn’t end up being very sound. The large part of the banner was fine but the areas with the fixative were detached and curling up away fromContinue reading “Banner Repaired”