Tuesday, September 22, 2009 In 2007, the first person we contacted for assistance with designing our new conservation water system was UI water engineer David McClain. He took us on a field trip to view other UI installations and assisted in specifying a new system. Once we had a contract in place, he coordinated allContinue reading “Learning How to Use Our New Water System”
Category Archives: Materials, equipment and procedures
A New Conservation Lab Sink at Last
Friday, September 11, 2009 Finally, all the pieces are in place and fully functional! I thought it would be good to reflect back on the old system on the left and ponder the new system on the right. The stainless steel sink is 48” x 72” x 4” allowing for work on large and smallContinue reading “A New Conservation Lab Sink at Last”
Blue Boxes
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 One of our volunteers has taken on the project of building custom boxes for objects to be returned to the African American Museum in November. Beth has been teaching Kallie Holt how to make boxes from the sturdy blue corrugated board we use routinely in the conservation lab. In addition to making themContinue reading “Blue Boxes”
Paper to Digital to Paper Again
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 A UI prof and grad student were interested in getting a digital copy of Cursus Literaturae Sinicae, a 19th C. translation of classical Chinese texts into Latin in five volumes. When the volumes came via ILL from Notre Dame, they were scanned using the overhead scanner with the gradation curve set to giveContinue reading “Paper to Digital to Paper Again”
Adherograph Reformatting Continues
Monday, August 3, 2009 Ongoing efforts to clean and flatten flood-affected archives manuscripts from the African American Museum of Iowa have turned up yet another form of adherograph deterioration. (See June 30, 2009 entry) As seen in the example to the left, the powder medium that holds the adherograph text image has irreversibly adhered to theContinue reading “Adherograph Reformatting Continues”
Adventures with the warp eliminating vacuum…not Star Trek
Thursday, July 16, 2009 We have been experimenting with a fancy new vacuum packer, generally used for food preservation. We are using it to flatten books and other paper items. It would be inefficient for batch work because of all the material that needs to be cut to size but for especially warped booksContinue reading “Adventures with the warp eliminating vacuum…not Star Trek”
Return to Sender: Reattaching Stamps
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”
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”