Conservation & Collections Care News

Suitcase Saga Part 4: Conclusion

Thursday, December 12, 2009

After lots of fussing and fiddling the suitcase is finally done. I removed all the rust from the exterior and cleaned up the metal. The interior was trickier. I removed the paper lining and lined it with a heavy japanese paper and wheat starch paste. Underneath the paper the metal of the suitcase was extremely rusty so I removed that rust as well before re-adhering the new “lined lining”. It wasn’t possible to remove the mold stains from the paper lining so this suitcase has ended up with a much more colorful interior than it ever had in it’s pre-flood life!

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New Volunteer Elizabeth

Friday, November 20, 2009

Blog IMG_0021 Elizabeth Boyne has joined us in the lab as our newest volunteer. We have no shortage of projects. She started with cleaning and flattening newspapers from the Czech Slovak Museum but will most likely clean a collection of busts from the African American Museum and assist with cleaning and flattening manuscript files. Elizabeth is a Graduate Student enrolled in the Joint SLIS and Center for the Book program. She will be working with us in addition to working in Book Repair with Susan Hansen. We’re always excited to gain an extra pair of hands!

Where We Are Now

Monday, November 16, 2009

On October 23 we sent another round of artifacts back to the African American Museum. We also sent back the first of the manuscript boxes to be cleaned.

We hope to be out of Oakdale Hall by the end of the year and it is heartening to see it empty out a little more each time we send things back. Almost all the metal objects have been finished and we are in the process of completing the wooden items from the African American Museum. We have only a few remaining objects from the Czech Slovak Museum that need to be cleaned.

The African American Museum Manuscript box project, which consists of 105 boxes of files that need to be cleaned, flattened, and rehoused, is well underway. Twenty three boxes have been returned and there are several more in various states of progress.

The LP and 45 Collections are virtually finished, we are still researching cleaning methods for the 78s. Once we have returned the LPs we will be able to move the remaining objects at Oakdale Hall to be stored at the Library.

The fact that we are getting to the point where we can consolidate items is a pretty big deal. When the flood recovery began we were bursting at the seams wondering where on earth we would find the room to store all of these things. Now that we have some breathing room it is easier to see the progress that we have been making.

Steve Stenstrom Workshop on Shellac Finishes

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Blog shellac 004 Steve Stenstrom returned to the UI to teach us about Shellac. We learned about the properties of Shellac and the different ways to use it. Steve brought us pieces of wood to work with and we all got some experience “french polishing” which consists of a cotton pad soaked in Shellac wrapped in a piece of cotton (old tshirts work the best). Using the pads we learned the basic technique for finishing a piece of wood with shellac. This will mainly be applied to the trophies and plaques we have from the African American Museum.

Read “The Story of Shellac” and learn how insects make shellac.

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Presenting to the Iowa Special Libraries Association

Monday, November 9, 2009

On Nov. 6 Beth and I gave a presentation to the Iowa Special Libraries Association in Lindquist Hall. It was one of our first experiences presenting the flood project. It was a good feeling to see how interested people are in what we have been doing. The talk was scheduled to be an hour which seemed like an incredibly long time to have to fill when we started but I didn’t realize until we were putting our presentation together how much we’ve actually gotten accomplished. It’s hard to take a step back and see the big picture sometimes so explaining it to others gave us a new perspective and it was very encouraging.

OLLI Students Create Post-Bound Photo Albums

Monday, November 2, 2009

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Osher Lifelong Learning Institute students spent two Mondays making a post-bound photo album in the University of Iowa Libraries conservation lab guided by preservation assistant Bill Voss and two Mondays with preservation librarian Nancy E Kraft learning about digital photo layout.

Although most of the material was pre-cut, there was still much to do to put an album together. The OLLI students learned a about paper grain, paste, and mitering corners and experiened some of the challenges of a conservator during their class. They also learned a little about digital photograph preservation and tested the stability of their digital photos by soaking them in water for a few hours.

These photo albums can be used for traditional or digital photos.

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Storage is as important as treatment

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The objects we have received since the flood span a wide range of materials. Since we couldn’t work on everything immediately, one of the first things we had to address was proper storage. The wooden objects were set out to dry as were the baskets and miscellaneous plastic, ceramic, glass items. The metals however presented a problem. They were rusting and since we weren’t able to get to them immediately we needed to arrest the deterioration somehow.

After doing some research and consulting with Steve Stenstrom, an objects conservator, we bought large plastic tubs in which we could create a micro-environment for the metal objects. This allowed us more control over the condition of their surroundings. We put packages of dessicant in the tubs with the metals to absorb any moisture which might contribute to the deterioration of the metal. The dessicant packets were switched out periodically and we were able to slow the process of rusting until we had a chance to stabilize the objects.

The items in the tub to the left are already cleaned and waiting to go back home to the African American Museum of Iowa.

inventory fun

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Keeping order in the aftermath of a disaster is not easy to do. When the flood hit Cedar Rapids in 2008 there was very little time to get everything out of the museums and things that weren’t rescued until after they had sustained flood damage were at times so unrecognizable it was hard even to identify which museum they had come from! There was no time to take an inventory, label or organize anything.

When we got the books, maunscripts, and artifacts back to the University one of our first, and largest, tasks was to put things in some semblance of order. This was mainly done for museum artifacts as opposed to the books and manuscripts which tend to be a bit easier to identify. We had a rough idea of what we should have and the curators were extremely helpful but many items had tags obscured by mud or ink that had run.

We imposed our own organization system and began a database to keep track of which museum an item came from, the condition, proposed treatment, actual treatment, treatment time and date finished. In addition to this we photographed every thing before we started work on it. This organization system has made it much easier for us to locate items when we are in contact with the curators. It also allows us to record what we’ve done for future reference.

The African American Museum is using a program called Past Perfect which allows us to see images of items before the flood. This has been invaluable in cases where we don’t know exactly how much treatment an object needs. We don’t want to remove a finish because we think it is staining from the flood. We also do not want to “overclean” objects, taking away from their provenance.

Learning How to Use Our New Water System

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Blog DSCN1039 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 all the work with the vendor. As pieces were put into place, he patiently explained what each piece was for and how to use it. During the summer we worked several kinks out of the system.

Today, David came back and gave staff a session on how to use the system.

JCHS return!!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Finally sending some ledgers home!! Leigh Ann Randak came to the Conservation Lab today to pick up 42 finished ledgers and the completed collection of re-boxed court dockets!!

This means we are nearly half way through the ledger project and that we’re making progress! Many of these projects are so long that it is hard to gauge our progress so when we can send things back to their museums it is very satisfying. The ledgers are mainly record books from the Johnson County Historical Society. Many of these books are enormous and in addition to the satisfaction of having them finished, it will be helpful to have the extra space. Now we just have to get those LP’s sent home.