Conservation & Collections Care News

HVAC Augmentation

Monday, August 4, 2008

We were lucky in the Main Library. We have three air handlers and have managed to keep two of the three working. With one out, we needed a way to keep air circulating everywhere. Plastic air tubes were placed strategically throughout the building to augment our HVAC system. Air is brought in and then circulated through our system. We needed this extra boost for the health of staff and collections. Stale air can be a real problem. We were also able to maintain a temperature and humidity that is typical for our building — 70-80 degrees and 50-60% relative humidity.

Cleaning 78s

Thursday, July 31

Cleaning the 78’s from the Czech Slovak record collection has been our longest project so far. Just the cursory cleaning we did out at the Oakdale paper facility took two months. We used two water baths, one with photo flo, a mild soap; and one with clean water to rinse. We then hung them up to dry using the paper drying rack out at Oakdale. We cleaned 3,300 78s altogether.

The Challenge of Unboxing 78s

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

We were amazed to discover that 78s expand when wet. Getting them out of their archival box was no small task. The photos explain the process.

David Muhlena Visits

Monday, July 28, 2008

One of the benefits of having a local institution like the University of Iowa help with flood recovery is the access we have to the curators of the museums. If these museums had to send their collections to one of the regional centers they would be much less involved in the process. We have had the luxury of being able to meet directly with the curators of the African American Museum of Iowa, the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, and the Johnson County Historical Society throughout our recovery efforts.

Cleaning CDs and DVDs

Friday, July 25, 2008

The DVDs and CDs from the African-American Museum are still caked with dirt. Most had been in plastic cases, and so Bill and I pitched the covers and dry wiped these. There was a stack, however, that were only in paper sleeves, and so in worse condition. Nervous about putting the CDs and DVDs into water, Nancy tracked down some guidelines for us. We placed them into distilled water and wiped carefully from the center outward — like wheel spokes — not in a circular motion, following the ridges as we had for the records. Again, in order to dry them, we hang them in the paper drying rack at Oakdale. In order not to scratch the surface, we use soft cotton fabric between the surface of the CD/DVD and the marble.

Czech LPs Debut

Thursday, July 24, 2008

The highlight of the day was listening to three Czech LPs that we had salvaged. The covers are wrinkled, tattered, stained, and still have a distinct odor about them. The records have a slight “scent” to them, too, probably from the paper label. CR Gazette Reporter, Alicia Ebaugh , made a special trip down to listen to the LPs. We only listened to the first cut on each of the three LPs — a polka, a Christmas Carol, and a folk song. They sounded great! One was “scratchy.” I don’t know if that was from the flood, original recording, or hard use.

I finalized a contract with the African American Museum for the CDs/DVDS and museum objects — just basic cleaning — and got it off to them. It took a lot longer to prepare than I had anticipated so I was much delayed. They wanted the contract ASAP as FEMA told them late last week that they might be able to get some reimbursement — all they needed was a contract. This week they told them that the work wouldn’t qualify, before they even got a copy of the contract. It’s been a very frustrating week for them.

I treated my staff to a lunch of home made sloppy joes. It’s been a very trying time for everyone. Although we’re moved back into the basement, we’re still missing some furniture and shelving. Some of us are helping with flood recovery activities. The rest of the library staff is anxious to get back to routine work and want/need us to be back at our desks doing our regular work and we’re not there.

I ended my day as guest lecturer for Jacqueline Snyder’s Collection Management class. We spent some time discussing the role collection managers play in disaster response.

How to Restore LPs, DVDs, CDs Video Debuts

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Gazette was really fast in getting this video posted. It looks pretty good. Bill Voss and Elizabeth Stone did a great job demonstrating how to clean the discs. http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080723/NEWS/695592191/1002/NEWS

We continue to make progress on flood recovery efforts. Bryan Stusse has about 1/2 of the Czech LPs inventory completed. Kristin has most of the monitoring sites for book moisture content established and logged in first reading. We’ll take the readings once a week (unless we see a problem) until the Main Library HVAC system is 100% funtional. We have the book cases ordered for staff in the basement. Caitlin and Beth did a box and a half of 78s. They found interesting mold on some of the 78s. They can clean the 78s in half the time as the LPs which is good since there are twice as many. They are trying to figure out how to hang more.

I spent most of the day trying to figure out contract language, pricing, and work flow. How do we keep work flowing consistently enough so I can keep Caitlin on staff and actually pay Beth? The books and documents might not come back from the freeze drying process for several months. We’ll need to wait until David determines which LPs he can replace and which ones we need to restore before we can do any additional work on the LPs. It’s a challenge.

When I got home, I heard a beeping sound coming from my closet. Closer investigation determined the sound was coming from my dance shoe bag. For some unknown reason, I stuck my cell phone in my shoe bag last night! The message on my cell phone was an invitation to join the Governor’s Rebuild Iowa Taskforce on Record Retention. First meeting next Wednesday.

I finished my day with a great dance lesson. We worked on fox trot and tango.

Hanging in There

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Caitlin has gone home to visit Michigan. Which means Bill has come to help me out. Although he makes fun of the lunches I bring, and doesn’t laugh at my jokes, it is good to have two people doing this. The day goes faster and more smoothly. Plus, Bill does appreciate the silly names of the bands–and we wonder what “adult only polka” might be, as there are several in the last box. Caitlin misses washing the last box of LPs, but we have plenty of 78 boxes ahead of us.

Containing Smells

Monday, July 21, 2008

We think we’ve finally figured out how to contain the smells while cleaning the Czech/Slovak records. The solution turned out to be rather simple. We set the thermostat to continuous air and added a charcoal filter to the airconditioner. Of course, you can still get a “whiff” as you enter the cleaning room but you don’t get knocked out from the smell. A huge improvement!

Dead battery and Warped 78s

Friday, July 18, 2008

Our garbage disposal died just after Cedar Rapids flooded. I finally got organized enough to schedule a plumber. I spent the morning organizing my “flood” files. At 10:30, I headed out for my meeting with David to review flood recovery efforts only to discover that the pickup battery was dead. David graciously offered to come to my house. He has most of the cost estimates for the library. I believe he has a great strategy in mind for handling library book replacement. He plans to bring a collection development consultant in. Just as well take “advantage” of the situation and create a more defined, better developed collection as books are being replaced. We’re assuming that he’ll want to replace as many books as possible rather than fix the books, given the dirty, messy condition they were in when placed in the freezer truck. I gave him the good news that we were able to clean every single LP and its cover. We haven’t tried to play any of the LPs yet. Until we actually play an LP we won’t know whether we were successful or not. The album covers are a mess – crinkly and stained – but legible. He’ll start looking for replacements after we’ve finished cross checking against his inventory.

I had to give him the bad news that the few 78s we sampled on Thursday were warped. Before the flood he had only a few warped 78s. I’m hoping against hope the sampling included those few and that we don’t have a huge warping problem. We won’t know until we actually get into the collection. These will be harder to replace. In hind sight, maybe we should have worked on the 78s first. Our priority setting made sense at the time. David solved one mystery for us. We couldn’t figure out why we ended up with two thick plates of glass. He had planned on experimenting with flattening out the warped 78s by sandwiching in between two pieces of glass and baking at low heat.

I met with a Cedar Rapids Gazette reporter, Alicia Ebaugh, in the afternoon. The rain had stopped so we were able to sit out on the deck. She’s very interested in the recovery process – all the stages. She totally gets it that it will be a long, lengthy process, very time consuming, with no text book answers.

Nancy Baker called with the news that our request to get temperature lowered in the Art and Music libraries is being taken seriously. They have asked for suggested temperature and relative humidity parameters.