💔 💔 💔 💔 No love for whoever used these pink heart-shaped sticky notes in one of our library books. They are now firmly attached to the page, even after only being placed there less than 8 months ago. Our circulation staff sent this book to Preservation after they tried to remove one of the […]
I’d rather not admit how long it took me to realize that the coffee stain ring on this book’s cover was actually a deliberate part of its design. It helped that I had two copies to look at! The book is “Workspheres”, based on an exhibition at the @moma
TGIF! “Christ Among the Doctors” by Maestro Bartolome, ca 1480-88
Somebody memorialized their Eureka moment on the title page of this library book.
There’s always that moment of trepidation when I haven’t yet figured out what’s making the pages of a book stick together, particularly when said book features many images of art featuring nude women. In this case it was just tape or Post-it note adhesive residue…what a relief! But seriously, be kind to librarians and conservators…keep […]
This is why I can’t stop giggling while working on this 18th century herbal.
Today I’m working on a treatment that is basically the rare book equivalent of cleaning under the couch cushions. This 2-volume herbal was used by a previous owner as a plant press, and many leaves, flowers and other assorted plant parts were discovered in-between its pages by our special collections librarian. The plants had already […]
How not to fix a book, example #47.
“Please fix this bad fix” is a surprisingly large percentage of my job. This book was sent to me because someone had replaced one of the pages with a photocopy (actually TWO photocopies glued together to make a two-sided copy) by taping it to the adjacent original pages in the book. Sigh.
Some before and after photos of a recent mold remediation treatment I’ve been working on. It’s a collection of more than a hundred architectural drawings, paintings, and photographic reproductions that were damaged by mold prior to their acquisition by the library. Fortunately, most of the mold damage is on the edges of the supports or […]