Today in the conservation lab…I’m evaluating books from our circulating collection, to determine if we should have them withdrawn or order replacements. These are books that, for some reason, cannot be easily or efficiently repaired. Many of them are brittle, but others are missing many of their pages due to vandalism, or cannot be rebound […]
Could you pass this dexterity test? If you interview for a job in my lab – as in many other library conservation labs – you will have to take a test like this to demonstrate your manual dexterity. This is just one example of a dexterity test that we used in the past. The test […]
This was a Wall Street Journal article about the Bookkeeper deacidification system. I rather like that they called it a “dunking machine”, as though it’s operated by Michael Jordan.
I’m weeding my office today, and finally tackled the three filing cabinets in the conservation lab that are just chock full of outdated and useless files. It’s been very cathartic, throwing things in the recycling bin.. but the absolute highlight of today was throwing away a 3 INCH THICK stack of files that were just […]
Opening an uncut book, with a paper knife. Whoever had checked this out before it was sent to the lab must not have read very much of it because half of the textblock was uncut, and thus unreadable! (Source: http://bookbindingdictionary.com/)
Today’s work: a brace of matching re-backs on a biography of architect Daniel H. Burnham.
TGIF! This book has a LOT of problems, which I’ve helpfully indicated on its treatment flag.
More snowflakes have appeared on the conservation lab door! It’s getting awfully festive around here…
This book just arrived in the lab with this sad (yet hilarious) note attached. The note reads “Sad Bergey’s :(”, and the book is “Bergey’s Manual of Determinative Bacteriology”. It is VERY sad indeed, as not only is the binding failing but students have marked it up with highlighting and pencil underlining almost to the point of […]
The conservation lab door has been decked out for the holidays! I used a discarded map from our map collection to make this giant paper snowflake. It was really easy, and you can find the instructions here.