In September I taught two workshops for part-time employees in the University Archives and Lilly Library’s Manuscripts Department about preservation issues commonly encountered in archival collections.  Most of the attendees are also students in IU’s Master of Library Science degree program. I wanted to show them the kinds of preservation problems they are likely to find when processing collections, and share best practices for handling materials safely. So I thought I would share a few of those points here.

First, archival materials present particular preservation problems —

Some of the best stuff collected by archives was never intended to last! But newspapers, ephemera, and other objects become valuable for research despite having been made from materials that are not long-lasting.

A lot of materials collected by archives are have already been used! Office files, maps, architectural plans, and other objects may come in worn, damaged, stained, torn, “repaired” with tape, rolled, folded, dirty.

Materials coming to archives may have been stored in attics, barns, garages, or basements — and may suffer from mold or insect damage, or smell musty.

There is often a tension between preserving the original order of collection items to preserve context vs. what is best for their preservation. Large items that exceed the size of folders, highly acidic paper than can cause dark stains on items next to them are examples.

Gloves or no?

We dispelled the commonly held notion that wearing white cotton gloves is necessary when handling special collections. Although it used to be a common practice, we now feel that clean, dry hands are better in most circumstances. Gloves can make you a bit clumsy! But there are times that gloves are necessary — when handling photographs, negatives, or silver objects, gloves should be worn to avoid leaving permanent fingerprints.

Posts-it notes – harmless?

Sticky notes are pretty cool and handy and all that. And they ARE designed to be removable. BUT they DO get harder to pull off cleanly after they have been stuck on for a while. Sometimes the paper tears, especially if you pull in the wrong direction –

After they have been stuck on for a while, they can leave adhesive stains. Other times a layer of the page peels off when you try to remove the post-it. If the note was stuck on top of text or images, whoops! These problems are more pronounced in older books that have weak paper.

Here is how to remove post-it notes safely — It is a basic hand skill that conservators use all the time when they need to separate two things, remove tape, and so on. Instead of pulling up, peel or roll the sticky note back on itself at the lowest angle possible.

But if it looks dicey because the paper underneath is fragile, then let the folks in Preservation handle it.

And here are some best practices for working with archival collections

• Work with clean, dry hands. Gloves are only needed for photographs or negatives.
• Keep food and drink away from collections (same for any liquids that could spill).

• Support collection items when carrying them from one place to another. Use a book truck for boxes or books, and a piece of board or a box lid under loose documents.
• Use pencil when working with collections. If you need to write identifying information on collection items, use pencil on the verso or lower margin; don’t press down hard.
• Don’t lean on collection items or write notes with your paper on top of them.
• Do not keep boxes of collection materials on the floor. Floods happen!

*Note asterisked items below are repository or collection dependent.

• Remove extraneous materials, i.e., rubber bands, paper clips, *staples.
• *Remove old boxes (like department store boxes), old plastic sleeves, if not needed.
• Unfold papers unless they are fragile and could crack or tear. If fragile, flag for Conservation.
• Isolate news clippings, pressed flowers, or other acidic documents with a sheet of acid-free paper between, or place small items inside a folded sheet with the fold down (like a taco shell).
• Move 3-D items to a separate enclosure. Flag for Conservation if one is needed.
• When possible, group together materials of similar size. Store items larger than standard folders separately. Flag for Conservation if folders or boxes are needed.
• Folders inside boxes should stand upright. If the box is less than full, insert a spacer (a piece of board folded into a “U” shape). Boxes and folders should not be overstuffed.
• Place bound volumes upright, spine down, or flat, but not spine up.

Flag for Conservation

• Dirty items, where the dirt comes off on your hands or transfers to other items
• Folded documents if they are fragile and opening them might cause damage
• Rolled documents – do not attempt to unroll them
• Torn documents (but not every tiny tear)
• Brittle documents that are vulnerable to loss (pieces may break off/get lost)
• Tape on documents or bound volumes; Post-it notes stuck on top of information
• Mold or evidence of live insects
• Bound volumes if cover boards or spine are detached/partly detached, pages are loose, or leather on cover leaves rust-colored dust all over you or other items
• Objects that need to be housed separately from documents – things that are 3-dimensional, oversize, or things that may damage other items

You can also view the images of preservation problems I showed during the workshops here

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an Undo button for things in real life?

In Preservation we spend a fair amount of time undoing expedient repairs of the past. Most of the time this involves some kind of tape — cellophane tape, Magic Mend tape, book cloth tape, gummed tape, duct tape, you name it. Tape may seem like a good idea at first, but ultimately it does more harm than good. The adhesive may dry out, the tape falls off, leaves permanent and/or sticky stains, and generally is not very nice.

Fortunately we have a few tricks up our proverbial sleeves. Some involve solvents, others involve heat. Unfortunately, they usually take a fair amount of time!

Barcode labels are a lot like tape. Sometimes they end up where they don’t belong, so we are asked to remove them. We use a heated, spatula-shaped tool to soften the adhesive and gradually pull the label off using fine tweezers. If the paper or other material under the label is in good condition, the results are usually pretty good. When the paper, leather, or cloth underneath is fragile, it is more difficult, and satisfactory results are less assured.

After the label has come off, the real work begins: a sticky film of adhesive usually remains on the paper, which we get off using erasers. Erasing in a circular motion helps ball up the adhesive so it can be picked off – a little bit at a time. Without tearing the paper of course. Again, again, and again until it is no longer sticky.

Although the labels and adhesive can be removed, unfortunately stains often remain. So folks, be thoughtful out there with tape and other sticky things!

In my last post I highlighted the value of input from subject librarians and curators in treatment decision-making. This one is about how we work with catalogers to coordinate the intellectual and physical control of collections so that users can find their way around a collection with ease.

So, one button, no problem …

But what about a collection of buttons?

The cataloger decided to catalog these buttons as one collection but listed each one in a contents note, so I arranged the buttons the way they were listed.

Anticipating that users would like to see all of the buttons at once, I devised a tray arrangement.

Then I used the vendor’s list provided by the subject librarian to print images of each button, and glued them into the cells to make it easy to keep them organized and make sure we don’t lose any.

While we don’t go to this level of itemization for every collection, when it is deemed necessary for access, we can piggyback on that work to help the user and ensure physical control.

The treatment and housing for the Bengali and Hindi film booklets is finished now. Tears have been mended, rusty staples and pressure-sensitive tape have been removed, and each one is safely housed in an enclosure. They will now go on to a happy and comfortable life in the IU Libraries high-density storage facility, the ALF. They can be requested for use via IUCAT. See the South Asian Cinema Research Guide, including the section on Archival Materials at IU to learn more.

Gwen Kirk, South Asian and Southeast Asian Studies Librarian, found this booklet for the film সঞ্চারিণী (Sancarini), most interesting.

Gwen writes:

“ … it’s a map of pilgrimage sites in the Himalayas. Looks like the path starts in Haridwar (on the Ganges, bottom left), goes up to the holy sites at Kedarnath and Badrinath, then back down and ends at Ranikhet. It’s showing bus routes and walking trails as some pilgrims would be walking this entire way, which is like 400 some miles according to Google maps. I did some more digging on the film, seems like it’s based on a famous novel and involves pilgrims on these routes. Thanks for highlighting this, how unique! I’ve never seen anything like this in film promotional materials!”

Another interesting feature of this booklet is the way several scenes are placed left to right across the page opening. A modern form of narrative art?

The knowledge of the subject specialist is so helpful in preservation! Understanding the research value of materials helps us determine the most appropriate treatment for them. And it is definitely more rewarding to know there are people out there excited to work with the materials we’ve gotten to know — in a different, yet up-close-and personal way — when we work to ensure their preservation and accessibility.

Thank you, Gwen!

Repairing and rehousing this group of about 400 promotional booklets for Bengali and Hindi films in the book conservation lab. I wish I could bring them to Open Book Clinic, but they are delicate little things — so this virtual show-and-tell will have to suffice. Most of the booklets are a little bit tattered and stained. They have tears or small missing bits, and rusty staples holding the pages together.

I am going through them all, removing staples, mending tears and filling areas of loss,

At the September 1st Open Book Clinic, I will have this book with me — Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb. It needs resewing, among other things.

The cords have deteriorated, such that the signatures are no longer connected to one another. Nineteenth-century books were typically sewn on cords, as this one was. We often use the original sewing pattern when we need to resew a text block, but for this book I am going to use an unsupported (i.e., no cords) link stitch called Coptic stitch.

In Coptic binding the signatures are linked together with only the sewing thread. The oldest known books, as early as the 2nd century, were made this way by early Christians in Egypt. Coptic stitch is still used in book conservation as well as by craft bookbinders and book artists. Some good things never go out of style.

Do you fiddle with your straw wrappers, fold your paper napkins into shapes, or peel the labels off of your beer bottles? Conservators sometimes talk about the meditative quality of the repetitive, even picky, work we do with our hands, and how satisfying it is in a certain way, though it may seem tedious to some.

In the Preservation Lab, folding paper precisely is one of the skills we use every day  — such as when we make custom-fitted enclosures or prepare end papers for new bindings. But paper folding is also an art form.

If you’d like to burn off some nervous energy with your hands, stop by the Open Book Clinic on June 22nd and try making a Blizzard Box, one of the many folded structures described in The Art of the Fold,  by reknowned book artist and conservator Hedi Kyle.

During the last Open Book Clinic, Veronika Trotter, Senior Collections Reference Assistant in Area Studies, brought a very interesting book she found in the Wells Library stacks:

Vstrecha s Rossiei; Kak i chem zhivut v sovetskom soi͡uze; pisʹma v krasnui͡u armii͡u, 1939-1940

Meeting with Russia. How they live in the Soviet Union. Letters to the Red Army, 1939—1940

About the book, Veronika wrote,

“The author, Vladimir Zenzinov (1880—1953), was born in Moscow, received an excellent education in Germany, and participated in all three Russian revolutions (1905, and February and October of 1917). He spent many years in exile in Siberia and finally emigrated from Russia in 1919, first to Europe, and then to the USA. After traveling all around the world, he finally settled down in New York, where he died. Zenzinov’s archive is located at the Amherst Center for Russian Culture.

In 1939, during the so-called Winter War (Soviet-Finnish war in 1939-1940), Zenzinov went to Finland to gather material about the conditions in the Soviet Union. He collected, transcribed, organized, and analyzed about 500 letters that were found on the corpses of fallen Soviet soldiers in Finland. The content of those letters sounds awfully familiar: one immediately recognizes the propaganda rhetoric enforced by Russia from the very beginning of the invasion to Ukraine. This sinister resemblance makes the book very relevant today: while reading the book, you understand how little has changed (except that no one writes letters anymore).

The book was published in 1944 in New York and is in rather poor condition: the cardboard cover attached to it in place of the original one is crumbling; however, the pages are not brittle.”

Thanks, Veronika, and all those who keep a watchful eye on the Libraries’ collections and think about how they can best serve our users.

In this case, what’s old is new again in more ways than one.

This volume, Index to the First Fifty Volumes of the Calcutta Review, was published in 1873. It has a cloth cover and the signatures that make up the text were sewn through the folds on three cords. The sewing thread goes in and out of the fold of each signature and wraps around the cords, which is what joins all the signatures together. If the cords or thread weaken over time, as they do, the book reverts to a pile of separate signatures. But it can be resewn.

A sewing pattern called “two-on” was used in this book. In the image below, the stitches in the signature on the left are at the top and bottom, but in the signature on the right the stitches are in the middle. Have you ever noticed this in a book and wondered why it was like that? In the 19th century, two-on sewing was done to save time in the sewing process. Two signatures were added at a time. Sewing started in the lower signature, skipped up to the upper one, then went back down. Kind of hard to explain, but I’ll show you how it’s done on May 25th!

June 7, 2022 update: The book is finished. The text block was taken apart, damaged signature folds were mended with Japanese paper and wheat-starch paste, and the signatures were resewn following the original two-on sewing structure. The spine was lined, new end-papers were attached, a new cloth cover was made, and paper labels with title and call number were printed and attached to the spine. Now this book can go home again to the shelves of Wells Library.

Welcome to the Open Book Clinic blog. Open Book Clinic is a time to connect with the staff of the Preservation Department. Stop by to discuss treatment options for collection items, bring items for minor repair, or discuss preservation concerns large or small. Check the sidebar for the dates of upcoming sessions and to see if demonstrations will be taking place. No appointment needed!

Read on to find out about some of the things that happen during Open Book Clinic. Also, check out the Preservation Lab’s blog for more about our work.