When Was the Last Time You Folded a Map?

Our graduate intern, Emilie Duncan, has taken on the task of wrangling a "map stash" in our Special Collections Library.  The stash had accumulated over the years, and consisted of many, many maps and broadsides that were too fragile or damaged to be sent to the flat file drawers with the rest of the collection.

Thanks to all sorts of progress with technology we have GPS in our phones or car and these devices can talk us through the miles to our destination.  But way back when, people relied on printed maps to get them from point A to point B.  Travel maps had to be comprehensive enough so that travelers had the information they needed, but also small and light enough to be convenient to carry.  Travel maps might come with a pamphlet (like this one) explaining features along the way or be just a single sheet of paper.  In either case, the folding and re-folding of a map can take a significant toll, causing tears and necessitating conservation intervention before a map can be sent back to its home in the stacks.

This map and pamphlet, Lloyd's Official Map of the State of Virginia was published in 1872, although the map itself was first published in 1861.  We have two other copies of this map without the pamphlet, so in consultation with the curator of Virginiana, we decided to keep the map with the pamphlet and work on getting the map back into a condition where it could be easily folded.

A standard approach is to begin with overall humidification and flattening of a document so that the tears can be mended flat.  The overall treatment did result in a lot of progress for this map, but there were still some stubborn creases that required additional humidification and flattening.
For local treatment, we use pieces of Gortex, layered with damp blotter to provide just enough humidification to soften paper in the area around the crease and then drying under weights so that everything dries flat.

Best practice is to start in the middle where the creases are often most stubborn and then work out toward the edges.  Once the piece is flat, you can re-assess the tears and start lining up the roads, rivers and mountains that are out of kilter.

It can be tremendously satisfying to see something that was torn and wrinkled become smooth and legible.  That said, we are now facing the task of re-folding the map to make it fit the format of the pamphlet that it was published with. It may seem counter-intuitive, but we do want the next reader who uses the

pamphlet to be able to use it as the publisher intended, although we are considering putting some fe-folding directions in the housing for those who have never used a paper map.

Increase Mather has remarkably neat handwriting

from his manuscript "Concerning Apparitions"

click to see the manuscript on my flickr account

his father, Richard Mather, not so much

 

I won't bother with a flickr link for this one since his writing is truly illegible.  When you work in libraries and archives, this is more of what you're used to.  Researchers often become familiar with a given person's hand, but the cramped script of the good old days is often beyond me, which is why I was so struck my Increase Mather's neat printed hand.  Remember, they were most likely writing with a goose quill pen!

Matching Colors

There are times in book conservation where you have enough of a book's original cover that you can incorporate the original pieces into the new conservation binding.  Usually, the boards are sturdy and it is the cloth of the spine that has fallen apart due to the stress of use and light damage.  The standard practice is to build a new spine out of airplane linen and adhere the remnants of the original spine over top.

In the picture below you can see the mostly re-bound book with the remnant spine to the left.  The book was originally a case binding with thin cloth over the spine and boards.  I chose a slightly different method of board attachment for the conservation binding so that the new binding would be more durable, and also so that I could address the needs of dealing with the original boards and spine separately.

The replacement spine is airplane linen that is painted with several layers of acrylic paint to match the original 19th century cloth.  The trick with matching this sort of cloth is that it is never faded to one color, since the spine of a book (as it sits on a shelf) is usually more subject to light damage than the boards.  If you look at my sample book on the left you see that the original color of the cloth was purple, but that the spine faded to  ocher.  The J.L. Mott book that I am treating has a similar color variation although the original spine is a now a darker brown.  So the linen that will show through in the joint area needs to be a faded purple-ish ocher, while the spine needs to be a darker brown.  Not only do I need to get the colors right, but I need to get the placement of the colors right as well.

 In this picture I've got my test colors up on the left, and the replacement spine cloth is on the binding to check the colors and placement.  I can fine tune the colors once the spine cloth is on the book, but it is much safer to do the majority of the paining when the linen is away from the original binding.  So I paint the replacement cloth, let it dry and hold it next to the original binding to check my progress.  When close to done, I place the painted cloth on the spine to see what is needed in the way of final touch ups.  As you can see, there is a portion of the original spine missing so I have to make sure that the color works across the width of the spine. 

This is the finished spine.  It turned out really well and only needed a little bit of re-touching when the original spine was adhered over the replacement linen spine. 

Finished Binding

I've published a lot of "process" posts, so it is about time that I catch up with some posts about finished treatments.  As I outlined in my "Not Too Matchy-Matchy" post, I have been working on Thomas Jefferson's original1825  list of books to be purchased for the UVa Library.  I recently finished the treatment, after washing, mending and sewing the pages.

I laced on the boards, pared and applied the leather spine as well as the marbled paper.  The final step was tooling a decorative line on the leather next to the marbled paper.

hot tool on the left, final binding in the middle, practice leather on the right

My model binding had blind lines tooled across the spine, but with such a thin book that wasn't a possibility, also I didn't want the 1825 manuscript to be a replica of my model so much as look like it would be the next notebook on the shelf in Jefferson's library. 

20th century "interim" binding on left, my conservation binding in the center, model binding on the right.

I'm really pleased with the way the binding turned out, not only is the laced-on structure stronger, but the materials are more in keeping with the time and place where the manuscript originated.