Desiccant Wheels

As a book conservator I was trained to dis-bind, wash, mend and re-sew books from different points in history.  However, a library's storage environment also plays a crucial role in the longevity of collections.  There's little to be gained from spending hours and hours treating a rare book if you have to send it back to a stacks area that is not up to par.
 
Facilities staff will always have the primary responsibility for maintaining the air handling systems, but it is important that librarians are engaged and articulate about the systems that take care of their books.  So a significant portion of my training focused on building systems, including heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC).  We had a final workshop on HVAC systems that reviewed different types of HVAC technology and concluded with a walk through of the air handlers in our classroom building. 

One of the technologies that was new at the time (1998) was using a desiccant wheel for de-humidification.  Have you noticed the little silica packets that come in boxes of shoes or electronics?  They're like that but much, much bigger.   

All of the buildings I've worked in 'til now have been older buildings with older types of HVAC systems.  My current job has been my first opportunity to see a desiccant wheel up close and I must say it was pretty exciting.  You can gete a sense of how big the wheel is from the picture above.  The yellow strap is the drive belt for the wheel, to keep it turning so that the unsaturated section of the wheel is in the airflow from the building while the saturated part is getting dried out. 

The wheels do get changed when they wear out as you can see below.  They're very, very heavy, so it is a good thing they roll.

Mathew Brady's Civil War photographs

Mathew Brady is probably the most famous photographer associated with the American Civil War.  The UVa Small Special Collections Library has a small collection of the photos, mounted on individual cards.

The photos are kept in climate controlled storage, but the box they were in was a little too big and allowed the photos to warp.

Not good.  But fixable!
First, the photographs are humidified between two layers of Gortex, to relax both the cardboard and photograph layer.

Then it is time for my old favorite technique, the "back and wrap" which is great for stabilizing individual items.  The flattened photograph is placed on a piece of mat board that is slightly larger.  Since each photograph is labeled on the back with the number and title of the photograph, plus Brady's copyright warning, I photocopied the backs of the photographs, cut out the labels and adhered them to the back of the mat board.  I also wrote the call number on each one.

The photo and mat board are placed face down on a piece of Mylar and the corners of the Mylar are trimmed away. 

The Mylar is wrapped around the edges of the board and secured with double stick tape.  A neat package that buffers the photograph from environmental shifts, provides enough stiffness to keep the cardboard from warping, and the Mylar protects the photograph from scratches, fingerprints and dust.

A neat little package that makes it possible to handle the photographs more safely!

Miniature Books-Lindemann Collection

This was one of the first projects I worked on went I arrived at the Library in 2009 although I am just now getting around to posting about it, thanks to some recent interest on a list serv.

Miniature books are a very popular collectable in the world of books, and when you see a collection like our McGehee Lindemann Miniature Book Collection it is not hard to understand why, these books are absolutely charming.  However, they do present many challenges in terms of shelving, marking and handling.  

First of all, they're tiny.  Some more tiny than others, see in the picture below the little yellow and green book in the plastic box.  

The small and variable sizes mean that the books can easily shift and fall over on the shelf or one book can get lost behind the others.  Some of the books are made of delicate cloth or are quite old so it is important to have them in a box that can take the wear and tear of handling.  We use microfiche boxes that are big enough to accommodate most sizes and also have enough room for a little padding with archival tissue.  The trip back and forth to the reading room isn't that bumpy, but why take chances with so many unique books?

Inventory control is also important and so each book is tagged with its own mini barcode.  The 'fiche boxes have enough height to accommodate the rare book tags, although when an individual book is requested, the whole box is delivered to the reading room.

This last picture may not seem so exciting, but if you are a librarian, preservation officer or conservator and  know in that your 15,000+ collection of rare and unique miniature books is this well organized and this well cared-for, you can rest so much more easily at night.

Ahhh!

More on the History of Weebles

This trade literature collection keeps turning up more information on weebles! First the Strawbridge catalog, and now a catalog for pose-able circus toys "Schoenhut's Marvelous Toys" which has an add on the back for "Rolly-Dolly" toys.  Patented in 1909!

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Although if you read the fine print, you'll find out that there were weebles on Noah's Ark!

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I guess Noah forgot to take out a patent.

Qualifications of a Siberian Haridresser

This pamphlet was on exhibit for way too long.  Even with UV filtered light in the exhibit cases, paper documents can get bleached.  By "bleaching", I mean the yellowing apparent on the blank margin of the paper.  The white-ish stripe in the first printed column is where the Mylar strap held the pamphlet open and protected the paper from the light.  Not all of the items in the exhibit show this level of damage, so I'll be reviewing the lighting and other exhibit conditions that could be affecting this particular piece. 

Exhibits can be tricky.  They're a wonderful opportunity to showcase your collections, bringing out items that the average visitor to your institution may not know about and yet you are exposing your collections to potential damage that you may not be aware of until too late.