Cheers and Good Luck Tanya!

A couple of months ago I blogged about my boss, David Gregory, retiring and now I get to reminisce about our former Head of Special Collections and University Archivist, Tanya Zanish-Belcher.  Just two weeks after David left, Tanya went off to be the Director of Special Collections and University Archivist at Wake Forest University.  Although, those of us still here at ISU really resented the fact that she was sending us images of daffodils blooming in Winston-Salem in March (especially since it was snowing in Ames at the time and is now snowing here in May!), we miss her.

Tanya started here in 1995 as the Curator of the Archives of Women in Science and Engineering, and in 1998 became the Head of Special Collections.  Laura, our archivist, blogged a farewell to Tanya in January highlighting what she has done for and meant to the Department over her 17 year tenure.  She was their leader and mentor, spokesperson across campus and the community, and a national presence in the profession.  She’s a Society of American Archivists Fellow.  It doesn’t get much better than that.  She’s a dynamo, participating actively at every level in the archives world, but she also looks beyond the Archives and Special Collections.

When I started here, the relationship between Special Collections and Preservation was a little chilly.  Communication was non-existent and, pre-Tanya, items for conservation were selected without Special Collection’s knowledge.  Tanya made it a point to repair the relationship and she not only became my colleague and co-worker but also my faculty mentor, collaborator, friend, and some would say co-conspirator.  She brought to my attention some of the problems that she had discovered and we talked about workflows, tensions over decision making, and the lack of communication.  We saw this as a shared challenge and worked at establishing workflows and opening lines of communication.  We both knew all too well the stories about obstinate curators and conservators that would only consider the singular best way to provide access to, value, handle, and treat an artifact; any compromise would go against their standards even if it meant it could no longer be stored on any shelf or used in anyway.

This is not to say that Tanya and I always saw things eye-to-eye, and on some issues probably still don’t.  We also brought our differing philosophies and perspectives to the table when discussing preservation and access.  Special Collections and Preservation have closely aligned but slightly different missions and goals.  Our responsibilities to the collection and the user, and our codes of ethics guide us in ways that do not always result in the same expectations and results.  We learned to compromise without straying from our codes of ethics or standards, but this took a lot of communicating and learning about the real issues behind the disagreements.  As I mentioned, we still may not agree on everything, but I learned so much from the conversations and arguments we had.  These discussions on when full-treatment was appropriate versus stabilization or simply re-housing were very informative.   We ended up collaborating on a couple of articles that evolved out of our discussions:  “Pitfalls, Progress, and Partnership:  Collaboration Between Special Colelctions and Preservation in Academic Libraries,” and “Square Pegs, Round Holes:  Thinking Creatively about Housing and Storage.”

Spa day!

I think it’s funny that colleagues ask me what I’m going to do without Tanya or how I’m holding up now that she is gone because I do miss my friend but they do not seem to realize that we sometimes battled it out.  For that I am grateful because I am a better preservation advocate now that I also have a better understanding of the curator/archivist perspective.  I’m certain that our philosophical debates will continue over email and we will continue to learn from each other, but I miss our mimosas!

 

1091 Project: The Plain Brown Wrapper Edition

One of the most rewarding aspects of working in an academic library is the potential for being exposed to all sorts of new and interesting materials which we might not have sought out deliberately on our own.  However, this can also be one of the drawbacks.  For this month’s 1091 Project, Preservation Assistant Mindy McCoy discusses one aspect of her job that she had never anticipated when she started working in the Preservation Department.

Hunched close to my computer, I click, click, click, making sure images are straight, and that the images will print out just right.  I peek out over the top of my computer, which faces a window looking out into our lab – oh shoot, somebody’s coming!  Quick, click to a different screen!  Phew, that was close!  Sometimes I don’t see a co-worker coming into the office, and I am caught red-handed.  I usually confess before the person has a chance to ask what in the world I am looking at.

Boobs.

Yes, it’s true.  Unfortunately we see plenty of damaged books that have missing pages or images cut out of them.  Many of these missing images are of naked body parts, or scantily clad people in provocative poses – you get the idea, no need for more detail. There is always a big groan in the office when these books with missing images arrive, and also teasing comments between me and my officemate: “I have another good one for you!” One of my duties as Preservation Assistant is to track down replacements for these missing images. I request another copy of the damaged book (we have the option to request scanned pages – but there’s no need for everyone to know what I am working on!) through our interlibrary loan system, so I can scan the images and print out new pages to be tipped back into our copy of the book.

Image from: /Visual thinking: methods for making images memorable/ by Henry Wolf (New York: American Showcase, 1988). Note: “Censored” banner added by preservation staff for posting on this blog.

At first, I was kind of embarrassed to be working on these materials, but as time went on, I just realized these books (and the people that take from them) aren’t going away.  These materials are a part of our collection, and need to be preserved just like everything else.  It’s not as embarrassing as it was at first, although I have learned that it’s always nice to have other items (such as the budget, supply orders, or a news website) just a click away in case I do happen to get interrupted.

Don’t forget to visit Preservation Underground to find out what “plain brown paper wrapper” materials Beth Doyle is working on in the Conservation Lab of Duke University Libraries.

 

1091 Project: Portrait of the Student Technician

This month’s 1091 Project highlights the role of student workers in the Conservation Lab.  Quite honestly, many university conservation departments wouldn’t be nearly as productive without these unsung workhorses of conservation. Often the most tedious tasks fall to the students: they make enclosures, tip-in loose pages, surface clean, and vacuum moldy items.  Yet they perform these tasks efficiently and cheerfully, and miraculously, they keep showing up for work.

When I interned at the Conservation Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, many of the students working in the lab were also studying in the GSLIS program.  We don’t have a library school here at ISU, so our students come from other departments. Of our current four student employees, one is a graduate student pursuing her MA in History (although she started working for us as an undergraduate Anthropology major), one is an Anthropology major, one is a Design major, and one is a Elementary Education major.

Hannah makes spine title labels for tux boxes.

Our students tackle a variety of projects according to their handskills and experience.  Hannah just started with us this semester, and she has learned to surface clean, insert tip-ins, sew on pamphlet binders, and construct tux boxes and other four-flap wrappers.  We have a shelf full of items needing other types of boxes which will be next on her plate.

Devin has been with us for about a year, but already had excellent handskills from her experience in the College of Design.  She performs many mid-level treatments such as custom portfolio construction, double-fan adhesive bindings, and shield bindings.  Devin divides her work schedule between Conservation and the Preservation Services unit of the Preservation Department.

Ashley clamps down adhesive bindings in a book press.

Ashley and Hope have both worked in the lab for two and a half years.  Their handskills have developed beautifully during this time, and both are now capable of executing more advanced book repairs such as rebacks, new cases, re-cases, and “full repairs,” which they tackle when the more general student treatment workflow slows down at various points throughout the year.

Hope repairs a volume of color samples. And yes, she knows that our volunteer Martha is giving her mutant bunny ears. She’s good-natured like that.

When we hire new students, we look for hobbies or work experience that show evidence of good eye-hand coordination, but we don’t expect them to have any prior bookbinding or conservation experience. The typical student workflow includes materials preparation (such as cutting spine inserts and hinging endpapers), surface cleaning, box-making, tip-ins, page mending, pamphlet binding, double-fan adhesive binding, shield binding, vacuuming mold, and small-scale deacidification using a compressor and Book Keeper’s spray unit.  The students have also been called upon to assist during disaster recovery.  In fact, when Hope and Ashley first started working in the lab, they spent a month washing Mylar architectural plans which had been damaged during the 2010 Ames flood.

We know our students’ first and foremost goal is to receive a good education here at ISU.  We appreciate being just one of their many priorities, and have been impressed by their reliability, their cheerful hard work, and their diligence in developing their handskills.  We couldn’t run the lab without them!

Don’t forget to stop by Preservation Underground to hear about the student technician experience in the Conservation Lab of Duke University Libraries.

 

A Bit of Mystery in “A Little Book of Nature Thoughts”

We have a charming little mystery in the Conservation Lab right now.  A particularly aesthetically pleasing volume from our General Collection,  A Little Book of Nature Thoughts by Richard Jefferies (Mosher Press, 1903) caught my eye as it sat on the shelf awaiting repair.  Its type, its fine laid paper, its worn but once-beautiful sheepskin full leather binding, and its spare but elegant gold-stamped cover decoration all gave this slender, pocket-sized book an air of something special.

A Little Book of Nature Thoughts (1903)

A little bit of digging revealed some characteristic particularities of Mosher Press editions, which expressed Mosher’s love of the book as artifact, as an object of beauty, and not merely as a utilitarian vessel for its content.  All books were hand-set, usually with Caslon type, with a few, modest decorative flourishes.  Most were printed on Van Gelder hand-made paper, and indeed, our little volume bears the Van Gelder watermark on a few of its pages.  Forty-seven Mosher titles between 1898-1913 were also printed on vellum.  Finally, most of these publisher’s bindings were bound in white, blue, green, or gray paper-covered boards and housed in slipcases.  This last detail about the binding surprised me, until I came across evidence of the allure that Mosher Press editions held for contemporary fine binders.

According to the program of An Exhibition of Books from the Press of Thomas Bird Mosher from the Collection of Norman H. Strouse (1967), “No press has tempted the best efforts of so many of the world’s great binders as has the Mosher Press, but even when rebound in full leather, whether by the famous Grolier Club Bindery, Zaehnsdorf, or Sangorski & Sutcliffe, there is always something about the dimensions and title of a Mosher book that admits its identity to the Mosher collector on sight.”

Mosher himself was aware of his books’ appeal for the fine binder.  He commented in his 1898 catalog A List of Books in Limited Editions, that “In America, Mr. Otto Zahn, the Misses Nordholf and Bulkley; in London, Miss Prideaux and the Guild of Women Binders have re-clothed in exquisite bindings not a few of the special copies” of his editions.

Our copy of A Little Book of Nature Thoughts, unfortunately, bears no bindery ticket, and no discernible private mark of its binder.  Something about the blank endpapers and simple, somewhat generic, floral board decoration suggests the work of a larger bindery rather than an individual fine binder in private practice.  I had hoped that the gold-stamped symbol on the back board (pictured above) would provide a clue to the binding’s origin, but my cursory searches have turned up no lead.  If this lit torch, surrounded by intertwined serpents (or vines?), represents a bindery with which you are familiar, then please let us know.  We welcome any and all theories and speculations!

 

Why Am I Surprised?

Friends who read the blog have been asking what I’ve been doing lately since I haven’t posted for awhile. The answer is that I’ve been over in Special Collections creating an inventory of the scrapbooks in the collection. My life has looked like this lately.

And this.

That’s not to say that the scrapbooks are boring. There is some pretty cool stuff in those boxes that you will be hearing about in the coming months, but I will admit that I’ve been missing my workbench lately.

No worries, though, because Melissa has my back (I think). She asked me to work on this the other day.

I was a bit surprised that she brought me a book to work on until I opened it and found tears,

tape,

and large pieces of folded paper.

Am I the only one surprised to discover she brought me a book of bound blueprints? It seems I am now the lab’s blueprint expert.

The book contained three beautiful drawings for the original library building. I’ve taken them out of the binding to repair and flatten them. Our friends over at Facilities, Planning and Management have kindly agreed to scan them for us on their blueprint scanner, and we’ll hopefully have them up on the Special Collections web page in about a month.