Daydreaming on the Job

If you see me sitting at my bench in the Preservation Lab just staring off into space, I am not daydreaming but thinking about how to tackle a work related project. Sometimes I’m jotting down notes, drawing a sketch, or making a mock item but it all pertains to book repair and box making.  We sometimes receive unique items here in the Preservation Department and then must come up with creative ways to fix or house them in protective boxes.  Below shows three mini books titled Laozi Qi Shu Qi Ren along with a laminated picture card and they are to be housed in the Cage Miniature section of the Parks Library.

I decided to use three layers of ¼” Ethafoam, 3M double stick tape, ½” gray linen tape, and grey-white barrier board to construct a phase box with foam support for the mini books and card. The reason for the three layers of Ethafoam is because one book was much thicker than the other two along with the think laminated card and the linen tape underneath helps to release the mini books from their foam protected pockets.  There was some skill on my part to get everything lined up just right when cutting the Ethafoam with a scalpel and a little fine trimming with a scissors but I am pleased with the end product-all four items housed together in a phase box.