Author Archives: Cornell University Library Conservation

About Cornell University Library Conservation

Cornell University Library Conservation is a part of the Department of Digital Scholarship and Preservation Services. The unit provides preservation guidance and conservation treatment for all Cornell Library collections.

Preservation Week: Pass it on

Leave a reply

by Michele Brown

Preservation Week was created in 2010 by the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to promote preservation of our library collections.

Libraries all over the country have scheduled preservation events for this week (April 27-May 3). Free webinars and webcasts are available at the ALCTS Preservation Week website.

The Cornell Conservation Lab is celebrating Preservation Week by posting preservation tips on Facebook throughout the week. These tips will be summarized in a blog post next week.

Preservation tips and profiles of our conservators, Michele Brown and Michele Hamill are also being shown on our electronic sign at the Olin Library Circulation Desk.

Join us next week for a summary of our tips for preserving your collection.

Speaking of Sex

Leave a reply

by Michele Brown

The Conservation Unit has been busy treating a variety of materials for Speaking of Sex, the new exhibit opening February 14 in the Hirshland Exhibition Gallery of the Carl A. Kroch Library. The exhibit celebrates the 25^th anniversary of the Human Sexuality Collection. Brenda Marston, Curator of the Human Sexuality Collection, describes the importance of the collection: “A quarter of a century ago, the Library began to gather rare books, letters, photographs and original artwork, films, erotica, and all sorts of ephemera related to sexuality — much of which was ignored or shunned by academia and society at large.” The exhibit includes items from the original Mariposa archive and some recent additions.

Examples of the many different editions of The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall are included in the exhibit. Most of these are in excellent condition except for damaged dust jackets.

Losses and tears on each dust jacket were repaired with colored kozo tissue and usumino tissue using wheat starch paste. The first edition published in Paris by the Olympia Press had more extensive damage. The cloth was torn at the joints and the edges were worn away.

It was rebacked with airplane linen that had been laminated with 100% kozo moriki tissue. The edges were repaired with colored kozo using wheat starch paste. The original spine was put back on over the new spine.

Among many other unusual items needing repair were:

A box holding humorous cocktail napkins from a nudist resort: the tears in the box were repaired with colored kozo, using paste.

Album pages containing suggestive postcards: these had rusty staples holding the pages together and numerous tears. The staples were removed and the tears repaired with colored kozo using wheat starch paste.

Supports for the materials on display were constructed by Pat Fox and Caitlin Moore from the Conservation Unit.

Stop in and see examples the many unique materials in the Human Sexuality collection. The exhibit will be up until the fall. Check the Human Sexuality Collection Facebook page for regular updates.

“Remembering Lincoln at Gettysburg”

Leave a reply

by Michele Brown

In honor of the 150^th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, Cornell University’s Division of Rare and Manuscripts Collection has mounted an exhibition of Civil War manuscripts and artifacts.

Students reading the original copy of the Gettysburg Address.

Our own original copy is currently on display until November 22.

Our original copy of the Gettysburg Address is guarded at all times while on display.

Lance Heidig has been writing an informative blog about the materials in the exhibit.

When the original copy is not on display, a facsimile is in its place. Michele Hamill, Paper and Photo Conservator of the Conservation Unit directed the rehousing and display of both the facsimile and the original. Read her excellent blog posts describing the journey and installation of “our” Gettysburg. Listen to her interview with WHCU.

Before the exhibit was installed, other staff members from the Conservation Unit restored several items now in exhibition cases located in the Rotunda and in front of the Reading Room. Pat Fox constructed the cradles and supports for the materials.

The covers of this pamphlet were torn.

We like our materials to look their best.

The tears and losses were reinforced with toned Japanese tissue.

Some materials were structurally at risk.

The spine of this slave ledger was torn, causing the back board to become detached.

It’s important to retain the original character of the item.

The ledger now has new spine leather, but the original spine was retained and reattached.

The exhibit will be up until December 22. Please stop by or view the online exhibition.

Welcome Chen Hong and Zhang Huili

2 Replies

By Michele Brown

Chen Hong, Director of Circulation at Tsinghua Library and Zhang Huili of the Special Collections Department at Peking University are the fourth pair of librarians from China to participate in the care of circulating collections training program funded by the Luce Foundation. Hong and Huili arrived in Ithaca September 16 and began working with us September 23. This week-end they will return to Beijing.

They began by learning how to determine the grain direction of paper.

Then, they sewed and bound their own blank books.

They learned how to do full and partial repairs, fan glue bindings and constructing phase boxes.

We discussed disaster preparation and salvaged some wet books and documents.

They visited the Mann Library Preservation Department and Special Collections vault, and spoke to Frank Brown about the Mann Library preservation program.

Finally, they learned how to construct exhibit supports.

Many thanks to our translators and all of the people who helped make the program a success.

A new binding for Galileo’s Discorsi

Leave a reply

by Michele Brown

Galileo’s final book, Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, intorno à due nuoue scienze (Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences), was written during his period of house arrest, smuggled to Leiden and printed in 1638.

Like Cornell’s copy of Newton’s Principia (see our earlier blog post), Cornell’s copy of Galileo’s Discorsi had been bound in orange morocco. Unfortunately, there is no record of the original binding. The pages had been over sewn, which inhibited opening. The paper was brittle and acidic (pH was 4.7-5) with minor staining. The title page had been backed with Japanese tissue.

Since this volume is used extensively for teaching, the curator requested a new, more appropriate binding. We decided that this would be a good time to wash and resew the text to improve the opening and flexibility of the pages. The backing on the title page was removed at this time as the title page was in good condition with just a few tears on the fore-edge.

A full vellum binding seemed appropriate for the date and place of publication of this work.

Last year, I bought a translation of Dirck de Bray: Kort onderwijs van het boeckenbinden (Dirck de Bray: a short instruction in the binding of books), a Dutch bookbinding manual first published in 1658. This new edition was translated by Harry Lake, edited by Koert van der Horst and Clemens de Wolfe, and published by Rob Koch. This manual inspired the rebinding of the Discorsi.

I decided to first try the techniques described in the manual on my own copy. I used a piece of the parchment skin I made at a Pergamena parchment workshop in 2009.

I discovered that it can be difficult to bind a book at the same time you are trying to study it. The result was ok, but the boards are somewhat thin and tend to warp. We needed something more substantial.

I decided to follow the directions for endbands and lacing-in described in the de Bray manual, but I turned to the vellum on boards binding described by Peter Verheyen because that binding style promised greater board stability. This construction features a German-style split board, which differs from the English split board familiar to many of us. The German split board consists of a piece of card tipped to the outside of the board. The covering material is stuck to the card and at the turn-ins, essentially drummed onto the board. If the vellum contracts during periods of low humidity, it will pull the card, not the board.

The book was sewn two-on using vellum strips. As recommend by de Bray, the strips were cut in half width-wise and pointed before lacing in.

The endbands were woven from red and yellow silk twist over vellum strips per de Bray.

Then, I followed Peter Verheyen’s directions, this time using cream calf parchment from Pergamena Parchment.

The new vellum binding is stronger and more attractive than the previous binding, the pages are more flexible. It is now more usable as a teaching tool.

Welcome Pan Wei and Zhang Hongping

Leave a reply

by Michele Brown

Our internship program for librarians from China continues as we welcome two librarians from the China Agricultural University Library in Beijing. Pan Wei, Deputy Director and Zhang Hongping, Associate Research librarian, arrived in Ithaca May 11 and started working in the Conservation Lab May 20. They began by making pamphlets.

Lily (one of our translators) watches Pan Wei (center) and Hongping (right) sew pamphlets.

Then, they learned how to make case bindings before learning how to repair books from the circulating collection.

PanWei

Hongping

On Monday, we visited the book repair department at Syracuse University.

Pan Wei and Hongping observe a student in the Syracuse book repair lab.

We have enjoyed working with our 2 translators: Lily and Jiali.

Jiali Wang is a second year student at the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs, with a concentration in economics.

Lily Xue Dong is a Chinese LL.M student in Cornell Law School Class 2013.

Preservation Week 2013

Leave a reply

Cornell University Library Conservation celebrated Preservation Week 2013 by posting a preservation tip on our Facebook page each day.

Here is a summary of the week’s tips.

Tip #1: Do not store your books and documents in the basement. Sustained humidity above 70% will promote mold growth. For more information on assessing the temperature and humidity of your library environment check out the dew point calculator at the Image Permanence Institute web site.

Moisture caused mold to grow on these pages.

Tip #2: Archival enclosures will preserve your family collections for generations to come. Check preservation supply companies for safe paper and plastic enclosures for documents and photographs. The Northeast Document Conservation Center has compiled useful information in their Storage Methods and Handling Practices preservation leaflet.

Archival folders and boxes protect photos and documents.

Preservation Week tip #3: Protect your library materials from light. Exposure to light can cause cloth and leather to discolor, photographs to fade, and varnishes to yellow. The Library of Congress has information about the lighting of library materials.

Fading caused by light exposure.

Preservation Week Tip #4: Do not use office supplies with your family treasures. Pressure sensitive tape and paper clips will stain and damage paper and photographs. Post-it notes leave a sticky residue.

Office supplies can damage family documents.

Preservation Week Tip #5: Keep food and drink away from library materials and family treasures. Food residues attract insects, mold and other predators. Food and drink stains are permanent.

Coffee and a marker have disfigured this photo.

A little help from our friends…

Leave a reply

by Michele Brown

Kelly and Lucy have completed their internship in conservation and will spend another week visiting Cornell libraries and Ithaca sights.

The internship program provides both hands-on experience and lectures in preservation theory and techniques. These can be complicated concepts to convey and we have relied on native Chinese speakers in the Cornell community to help us communicate. Four students and a library collection assistant have served as translators for our visiting interns.

Yun Peng (Penny) will receive her M. Eng. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell in May. Before coming to Cornell, she received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University.

After graduation she will be employed as a Researcher in the Electric Power Research Institute in Beijing. Penny was at first attracted to being a translator for our intern program because she saw it as an opportunity to meet professionals from some of the top universities in China. While translating for the first 2 interns she also discovered that book conservation is very interesting. For her, translating is a good way to use her knowledge of English. “Helping the interns to communicate gives me a sense of achievement.”

Xuejiao Yang (Snow) was born in Beijing and grew up in Malaysia.

She received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington in Seattle, and in May she will receive an M. Eng. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell. In September she will begin a position for the International Engineering Company in Beijing. She has enjoyed translating because she enjoys learning about another subject outside of her area of expertise. Translation skills will also help in her future work which will involve negotiating with companies outside of China. Snow is also fluent in Malay, plays the violin and piano, and enjoys ballet.

Venna Wang is a sophomore biological sciences major with a concentration in microbiology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS).

She grew up in Queens, and she enjoys music and art She “plays the flag” in the Cornell marching band. Venna enjoys translating because “it’s fun”, and she’s been happy to learn more about books, which she discovered are structurally a lot more complicated than she had realized.

Tianwang Liu is a freshman economics major in College of Arts and Sciences.

She is from Shandoung Province in China and enjoys singing, playing the piano, and playing the Guzheng. She watches movies to relax during study breaks. When we asked her what she enjoys most about translating she said, “As a student, working for the preservation department opens a new world for me, because instead of only reading books, I can know how books are made and repaired. It is amazing!”

Jing Carlson works as a collection assistant at the East Asian Collection (Wason) of the Kroch Library.

In the Cornell library system her main responsibilities include doing collection administrative management, assisting the curator to develop the collection, and coordinating with other units.

Jing is also an active participant in Cornell’s East Asia Program’s outreach activities. As an educator for the East Asia Program she has taught members of the Ithaca community about calligraphy, Chinese art, cooking, and language. Jing has also worked as a translator on campus and for the Ithaca City School District as well as the Racker Center. Her current translating work builds on the experience she had while still living in China doing Chinese- Japanese translation.

Jing moved to the United States from Beijing in the 1990s. She loves art, cooking, hiking and has an interest in residential architecture and fengshui design. She has been living in Ithaca since 2000. She enjoys family life here with her two sons and husband.

Jing has found time during her working hours to fill in when Penny, Snow, Venna and Tianwang have had scheduling conflicts.

We will miss Penny and Snow, but we look forward to working with Venna and Tianwang in the fall. We will rely on Jing as a resource for the next 2 interns from China who will arrive on May 13.

New Interns from China

Leave a reply

We would like to welcome two librarians from Renmin University of China as our new preservation interns. Xiuzhong Xiong (Kelly) , Deputy Director of Systems and Manager of the Digitization Center, and Li Cao (Lucy) from the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Kelly and Lucy will be with us until April 26 learning book repair techniques and care and handling of library materials.

They began their training on March 26 by making blank books. We are assisted by a wonderful of group of students who translate our instructions and explanations.

Kelly and Lucy sewed the sections of their books using a link stitch and then made quarter cloth covers with marbled paper sides. We used papers made by Iris Nevins.

Then, they learned how to do a “full” repair. Cornell divides repair of circulating books into 3 categories: full, half and partial.

Books with weak joints or detached boards receive a full repair.

First, the spine is removed, the back is cleaned and new cloth strips are sewn to the text block. We drill holes for the thread using a jeweler’s drill.

The back of the text block is lined with paper. A new buckram spine is attached to the boards and the cloth strips that were sewn in are glued to the case. Then, the original spine is glued back on or we make a paper label.

In the coming weeks they will be trained half and partial book repair techniques; and, they will be trained in disaster planning and recovery, mold prevention and remediation, and best practices for care and handling.

Welcome Lucy and Kelly.

Book repair with Natasha

Leave a reply

by Michele Brown

We rely on students to help repair our circulating book collection and starting in the fall semester, we’ve been lucky to have Natasha Rao working with us. Natasha is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is from Princeton, New Jersey, and is hoping to major in both English and Natural Resources.

Natasha also enjoys photography and hiking, and she is learning to fly planes. She told us she is tremendously enjoying her first year at Cornell, and loves working with book repair! We are happy to have her help.

While rare books receive specialized treatment that can take many hours, repair of circulating books emphasizes speed and efficiency. Our book repair person works at a dedicated bench with pre-cut materials close at hand.

Most books needing repair are identified by Access Services staff when the books are returned to the library. When the books arrive in the conservation lab they are first examined to see if they are candidates for the Rare Books collection. These are pulled out and placed on a truck for review by the curator of rare books and manuscripts. Brittle books are also pulled out and sent to the Brittle Books Coordinator. If a book needs to be resewn, it is sent to the Commercial Binding department.

Books that will undergo book repair are sorted into types of repair (full, half and partial—more on book repair at Cornell at later time– and shelved accordingly). Loose flyleaves are reattached, back linings are cleaned off, and the original spine is tucked into the boards.

Here, Natasha removes the boards of a book she will repair.

Then, she cleans the spine.

Next, she sews cloth hinges into the inner joints. Then, she will apply new cloth and paper linings, and use a cloth strip to repair the case. The new cloth hinges are glued across the joints.