Preserving Paper
Conservators tackle immense collection one item at a time
From his workbench in the “wet lab” of the E. Lingle Craig Preservation Laboratory, Doug Sanders assesses the damage. It’s not pretty.
An 1830s etching, disbound from a book of gothic furniture designs from the Fine Arts Library, is stained with ink from a felt-tip pen. The ink apparently bled through tracing paper used years ago by a careless student, and the image of an ornate cabinet is now ghosted with a blue border. The paper itself shows signs of foxing, or discoloration, caused perhaps by fungal growth or by tiny bits of metal—trapped among the paper fibers—that have rusted over time. And it has water stains.
For an experienced conservator working in a well-equipped laboratory, however, a remedy is not only achievable but also remarkably straightforward.
“The real challenge,” says Sanders, referring to IU’s collection of millions of items, “is deciding where we put our time and money: how to focus on keynote items and balance value with demand.”
Sanders, who started in the spring as the IUB Libraries’ first full-time paper conservator, is up to the job. Donor contributions and a challenge grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation created an endowment that funds Sanders’ position and that of his co-worker Lillie Aydt. Mellon funds also equipped the laboratory.
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Sanders and Aydt work primarily on flat-paper items—historic blueprints from the IU Archives, for example, or maps from the Geology library, or Somali posters from the African Studies Collection.
Conservation work generally falls within two broad categories: remedial and preventative care. Remedial work may involve washing and cleaning the items, mending slight tears, or removing tape. The goal, always, is to stabilize and strengthen items so the information they contain remains available for other users.
It’s important, Sanders says, that repairs not be permanent. “The notion of reversibility is one of our main ethical concerns,” he says, “in case in the future better processes come along.” Case in point: Cellophane tape, once embraced by librarians as a safe and easy way to mend tears, is now a bane of conservators who, years later, work to remove its brittle remains.
Preventative care includes encapsulating or protecting the items from the wear and tear of everyday use and improper storage. Posters from the African Studies collection, for example, are sandwiched between sheets of transparent mylar fused together at the edges by an ultrasonic welder.
Because remedial treatments used by paper conservators often involve water or chemical baths, the workroom—or “wet lab”—contains an impressive array of equipment designed to introduce or remove water from paper. A vacuum table, for example, gently draws water through flat paper placed on its perforated surface. A leaf-caster replaces missing edges of fragmented pages by suctioning floating pulp into areas of loss. Mobility of the equipment maximizes efficiency. “Even the sink is on wheels,” Sanders says.
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The IUB Libraries boast one of the largest collections in the country, and its care falls to the Preservation Department, headed by Lynn Hufford. The department repairs and rebinds books, treats infested or damaged materials, and, using an automated machine, makes boxes to protect items that go to the Auxiliary Library Facility. Increasingly the department creates digital facsimiles of items too worn or fragile to be handled.
“Our goal is to make materials available to the people who use them,” says Hufford, who oversees a preservation staff of 8. “If a researcher needs something and can’t use it until it’s stabilized, our job is to get it back out to them.”
Paper conservation is one aspect of this larger preservation effort, and Sanders lends expertise gained at the Indiana Historical Society where he served as senior conservator for print-based items. He received his master’s-level degree at Northumbria University in northeast England. Though he originally intended to study chemical engineering, he says, at the suggestion of an advisor, found a career that combines physical science, art history, and studio art. “
In growing the Libraries’ first paper conservation program, Sanders and Hufford have been meeting with librarians to reveal the possibilities of conservation treatments for general collections.
Sanders points to the value of long-serving librarians who are helping him prioritize the demands of a collection that numbers in the millions. “We’re lucky here in that way,” he says. “They really do know the collection and how it’s used. I’m sort of educating them about conservation issues, and they’re teaching me about priorities from their angle.”
Copyright © 2006 The Trustees of Indiana University