Special Collections & Archives Blog

I unfolded one of the Hoffman posters this afternoon-wow! It was in 4 parts and takes up my entire office floor! This will be a preservation feat!

Gertrude Hoffman (1880-1955) was a well known dancer and choreographer, who was actually arrested for indecency in 1909 after dancing Salome in New York City. She danced on Broadway and in a variety of Vaudeville shows. Hoffman later developed her own troupe called The Hoffman Girls.

The ever flexible and trustworthy Brittany Newberry has been encapsulating photos. This is a process of sandwiching an flat item between two pieces of mylar. This allows patrons to see these images and not damage them or get them dirty. These Baptist Youth Convention photos are all from the 1920′s and 1930′s and were taken in North Carolina. Audra Yun dug them up from the inexhaustible treasure trove of Special Collections!

Brittany Newberry has really taken to making archival boxes. This is a stack of boxes awaiting cataloging that Brittany has made in the past few weeks. These boxes protect fragile materials while making them available to patrons.

Wake Forest founder, Samuel Wait’s wood and leather traveling chest and his wooden walking stick-just a small part of the ZSR Library, Special Collections and Archives.

We have a new exhibit! We’ve all collaborated together to move the exhibit cabinet from the Archives Reading Room to the area across from Circulation. I’ve placed a sign in it saying it is our “Cabinet of Curiosities.” This will be a great location to highlight aspects of our collections and draw students and faculty into our “special collections.”

On October 19, there will be a symposium in the Special Collections Reading Room called “Vorticism: New Perspectives.” Speakers from Wake Forest and Duke will speak about this art movement.
Mark Antliff, Duke
John Curley and Morna O’Neill, WFU Art Department
Scott Klein, WFU English Deptartment

The symposium will be held from 4:30-6 pm.

My Preservation students perform much of the work my area. This work involves repairing damaged books and making protective enclosures. The students who work in Preservation spend many hours learning and perfecting each technique. There is a learning curve (and sometimes a measuring curve!) for each technique.

I thought I’d post a few photographs of my students at work.

Josh Wheeler toning Japanese paper with Dr. Martin’s Watercolors to match the color of the leather. We have toned Japanese paper, but the color is only close to the actual color of the leather. Using a chart I made, you can match most paper and Dr. Martin’s watercolor to any leather color.

Beili Li constructing a four-flap protective enclosure from archival bristol. This activity involves measuring theitem to be enclosed, then calculating, measuring and scoring a piece of bristol
board to wrap around it securely. The scoring is done by hand using a hand-held scoring tool.

Brittany Newberry making an archival box from archival board. This activity involves measuring the item to be enclosed, then calculating, measuring and scoring a piece of archival board
board to wrap around it securely. this board is thick and must be scored using a scoring machine and cut on the large board shear.

Usually in Preservation, we put things back together by repairing and restoring something that has come apart through age and use. However, in some cases, we also “take things apart.” In the case of a binding where we might want to scan individual pages, we “disbind” or take apart the binding itself to reveal the individual pages. In this case, I am dis-binding a bound Biblical Recorder from 1867 which we will scan, and then re-bind.

One of the students in my LIB100 class brought in an old Bible and asked me to repair it. I figured this might be a nice gesture, so I did. The Bible came from Israel and has wooden covers. Each cover has a small circular place in which water and soil from Israel has been placed inside a glass container. The first step of the repair was a simple matter of stabilizing the text block to secure the loose pages. I then checked for loose pages as I turned through the book itself. When I found a few of these loose pages, I tipped them in. The final step was to glue a thin leather strip to the spine.

This webinar was presented by Michele Brown, Book Conservator at Cornell thought ALCTS as part of ALA Preservation Week.
Mold is a fungi which reproduces by spores and is found everywhere. They also contain carbon. Mildew is just a form of mold. All substrates can support mold, both inside and outside our bodies. Molds can be very beneficial…and also tasty (think Brie).
As mold grows, it releases enzymes and toxins and it actually digests the substrate it is on. Spores form and become airborne and are very hard to kill. When a spore matures, it is released and has everything it needs to form a new colony. It just needs the right conditions to become active. Inactive mold is hard to remove, but active mold can be easily removed. Good air circulation is very important for preventing mold growth. “Foxing” is a form of mold growth which causes permanent stains in a book, probably is caused by mold introduced when the paper was made. Mold spores cannot be eliminated in the air.
Mold growth on library materials is permanent. Isopropyl alcohol is best as a treatment for inactive mold spores on books. Active mold spores can cause health problems, especially for individuals with low immune function. In order to keep mold out of our collections, we should keep a low relative humidity (40-50 %) and have good air circulation. We should try to keep dust off of our library materials as well. Gift materials should be examined carefully for mold growth. In order to remove mold, one should use gloves, an air respirator and goggles. You should isolate any mold-affected areas, and quarantine the area with plastic if you can. To deactivate the mold growth in an area, you should lower the humidity and allow areas to dry. Inactive mold looks like dust and can then be removed by vacuuming with a HEPA filtered vacuum and wiping with a dry-cleaning sponge. The shelving the affected books were on should then be cleaned with bleach. The environment should then be monitored to make sure mold growth dies not return. Any severely affected books or materials should be discarded.
Mold can develop in as little as 48 hours and should be treated as a health hazard. There is no one chemical that will kill all mold, but alcohol will kill most molds.
Source: Invasion of the Giant Mold spore