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I thought it would be good to have my students write about their training experiences in Preservation.
Each student receives a variety of training experiences in Preservation, and each one brings a unique set of skills as well. I have asked each of my Student Assistants to write about their training. These students do great work and learn through experience the basic principles and best practices of Preservation and Special Collections & Archives. The students also develop their hand skills, as well as spatial accuracy, safety, measuring and cutting.

Chyanne Thompson-Quartey, Marietta, Georgia. Junior.

My job in Preservation is repairing the older, damaged books in circulation. This mostly involves repairing spines, although I often repair torn pages. This particular work requires an initial assessment of the overall damage, a good amount of of approximate measuring, gluing, and trying not to nick myself with the cutting tools—a responsibility I wish I had a little more success in. I’ve worked on books published as recently as Harry Potter and books published before the founding of the United States. Perhaps the most interesting part is the ability to work with natural and social science books and compare modern theories to the theories people created with the information they had available to them at the time. This job has provided me an incomparable opportunity to make money, work flexible hours, and get to know the wonderful staff in the ZSR, and I am always happy to return each semester.