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Inside ZSR

Student Assistants as Reverse Mentors

I am returning to our theme for Mentoring Month – unexpected and reinvigorating mentoring experiences. I have had the privilege of having Student Assistants in ZSR Library for almost 30 years. These experiences with these students left me dumbfounded, amazed and awed by these incredible individuals. Is this mentoring from the bottom up? I’ll share... more

Bibliotech Bookbinding Workshop with Karen Hanmer

Biblio Tech Binding Workshop From April 5 to June 21, each Tuesday night from 6-8:30 pm, I attended an online workshop with Karen Hanmer. Karen possesses the knowledge of how books are constructed from the beginning to the present. She is a wonderful teacher. The workshop, entitled Biblio Tech, is geared toward making historical and... more

An Interview with Dolmen Press artist, Leslie MacWeeney

Photograph of Leslie MacWeeney by Alen MacWeeney In April of 2020, I was able to locate and interview Dolmen Press artist, Leslie MacWeeney. Just finding Leslie and being able to interview her was a thrill. I did a blog post in Irish Ink about her in 2016. However, it’s one thing to read about someone... more

Home Sweet Home Preservation Lab

It’s March, 2020, and I’m home. When can I safely go back to work again? This question reverberated in my brain, and I’m sure the brains of all of my colleagues at ZSR Library. Slowly, I began to wonder how and if I could do my work, which is primarily, hand work. As this idea... more

Preserving Muscle Memory During Quarantine

How does one, who primarily performs hand work in their job, keep their fingers nimble during a quarantine? For me it was taking a series of 10 book making workshops. The workshops were taught remotely through the Book Arts Program at the Marriott Library at the University of Utah. The university has had a Book... more

Preservation Annual Report FY 2018-2019

As Preservation Librarian, my work in the Preservation Lab and as part of Special Collections & Archives, covers a wide variety of work. I thought I would share my statistics as an annual report, which details my work in ZSR Library for FY 2018-2019. 763 Book Repairs (General Collections) 28 Book Repairs (Special Collections) 593... more

Preservation Students: Training and Experiences in the Lab

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... more

The Writing/Publishing Process: One Perspective

I recently co-published an article in the Guild of Book Workers (GBW) Newsletter and I thought I’d share about the research and writing process. The article was a Q&A that evolved from previous interviews I wrote for the Newsletter. I decided to interview one or two Preservation Librarians, who were doing similar work to mine... more

Creating Archival Enclosures with a Sewing Machine

In October, 2017, I toured the Conservation Lab at the University of Washington, Seattle. During this tour, I saw how they used a sewing machine to encapsulate documents and photographs. (I wrote about my tour of the lab in my post about the Guild of Book Workers Seminar in October, 2017)). I asked a number... more