To Build a Better Box: Preserving Artist Books as a GCCS Intern

 

The following is a guest post by GCCS Intern Ron Martin-Dent. Ron recently earned his Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Washington, where he focused his coursework on book and library history, community archives, and preservation. Ron is currently working as an archival consultant for the Rochester Museum & Science Center in Rochester, New York.

This story has three beginnings.

My part of the story begins in January 2023 while I was taking a course on the history of recorded information as part of my graduate program at the University of Washington. I was reading through A Degree of Mastery by Annie Tremmel Wilcox for class and immediately felt drawn to learn more about book and paper conservation.

I had some background in book arts already—I’d worked as a production editor for five years and had been binding my own journals since I was an undergrad. I took a leap of faith from publishing to grad school because I wanted to know more about how libraries and archives balance preservation and access: the twin needs of protecting materials for future generations while keeping them available to researchers and the public in the here and now. Conservation seemed like the perfect way to blend my background in books with my interest in preservation.

As I was researching how to become a conservator, I found the Library of Congress’s General Collection Conservation Internship program. I applied for last summer but ultimately wasn’t selected, so I spent the next year taking as many courses and workshops on bookbinding and book repairs as I could before trying again. I feel tremendously grateful to be here as the GCCS intern for 2024.

The second beginning started before I was born. In 1985, a collection of book artists in Matanzas, Cuba, came together to found Ediciones Vigía: an independent publishing house that allowed these artists to showcase their work. The Ediciones Vigía artists create amazing, one-of-a-kind artist books constructed out of sugar-cane paper called bagasse bound together with found materials such as soda cans, yarn, wooden sticks, nails, cigarette butts, and other unusual materials. No two books created by the Ediciones Vigía artists are precisely the same.

The third beginning of this story took place in 1999, when the Library of Congress began collecting books from Ediciones Vigía as part of the Rare Books and Special Collections Division. In 2013, conservators at the Library of Congress constructed custom-built broadside boxes with layers of archival-grade cardboard and matboard stacked together and cut to the height, width, and thickness of each book in the Ediciones Vigía Collection. These specialty boxes solved a major problem for storage and preservation: how to keep these odd-sized books safe on the shelf and prevent the collaged materials from detaching from the rest of their books.

There was only one problem with this solution: the Library kept collecting books from Ediciones Vigía as new titles were created, even expanding the collection to incorporate works by other Latin American artist book presses. Some of these newer books could be housed in the standard four-flap pamphlet folders the library purchases in bulk. Others could be housed in a less standard, but still easily customized clamshell box.

But the rest of the artist books posed the same problem as those initial Ediciones Vigía books collected in the ‘90s: the found materials that made each book unique made each book difficult to house.

From the very first week of my internship, I worked with the catalogers in the Rare Books Directorate and the preservation specialists in the Preservation Directorate to solve precisely this issue. We needed to recreate those custom broadside boxes using current techniques, technology, supplies, and procedures.

For the most part, I followed the same box-making steps as the rest of the GCCS team. Each artist book needed to be measured to the precise millimeter. Because the artist books are inherently fragile, the broadside boxes need the stability and security of E-flute cardboard. The clamshell boxes were creased and cut on the Library’s Kasemake machine using the dimensions of the pre-existing boxes from the 2013 housing project. This will keep the materials neat and organized on the shelves in the Rare Books Stacks.

The next step was trickier. I had to figure out the best way to construct the removable structures that sit inside each clamshell box to keep the artist books safe from shifting around too much when the boxes are removed for exhibition or research.

At first, I tried to duplicate the layered structure from 2013 boxes by stacking layer upon layer of cardboard held together with double-stick tape. Each book is set within a paper tray inside the structure to prevent any residual adhesive from ever touching the book.

This method was a mixed success. These inserts were functional, but the construction method wasn’t ideal. The layers required a lot of material and time to construct, and the inserts themselves were heavy. The trays were also unforgiving and difficult to adjust if a measurement was off by even the slightest millimeter.

My second try involved experimenting with the Kasemake’s folding and cutting abilities. With some trial and error, I found a way to print trays that could be folded after cutting to reach the correct thickness. Construction was less time intensive for these trays—these trays only required two sheets of cardboard—but these trays also had their downsides.

For starters, I wasn’t able to program the Kasemake to automatically measure and cut the folds to the correct thickness. I had to pull out a calculator and ruler to get the right measurements, which then had to be manually drawn into the Kasemake program. Because no two books were the same thickness or shape, the process couldn’t be automated.

The folds also presented an unexpected problem with construction: due to the varied thicknesses of the folds, sticking the layers together involved tricky maneuvering of the materials using a bone folder, weights, two layers of double-stick tape for each point of contact, and just a touch of brute force.

These early experiments will live on in the collection: the trays were functional, if a bit inelegant and difficult to replicate, so I used them to house parts of the collection while I continued to tinker with my methods.

Then, at last, toward the end of my internship, I had a breakthrough. One of my colleagues in GCCS constructed a box with layers of foam glued together with hot-melt adhesive to house a collection of baseball memorabilia. As the deadline at the end of my internship loomed, my colleagues encouraged me to experiment with using foam to construct the tray inserts. I had to ask another colleague to show me where the foam was and how to glue the pieces together, which goes to show that no matter how deep you are into a project, it never hurts to seek advice and ask for help to make the process better.

This process slashed the production time dramatically. In the final week of my internship, I constructed six broadside boxes with enough trays to house 19 books. I left the Library of Congress with all but two of the Ediciones Vigía books safely housed and ready to be put on their shelves.

It took a lot of ingenuity and a lot of trial and error to get this far. This project challenged me in the best way. I asked a lot of questions from as many people in the Library of Congress as I could to figure out what the project needed, what the options were for addressing these needs, and what strategies would work best based on my timeframe and ability. I learned new skills and techniques that I hope to carry forward into my future career.

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