The General Collections Conservation Section routinely performs urgent treatments on books needed by Congress and interlibrary loan. Sometimes, though, a request comes through that’s special even for them. Staff member Meg Gray offers an inside look at one such request.
When preparing items for conservation, identifying how an object was created is the first step in understanding its context and manufacture. By looking carefully at certain characteristics, like ink color and line quality, contextualizing the items in front of us is possible. This blog post describes these qualities and situates them within a brief context of writing implement evolution.