As a conservation technician for the Library of Congress, Conservation Division, I work with numerous and varied objects of significant value. This work involves extensive planning and creating custom housings for objects of value for the benefit of communities and researchers both now and for future generations to appreciate, learn from, and enjoy. The objects …
Each book in the Library of Congress has its own story from writing to publication to its placement on the Library's shelves. Some take a little longer and need special treatment because they don't travel alone.
This blog continues to detail the actions to process and make accessible items from the Carvalho Monteiro Collection purchased without a list of titles and processed without provenance and the impact for researchers worldwide.
The box making activities of the Conservation Division at the Library of Congress allow quick and efficient housing of vulnerable collections items to help avoid further damage and loss. Read about a recent project to house the scrapbooks in the Edward L. Bernays Papers in the Manuscript Division.
This blog takes the reader back in time to learn the details of a large acquisition back in 1929 without a list of titles and the quest to find the 30,000 books among millions of items in the General Collection. Part 2 will follow.
Libraries are beautiful, filthy places. The dirt you encounter here is more than just the dust you would expect in any building, it is the dust of decay. It is the whisper of tired books becoming brittle and disintegrating, microfilm breathing its last gasp, newspapers shriveling into nothingness, leather dissolving into powder. Of all of these ingredients, red rot is probably the most pervasive dust you would come across.
During this summer, the Collections Management Division (CMD) embarked on a marathon of in-person care and handling training sessions for staff and contracts to illustrate the importance of following best practices when managing the materials throughout daily activities in order to preserve and prevent damages to the collections.
Did you know that at the Library of Congress, some books can’t go straight onto the bookshelves? Read on to see how Library employees use box-making machinery to rehouse sensitive items so they can be cared for and properly stored.
Did you know the Library of Congress has the largest public collection of comic books in the nation? Read how the preservation staff at the Library work to examine and preserve these amazing works of art and pop culture.