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Posted by: Lily Tyndall
The Irving W. Greenwald Diary describes life for an army private both in an army camp in New York and at the Western Front in France during World War I. The diary was recently treated by a book conservator to ensure its continued preservation by mending the pages, resewing the text block, and repairing the original binding. Part 1
Posted in: Conservation, Miniatures, Preservation
Posted by: Lily Tyndall
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.
Posted in: Care and Handling, Collections Care, Preservation
Posted by: Beatriz Haspo
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.
Posted in: Collections Care, Collections Management, Preservation
Posted by: Aaron D. Chaletzky
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.
Posted in: Collections Care, Preservation, Reformatting
Posted by: Beatriz Haspo
This blog describes the collaborative actions taken to move thousands of card catalog drawers to a final destination and how the Collections Management Division (CMD) creatively overcame some challenges during this project.
Posted in: Collections Management, Preservation
Posted by: K.F. Shovlin
Most library patrons are familiar with searching the catalog for a book, but what about when staff need to track down a book that's gone missing?
Posted in: Collections Management, Preservation
Posted by: Tana Villafana
IRENE, which stands for Image Reconstruct Erase Noise Etc., is a method for extracting sound from mechanical audio recordings, such as phonograph records and cylinder records. What makes IRENE special is that the entire process is contactless, allowing us to extract audio from broken, fragile, and otherwise unplayable objects while reducing the possibility of damage.
Posted in: Heritage Science, Internships, Preservation
Posted by: Beatriz Haspo
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.
Posted in: Care and Handling, Collections Care, Collections Management, Preservation
Posted by: Lily Tyndall
This article is about the experience of a summer intern in the Preservation Directorate, General Collections Conservation Section at the Library of Congress. It contains descriptions of basic repairs, book-making and paper-making labs, and other activities.
Posted in: Collections Management, Conservation, Internships, Preservation