Plastic: “difficult, costly, and nerve-racking to preserve”

Slate has a great article on the difficult task of preserving plastic objects (from the first toothbrush to high altitude flight suits to Jeff Koons installations). Included is a great overview of the history of plastics and some simple explanations of why and how plastics degrade. And like any good article on plastics and conservation, there’s the fantastic link to my favorite line in movies, ever: The Graduate.

 

I’m back.

I last posted one year and one day ago.  During the past year, I changed jobs, moved to Washington D.C., ate a lot of chicken and waffles, did a lot of gardening, became wildly overcommitted in the professional arena, and tried to forget how to blog or that I even liked to in the first place.  I didn’t even read blogs, but I sure got into Facebook.  I watched too much TV and let my mind rot.  I left a job that I really loved, and I think I’ve had a bad case of whiplash, heartburn, and wanderlust ever since.

I hope to make this blog helpful to others while also satisfying my recently developed and seemingly unending need to “broadcast,” a la Twitter or Facebook, things I think are cool.  Or are not cool.  Heaven help me, I will leave you all with the intact illusion that federal employment is just as glamorous, uninhibiting, and nimble as we all know it to be.

Perhaps as best stated by the Backstreet Boys, “Rock your body right |Backstreet’s back alright!”

 

Bulleted items

• My Morning Jacket has a song about sexy librarians: “ramble up the stairwell, into the hall of books / since we got the interweb these hardly get used.” I like this album, save for a few ridiculous jam band moments.
  
• I think I have a new favorite blog: bookn3rd. Unlike yours truly (who jetted for Athens at the first sign a Calc III requirement for the “English for Engineers” major … and a boy), bookn3rd finished the history of technology program at Georgia Tech. Great content plus an awesome blog design and she’s headed to London. Could this have been my life after Calc III?
• Speaking of destroying (and recycling) books: Turning the Page on the Disposable Book (The WaPo). “Amazingly, authors rarely ask what happens to their unsold books; perhaps they don’t want to know. What seems abundantly true to me, however, after almost 20 years in the publishing business, is that an increasing number of their books will be — and should be — mulched. We are living in the age of the disposable book.”
• Send books to Iraq. I usually don’t read anything that sweaty monster Christopher Hitchens writes, but I’m going to figure out how to get my library to send materials from our current journal and monograph de-dupping project to the start-up library at the The American University of Iraq—Sulaimani.

 

Water emergency simulation training: not for the faint of preservation heart

I coordinated a “Collections Water Emergency Simulation” course last week for staff from nearly each of U.Va.’s 16 or so libraries. We could not have pulled this course off without the guidance of the fantastic Kara McClurken of SOLINET who provided the course instruction. I had never had the opportunity to go through a disaster simulation course before, and besides the occasional small scale disasters (100 books or less) in the various libraries at which I’ve worked, I lack the experience to teach a recovery simulation course for a medium (100-500 books) to large (500+ books) scale water emergency. The daylong course provided 35 participants the opportunity to review salvage issues, options, and procedures in the classroom in the morning and the thrill of getting hands-on experience doing salvage, evaluation, and recovery (not just air-drying and packing out for freezing or vacuum freeze drying, but also deciding if it was possible or more cost-effective to replace items rather than to recovery them) in the afternoon. See our photos!

I learned some valuable lessons. First, setting up this course — obtaining a tent and getting permission to set that tent up; moving several ranges of shelves from our stacks to an outdoor area; finding and then moving a 1,000 discarded books and other materials that you would find in library or archival collection (photos, maps, microfilm, archival documents, etc.); and then moving those heavy wet books to our recycling facility — was a tremendous task and took 100+ hours, I’d estimate.

Second, public relations and publicity for this course has to be considered well in advance. Note that the official title of this course was “Collections Water Emergency Simulation.” In our preservation lingo, you and I call this disaster recovery. The purpose of this shift in vocabulary was to distinguish the type of events that are truly disasters and imperil human life from the emergency events that affect inanimate things (as opposed to people). This new and improved title was guided by my library’s communication’s director, and I think it was a good idea.

We were very deliberate in the way we handled the fact that we had to destroy books in order to make this hands-on simulation possible. We posted signs around the tent to assure that the books used in the simulation were discards from the library and were withdrawn because of their poor condition or because they were low-value and uncirculated duplicates. I or one of my most excellent student assistants were on site at all times to answer questions of any curious or concerned on-lookers; we were at first worried that someone would try to “save” the books (which had to be out overnight and wet down several times the day before and day of). Rather, we found that folks were happy that we were providing this training to library staff and some even shook our hands with pride. We feel really good about the fact that we were able to recycle the wet books at the end of the simulation (U.Va. has a FANTASTIC recycling program).

The university’s news team caught wind this event and wanted to feature us in an article and video story. I love publicity for our growing preservation program, but I asked them to please focus on the hands-on recovery experience that was being offered to library staff … and not on the part where we hosed down and put mud on books. Essentially, I tried to convey how they could help us promote a good thing (the class the the valuable experience it offered library staff) and not amplifly the potentially inflamatory aspects. They did a great job covering the event, but unfortunately did not honor my request — a news story and video were released this morning. These were both promptly removed from the website as the news team had promised us a day to review the article for fact-checking and to make sure the article was on message. Unfortunately, that promise fell through, and before the story was removed several blogs picked up on the more scintillating side of the simulation and video of me merrily applying mud to books.

Was the course worth it? I’m trying to do the math in my head: a hundred plus hours of preparation divided by 35 very happy participants who now have superb training multiplied by today’s public relations crisis plus the humiliation of having to call several respected fellow bloggers to ask them to take down dead links to a poorly edited news story. Yes it was worth it. I just don’t know if I’ll do it again.

 

All about foil-back labels (more musing on call number labels)

I have the happy news to report that my library’s shelf prep activities (barcoding, call number labeling, security stripping (? , and property stamping have moved to my department, Preservation Services. Yeah! This means, long last, that I will not only be pestering this unit to adhere to practices that focus on permanence and durability and materials that are tested and approved for long-term use in a research library collection … I’ll be responsible for making sure this happens!

My first goal is to entirely rethink the call number labeling workflow. There’s been some recent activity on this issue on PADG, but there is no single best practice options out there. Many rather advanced and forward thinking libraries use the SeLin system … a “‘plastic-like” thin white material” coated on the back with a heat-set adhesive. There are lots of problems with SeLin, namely that while it is a great label, getting it (the outdated software, the dot matrix printer) to interact with newer computers or your ILS is difficult. This string on PADG encapsulates that issue back in 2004 — Yale loved the SeLin labels, but found the printer technology out of date.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m thinking about using our Zebra thermal transfer printer to make call number labels — I think there’s great permanence in a thermal transfer print, particularly to paper but also to polyester stock. In thinking about the label stock, I started wondering about the purpose of foil-back labels. I found this great article (from the Abbey Newsletter … my god, will anyone ever live up to Ellen McCrady’s legacy and produce again anything near as wonderful and contemporary as the Abbey Newsletter?)
that explains the purpose of the foil back label. Essentially, it is two-fold:

1. The foil helps the label to conform to the rounded shape of a book’s spine.
2. The foil acts as a barrier between the layer of “cold application pressure sensitive adhesive” and the upper layer, presumably composed of paper. This prevents the adhesive from migrating through and discoloring the paper layer and causing fading of any ink media

I’m curious about the application of a foil-back to a polyester label – I like the permanance of polyester and the potential elimination of a need for a clear label protector. Would it help the label stick to the curved spine of the book? Would it do anything to keep the adhesive from migrating, or is that even an issue with a plastic polyester label?

The Preservation Directorate at the Library of Congress has a whole section of testing requirements related to label stock printed with laser or thermal transfer processes and applied to bound books, plastics (think polypropylene CD cases and film cans), metals, and text pages (see section 700: Label Stock). HOWEVER, they don’t reveal what supplier / material they use for any of these products. I’ve even written nicely to inquire and never received a response.

I have a self-imposed deadline to figure out a new call number label system by August 1, 2008. We’re a SIrsi library (just unrolling the Java client, if you can believe it), so whatever label system we use has to seamlessly work with Sirsi. And by seamlessly I mean I scan in a barcode number and a millisecond later out pops a permanent, durable call number label.

What do others use, both in terms of materials and software, to print call number labels?? Any info and all advice appreciated! I’ll post the first comment further detailing what U.Va. current uses (and its limitations).

 

I’m famous!

Well, in that local radio celebrity type of way. I was interviewed about being a scooter-riding librarian a few weeks ago, and the story hit the airwaves last week!

 

Turn on your book light. Let it shine wherever you go.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present unto you The Enlightenment: ” illuminates your shelf rather your soul. Made from plexiglass and lit by an energy-saving bulb, the lamp plugs into an outlet with a standard cord…

 

cryogenics, n. – or, how cold can you go with library stuff, really?

This blog post title is a tribute to a new conserv-o-blog on the block. Welcome The Vespiary, a great blog with an ever clever schema for post titles.

I’ll be spending a lot of time over the next few months in the same building as the UVa surplus property center and will undoubtably be posting some photos of soon-to-be-auctioned-off gems here at Do I Really. I just might have to rename this blog Don’t I Really Want to Buy That and Stick It In My Living Room? Here’s the kick-off: a cryogenic preservation system. Per the wikipedia entry, cryogenics is “branch of physics and engineering that involves the study of very low temperatures, how to produce them, and how materials behave at those temperatures.” As I snapped some photos, I was thinking (hyperglycemic-ally so, I should note) … what would happen if I tossed a time-capsule of 19th-21st century library collections materials in there? A couple books in various types of bindings, some documents representing everything from rag paper to western union telegrams, some CDs, 16mm b/w film with mag sound, some color photos and their negatives, and perhaps a few artifacts and paintings for good measure? Just how well “preserved” would these materials be when immersed in liquid nitrogen or helium?

I think the answer is fairly obvious: the liquid cryogens plus the organic materials and media would probably not interact well, thermal shock (mentioned in the wikipedia article) aside. But it was fun to think about snapping this beauty up and reserving a place for it in my new lab, just in case the next “phase” of conservation is cryogenics.

 

Way to go, Alpine AIC Angels!

I know that as soon as she has a chance to catch her breath, Beth will write all about the Angels Projects at the American Alpine Club in Golden, CO that took place last week after the 2008 AIC Annual Meeting in Denver. In the mean-time, MileHighNews.com has a great write-up of the project and the conservators who were so entralled in their volunteer work that they couldn’t put down their “painter’s pallet knife”-like microspatulas to grab a bite of lunch. I know the exact feeling, and wish I could’ve stayed in town and helped out!

I love this article because it not only gives conservation some great news exposure and better helps the public (aka, folks like my very own parents) to better understand the many facets of library, archives, and museum conservation activities, but it will also be a great prop for Beth to employ as she courts donors and grant agencies over the next few years to build a conservation program for the AAC. Preservation / conservation activities are always a “sexy sell” for fundraising (all those shiny tools, solvent submersions, and intricate hand skills). Add mountains, climbers, their ephemera, and heroic feats of sportsmanship, and a archival backlog of conservation need to the mix, and you have the recipe for conservation fundraising success.

 

New conserv-o-blog on the block sounds its barbaric yawp

I am a sucker for a rallying cry, and Jeff Peachey has a great one on his new blog: conservators of the world – both those pioneers in the jungle of private practice and those pushing out from the edges of “the system” in institutions – unite! I’ve always wanted to know more about the AIC Group CIPP (Conservators in Private Practice) and their vision for the future – I hope Jeff’s vision is a shared one amongst the group.

(And as for the Whitman reference, there was a great two hour American Experience documentary on PBS recently. I have somehow made it through life and a not just a few American Lit classes without Whitman. I am now on the hunt for an oversized, rare edition of “Leaves of Grass” missing from the shelf of Alderman Library.)