The Smithsonian Libraries will offer new, paid internships for the Professional Development Program in the summer of 2014. These internships are open to graduate students interested in working in research and museum libraries. The Libraries will award up to three paid summer internships this academic year.
Category: The Fix (Preservation)
Last year a book came into the Book Conservation Lab as part of the Smithsonian Libraries Adopt-a-Book program. The book, Systema Entomological by Heinrich Buchecker, was in two distinct pieces – text and plates. The color lithographic plates, depicting dragonflies, were printed on paper that is a higher quality than the text. Unfortunately, the text is printed on highly acidic paper that has become brittle with age. Usually the decision to post bind is a difficult one. Book conservators strive to retain as much of the original binding as possible in their work. A post binding is a last resort solution for books with extremely brittle paper – allowing them to remain in use to the researcher. As this set came to us unbound, the decision was easier to make.
2013 was a busy year for the Smithsonian Libraries! We were hard at work digitizing our collection, caring for rare books, hosting events and assisting in the Smithsonian’s core research functions. In case you missed them, here are our five most popular blog posts from 2013, giving a peak at what we did through the year and what *you* enjoyed reading about!
New York at Christmas time evokes many memories but as a child it meant a visit to FAO Schwarz, the oldest toy store in the United States. When a 1911 catalog from the famed toy store landed in the Book Conservation Lab it was like an early Christmas present!
On November 20-22 the Smithsonian Libraries hosted a three day workshop, “Understanding Asian Papers and their Applications in Paper Conservation,” given by Minah Song, a paper conservator at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) in Philadelphia. The workshop began with a lecture on the process of papermaking in China, Korea and Japan and then moved onto hands-on techniques including learning different lining techniques, toning or paper with fiber reactive dyes, parchment repair and the Korean art of Joomchi.
From the outside “A Samoan Dictionary” looks fairly innocuous, but inside lies horror that would strike fear in the heart of any conservator (or book lover). The cover looks more »
Re-housing is one of the least glamorous but most important responsibilities of the Smithsonian Libraries Conservation Department. Re-housing encompasses placing library materials into protective enclosures ranging from ready-made acid more »