The first day of my practicum experience was pretty stressful because of the snow. Friday was the first major snow of the season, so with traffic and accidents it took me around two hours to make it to my destination. I left early but arrived at 10am, an hour after our scheduled time.
Despite this ominous beginning, it was an extremely fun and rewarding first day. When I came in Sharlane Gubkin was prepared with a syllabus for the session, which includes readings and objectives (the word documents cannot be posted as per blog options). We spent the morning becoming familiar with our surroundings both in the department and throughout the library. On a departmental level, it is important to know where to locate materials and people as well as being aware of your surroundings. On the whole organization level, it is key to the functionality and success of your department to be interdependent on the other departments throughout the library. This stresses the importance of your role in the success of the library as well as distributes the weight-adding to the importance of the jobs in other departments.
*Photos of the department with captions.
This is what you see when first entering the room: Sharlane's work area and desk area, along with trucks of books sorted for review and repair.
Here is a straight-though shot of the department, where you see the student repair stations, a small portion of the island, and more trucks of books to be organized.
These are some of the neat equipment the department has to offer. On the table there are presses, while the upright wooden pieces aid the sewing process by clamping the text blocks together, but exposing the spine.
This is the closeup view of the student repair area. To the right there is a rigging set up for microfilm transfer. To the left, on the shelving is a sewing machine, and some supplies.
This photo features one of the hand-made devices donated to the department, which is located adjacent to the student's repair area. Below is the queue of books, sorted and awaiting treatment.
This is the room with all of the binding equipment, as well as some phase box cutting/perforating equipment. The photo of the large variety of boards and buckram cloth did not turn out because of lighting, but those materials are also held in this room.
This is a supply area, as well as break room and work area for large items.
One of the projects in this area encompasses the flattening of large maps.
This is the department's library of preservation instruction books, catalogs of supplies, and sample supplies.
One of the major issues today is that preservation departments are being cut out of the library completely or significantly reduced. The preservation department at Case Western Reserve University Library has found a way to insure their foothold in the library through the interdependence. The department's responsibilities include: item repair, liaison for the bindery (which includes processing and shipping items), inspection of gift materials (to rule out insect or mold infestations that could be transferred to the collections), managing portions of the building maintenance, drafting and carrying out the disaster plan, making signage, and hanging art exhibits and creating displays (a newly assigned task). As a side note, this preservation department trains some of the university library branches' preservation departments.
Sharlane was able to explain the process of an item being repaired while giving the tour. The damaged items are initially identified by the circulation department as they are being checked in or out before being sent to the preservation department to be evaluated. At this point a repair decisions chart is used to assess the level of treatment needed. The library has a policy that discourages duplicate items, so as part of the process the duplicate is located and assessed. If the duplicate is in good enough condition, the second item may be withdrawn after assessing the title's circulation patterns and consulting the appropriate collection manager. This decision process would cut back on costs of repair, while making decisions that would benefit the aim of the collection. Another unique policy regarding damaged items is in accordance with the P-Circ department. If an item that has been requested through OhioLINK has damage and no other copies are available for request through another OhioLINK institution, it will be repaired (as a rush) before leaving the library. This does not seem to be a common practice throughout OhioLINK. In cases where another copy is available, the request will be passed on and the item will be put in the regular queue for repairs.
Another way items end up in the preservation department is through acquisitions, some items need reinforcement before being added to the collection. This includes new soft covered items predominantly, with special emphasis on thick or oversized materials (often reference books) and small/thin items. Sharlane writes "
New items needing special housing (such as collections of loose plates), items needing pockets for CDs, charts, or maps, loose errata slips, standing orders and analyzed sets where previous volumes were bound in a consistent manner, and music scores are also routed to Preservation."
While stopping by offices to meet the staff during the tour I learned that there is a separate digitization department, who takes selected items that include items that have been deemed "brittle" (within their policy's criteria) for digitization. We also stopped to see several people in collection management, who help in assessing the worth of a damaged item. One woman is in charge of building curation and works closely with preservation when the unexpected happens: pests, mold, leaks, etc. While walking through the stacks, we encountered an area that has consistent water leaks which has caused the compact shelving runners to rust and items damaged. This is something that the two departments would especially care for together. At this point an outside party may be consulted for possible instability of plumbing/structure in the area. We also discussed the repercussions of food and drink in the library, because of the vending machines and the new library cafe located in the library reading areas. The policy now allows food and drink throughout the majority of the building, excluding the computer labs and Special Collections area.
The library itself consists of 4 floors, which houses a variety of different resources for student and staff/faculty use. The reading areas have tables with plugs installed in the centers. There are group study rooms, classes, and labs everywhere. The most unique lab, the Freedman Center, offers multimedia conversion, a GIS station, large map printing, a book digitization station (with an overhead scanner that does not touch the book), and poster printing. This department also works with preservation in creating large signs and displays.The preservation department mounts signs and posters on board for the library.
At the end of the tour it was overwhelming how many great resources the library has to offer, and how efficiently the departments interact. This mirrors the key features of the preservation department, which I learned about throughout the library and within the basement.
The preservation department has been around for 30 years (10 of which in the new building), which affords them a greater array of materials and responsibilities than I have seen before. This includes materials that seemed to have worked out of connections, such as the acquisition of book presses previously owned by HF Group (the local bindery) and unique book sewing rigs (for lack of a better term) engineered by former student employees. It also has all the materials needed to splice broken film and recover unique books, which is something that is normally is not handled in-house. Unique items that will not be commercially bound are defined as: significant or special due to age or period binding (more clarification to come in these coming months, I suspect). During my time there I will be learning policies unique to that library, as well as general preservation policies that should be observed by all. It is important to include these policies to get the full scope of my experience.
Throughout the first half of the day we discussed what I would do at the practicum, the projects that need to be completed as well as my ability to take on these tasks with my skill set. Each week I will be learning the different levels physical repair that need to be carried out on the items. Another practicum student and I will be going around the library to check, calibrate and change the paper on the hygrothermographs, which measure the temperature and humidity in the stacks areas. These machines identify the microclimates problems with the library environment. We will also be processing bindery items (both sending and receiving). The disaster plan also needs researched and updated. The website needs maintenance, but I will need some outside instruction to complete this task.
The second half of the day started with a preservation video that is used to train all of the staff in the handling of materials. The video was made several years ago by the preservation department.
http://tv.case.edu/actions/tv2/tv?play=true&id=9610&filter=academics
We also spent time going over the emergency procedures for the building. One unique thing I learned is that you cannot work around anything containing mold (except moderate cases on books) without training from Safety Services and a medical getting a checkup to determine whether I can safely breath through the special masks. The masks have two layers of fabric, making it difficult to take in oxygen. I will be required to go through hazard training at a later point.
http://library.case.edu/ksl/whoweare/organization/preservation/disaster/emergency.html
At this point we went over my work station and the materials and tools I was to use. It is a policy of the department to code the tools that belong to your workstation with nail polish. When I had a free moment later on I labeled mine with black polish.
*Photos of materials I will be using.
This is the intern/practicum student area. It includes a list of tools (left), tools (upper center), a ruled cutting mat (lower center), a lamp that compensates for florescent lighting distortion (upper right), and a brush to clean the area (lower right).
Tools from left to right: scissors, glue pot filled with PVA glue (and glue brushes), wheat paste in a syringe, two sizes of linen thread, glue brushes with bridles, regular glue brushes, bone folders-3 sizes, surgical knife, replacement blades, micro-spatulas ( one stainless steel, one not), knitting needle, awl (for making holes when sewing), staple remover, water brush (from the brand Tria), magic rib eraser.
The first of my weekly tasks I was asked to complete was receiving bindery items. Sharlane went over the procedures for separating items from the boxes and placing them on carts in order for them to continue their transition back in the collection.
The items returning from the bindery are classified three different ways:
BR-Hardbound Monographs
FM-Laminated Hardbound Covers (This library prefers to detach the original paperback cover and have it laminated to the new cover instead of having the cover scanned and reprinted, due to poor visual quality of the scans for previous covers.)
P-Periodical Monographs
I unpacked the shipment of boxes, removing the bindery tag as I went. If I was unsure of what an item was, there is a processing slip that the bindery has been placed in the book that lists the order information and type of binding classification for that particular item. Once the items were sorted we took them back into the preservation room to count the number items for each type, as well as removed items that go to different areas (Abstracts and Indexes).
At this point, it was time to match up items. When an item goes out the unique pieces are removed. Such as: bar codes, decorative or informative end sheets, ornate soft covers from art books, covers with flaps that contain information, ex libris containing donor information, etc. After that the items will be conjoined with their parts and processed through the computer by the student workers. I did not get to complete matching the items because this is where my day ended, at approximately 4:40pm.
Interesting tricks of the trade:
In older items you can check the printing date, which will differ from the copyright date to identify if the item is especially unique, or worth keeping (rather than withdrawing from the collection).
Tape and barcodes can often be removed using a hairdryer.
Special glue pots allow for brushes to sit in the paste for a week, eliminating the need to clean brushes every day.
Wheat paste can be produced in mass and then, while still warm, be dawn into large syringes, which creates a vacuum that will stop it from developing mold and changing consistency. This eliminates the need to mix the paste for every use and having to discard or refrigerate any unused mix. Some chose to store the paste and microwave later-which changes the molecules' shapes.
Linen thread does not break down and does not damage the items with its toughness.
With threads, the less the thread count, the thicker the thread. Ex 18-thick, 25-thinner.
Some thick glue brushes include metal bridles that rust over time, but there are thicker brushes that now have plastic bridles.
Nail polish is a great way to code your tools because it adheres to most materials and does not rub off or distort as quickly as pencil or marker.
When unpacking a box, it is better to cut the tape at the sides first. This allows you to pull the lid away from the box before cutting down the center as well as preventing the items packed in the top of the box from being damaged.
Assignments:
Read up on the links provided in the syllabus.
Bring repair decisions chart made in the Repair Decisions Workshop.
Bring items that show previous repair work.
Bring practice books (items withdrawn from Kent).
As a precautionary measure, bring allergy medicine (I am allergic to mold and dust).
