Increasing a book’s longevity, accessibility as artifact part of the role of the conservator

IU Bloomington Libraries soon-to-be completed ALF will provide storage, labs, for Lilly’s, other libraries’ ever growing collection

By Rose McIlveen

Canary

A $3 million award from the Mellon Foundation will be used to buy equipment for the preservation laboratory in IUB’s new auxiliary storage facility.

Conservation and preservation have special meaning for the man who has had a life-long love affair with books, how they are made and the craftsmanship involved in their making. He came to the Lilly after a professional odyssey that included a bookbinding apprenticeship in northern Indiana and an internship with the paper conservator at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

But his study of book anatomy took him much farther afield.

“I’ve traveled, really, all around the world, finding people whose work I admired, and I learned from that. In a way, a lot of what I know is self-taught,” he said.

IU established a special collections department in the early 1940s, and the university built the Lilly Library to house that collection as well as the collections of Josiah K. Lilly.

One major enemy of book preservation has been inflicted by the paper industry.

Paper was originally made from old rags, but when the industry changed to wood pulp for production, acid was introduced. Also, chlorine bleach was added, as well as alum for sizing. These ingredients have caused big problems for book conservators.

For books containing acid papers, too much or too little humidity can catalyze destructive chemical change. Light and environmental pollutants are other predators of the page.

One way the IU Libraries have been dealing with the acidic paper has been sending books to Preservation Technologies for mass de-acidification. Brittle books are sometimes scanned and re-formatted at the preservation department at the Main Library.

“At the Lilly, we maintain fairly constant humidity throughout the year, which means pumping a lot of live steam into the building to drive the humidity up in the winter time and then pumping out a lot of moisture during the summer,” he said. The level is monitored on a daily basis, and emergency supplies on every floor are stocked in the event of a water leak.

New acquisitions are given a “physical exam” on arrival. “We inspect everything that gets catalogued to see if it needs a protective box, if it needs any treatment—if it needs cleaning or there’s evidence of mold, if there is tape on it—anything like that before it’s integrated into the collection,” said Canary.

Recent environmental concerns are once again changing the industrial process of paper-making. Paper manufacturers have begun to revert to a more book-friendly alkaline process, eliminating harsh additives.

University presses were the first to return to a purer and longer-lasting paper. And since the toxic effluent from mills has become more closely regulated, a better quality paper product is naturally ensuing.

Because the Lilly Library stacks are overflowing, Canary is looking forward to the completion of the Auxiliary Library Facility (ALF), which is partially completed east of the campus. It will serve as a repository for books and films from the university’s various collections.

A $3 million award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will be used to buy equipment for the preservation laboratory at ALF. An additional grant of $700,000 from the Mellon Foundation, contingent upon the IU Bloomington Libraries raising double that amount in private funds, will endow more positions at the laboratory.

Though there is a preservation section in the IU Main Library on campus, the two laboratories have slightly different missions (See below).

“We still have the same basic respect for the structure and quality of materials of the book,” he said. “Occasionally, there are things that they would do that are more invasive than what we would do here. Their repairs need to withstand circulation, whereas Lilly materials are carefully used in a reading room with staff trained in care and handling.

“We might opt to put a book in an acid-free box and not treat it further,” he said. “For example, an early book’s spine might come loose, revealing interesting sewing structure or the way the leather thongs get laced into the board or fragments of an earlier manuscript.

“Here,” he said, referring to the Lilly Library, “we’re more interested in the entire piece as an artifact and a record of a time period and locale.”

IU Bloomington Libraries’ Preservation Department

IU Bloomington Libraries’ Preservation Department consists of three main units: Special Collections Conservation (Jim Canary, conservator); General Collections Conservation (Garry Harrison, conservator); and Brittle and Severely Damaged Books Unit (Sarah Anderson, coordinator).

Special collections conservation deals with items identified as artifactually valuable, says Jacob Nadal, acting head of preservation. Care both extends life and provides resiliency in use but also ensures that the original quality remains.

General collection conservation deals with materials in the circulating collection. IU has the 13th largest library in the Association of Research Libraries and has the seventh highest circulation.

The brittle and severely damaged books unit deals with irreparable items. These may be scanned or microfilmed to create, said Nadal, “a long lasting and faithful facsimile.”