#preventiveconservation

I’m Maddie DeLaere, a graduate student preservation intern at NYU’s Special Collections Libraries this semester. I am working toward master's degrees in Food Studies and Library Science at NYU and LIU focusing on history, culture, archives, and special collections. Through the dual-degree program, I got set up working in the Barbara Goldsmith Preservation & Conservation Department. 

The Special Collections Libraries are undergoing an incredible renovation, and with the completion of some spaces approaching soon, a lot of material is going to be moved around. We are getting new flat file cases for the newly renovated space since many of ours have sticky drawers, broken hardware, or are unnecessarily bulky. A renovation is a great opportunity to assess materials in their current condition and do some rehousing projects. These flat file cases are prone to becoming miscellaneous drawers. Not the kind of junk drawers your collection of business cards and unused takeout silverware and spare change goes into, but one with unprocessed, loose, or difficultly-sized materials. Sometimes you don’t know just where to put things, and don’t have time to figure it out — it seems, that’s where the flat files have come in handy. 

But no longer! This semester, I’ve been assigned a housing survey project in order to assess our oversized flat file material before the renovation move. This way, the use of the new space can be planned according to the needs of the material, not necessarily based on the way they’re currently housed. In developing and implementing the survey on AirTable, we’re able to analyze data in various ways, ultimately organizing priority levels for remedial work. 

When designing the survey, we needed our end goals in mind. We want to minimize the use of our flat file storage in order to maximize our use of new space. So, we want to flag any material that doesn’t fit within its folder, or within the flat file whether too big or too small. This is done not only to minimize use of the flat files, but also to ensure that material is not harmed in the moving process. Material is kept safe during handling when it is fitted correctly to its folder. Simply measuring each item within each folder would make for a meticulous, messy, and excessively detailed survey, requiring much more data crunching and analytics down the line. To make the survey more efficient and effective, we decided to assess whether material was either A. too small for the flat files (defined as being able to fit into a 20 x 24 archival box), B. too large for its folder (sticking out from the edges or folded to fit), or C. sized correctly for its folder and the flat file. The largest item was measured in each full sized folder (36 x 48) in order to grasp what size of new flat files would be necessary

In addition to measuring size, the survey was an opportunity to collect other sorts of data. Some of this material has not had eyes on it since it was originally housed, so it’s important to take advantage of someone already going through every folder. We recorded identification (barcode, collection number, etc.) for easy updating in the system should rehousing be necessary, folder paper thickness and size, and flagged any items with unique characteristics such as being plastic, glass, cloth, framed, foam core, heavy, and unlabeled or loose. Other risk assessment was taken into account and could be recorded in the “notes” section of the survey, to alert supervisors of potential mold, pests, sticky residue, an overstuffed folder, rusty paperclips, if an item was fragile and crumbling, etc.

After surveying a thousand folders in the six flat file cases kept on floor 3 (we have even more on floor 10!) it was time to break and start some remedial work. The first remedial work we want to be done is whatever is the fastest and easiest path to discarding an entire flat file (less to move, other remedial work can potentially be done after the move). By consolidating unprocessed materials, de-duping unprocessed materials, and rehousing folders where all material can be moved to a 20 x 24 archival box, we can free up adequate space in drawers for other material. This work involves labeling new folders, moving barcodes, and updating both our AirTable survey and our ArchiveSpace records. 

The survey has been a great glimpse into the way materials are accessioned and processed, the communication between the Preservation/Conservation and Archival Collections Management (ACM) departments, the preventative maintenance of a collection, and the steps taken to remediation. I was exposed to all sorts of troubles you can run into while working with special collections materials like space access, brittle material, needing buffering interleaving paper, or dealing with loose materials without an associated collection. Oversized materials pose issues of their own. Our largest flat file folders are 36 x 48 in. When those are heavy or overstuffed, it becomes difficult to handle safely as one person. And all in the middle of renovation construction with dust, humidity, and space management concerns!

Paper from several hundreds of years ago, or more, often looks newer than paper created c. 1800-1950. Why is that?

A number of factors contribute to a paper’s vulnerability. As we know, the environment in which paper is stored and how it is handled have a significant impact on its condition over time. But not all paper is created equal—a paper’s makeup and its means of production have a tremendous impact on its lifespan.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, Western paper was produced by hand from linen or cotton rags, which generally results in a relatively durable and chemically stable paper. Around 1800, paper began to be produced with the use of machines, using wood pulp instead of rags. While these changes increased paper production dramatically, the resulting paper had an acidic chemical make-up along with a significantly shorter and weaker fiber structure. Over time, this compromised paper becomes weaker, often becoming discolored, as a result of acid degradation processes. Unfortunately, this chemical reaction is autocatalytic, meaning that it produces acid products which fuel further degradation reactions. Such paper is literally stewing in its own juices.

Fortunately, the papermaking industry has over time learned to make relatively high-quality paper using machines and wood pulp. These adaptations include the ability to process wood pulp to remove its most acidic components, and the use of affordable alkaline fillers such as calcium carbonate which contribute to creating an appealing white paper while buffering the creation of acids in the paper over time.

Beginning in the 1980s, influential standards for paper permanence were established nationally and internationally. As a result of these developments, much of the machine-made paper created in the west over the last 50 years tends to be of relatively good quality. There are many exceptions to these trends based on resources and intended use—for example, cheaper, poor-quality paper continues to be used for ephemeral applications like newspapers.

Fortunately, there are treatments that help slow down the acid degradation process. One approach that we use is a Bookkeeper® spray product that deposits minute particles onto the surface of paper that works by neutralizing many of the acids that form in the paper over time. This helps extend the lives of valuable books, newspapers and other acidic paper documents.

Protective enclosures are a very helpful preservation tool. A good quality, alkaline box can help by absorbing damaging acidic byproducts while offering significant protection from dust, light, liquids, and physical impacts. Recent research has shown that book boxes also provide valuable buffering against damaging humidity and temperature fluctuations. Conservation lab staff create many types of enclosures, from standardized boxes to highly customized solutions. Here Kathy Colbert shows off her efficient assembly-line production of corrugated boxes that will help preserve a significant collection of 19th-century Catholic directories. Because they are so lightweight, stable, and simple to use, these corrugated “pizza box-style” boxes have become our most popular book enclosure.

Here is a sampling of some of the more customized enclosure solutions we’ve developed for collections big and small.

Miniature book enclosures less than an inch high.

A housing for Father Sorin’s glasses.

A formal enclosure for a small volume, The Krank

A 5-foot tall enclosure for cardboard figure, Jean Faut of the South Bend Blue Sox

Happy Preservation Week!

My name is Erin Fitterer and I am a third-year student at the Conservation Center at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, with a focus on objects and time-based media. Though I am now focusing on other materials, much of my pre-program experience before attending NYU was actually in paper conservation, and I’m excited to be able to work in a library again. This semester, I am working with Jessica Pace on a project involving the dataloggers used by the Barbara Goldsmith Preservation and Conservation Department to monitor collections storage spaces at Bobst Library. 

Dataloggers are an important tool when it comes to the care of collections. A datalogger is a device that records data about its surroundings at a regular interval, allowing conservators to monitor the environment of a given room or area over a long period of time. Depending on how they are made, a datalogger can record a wide range of information about a space, including monitoring vibrations and light levels. As conservators, we are most interested in monitoring the temperature and humidity levels in locations where collections are stored. Previously, conservators from the Preservation Department have been using PEM2 dataloggers. These devices monitor both temperature and relative humidity. To access the data, a USB device must be inserted into each logger. Unfortunately, the PEM2 device is no longer being supported by its manufacturer. To ensure continued access to loggers that can be calibrated and updated, we set out to find a replacement. 

The first step for replacing PEM2 dataloggers was research. We wanted to find a datalogger that was able to record similar information as the PEM2 devices (namely relative humidity and temperature). Technology has changed since the introduction of the PEM2 to the market. While being able to capture the data from each device with a USB is a straightforward process, newer models enable the data to be accessed via the library’s WiFi network from any computer without needing to go to the location of each datalogger. This would allow our staff to monitor the collection in real-time, without needing to physically access each device. 

When considering what we wanted in our new dataloggers, we looked for loggers that met several criteria, including: wireless capability, unlimited software storage, visible display, and the ability to send alarms to our computer/phone. Ultimately, we decided to test out: Dickson DWE DicksonOne Display, Lascar High Accuracy Wi-Fi (no picture yet as we are waiting for it to arrive),  and WirelessTag.  These loggers, with exception of the WirelessTag (which has no display) met all of the criteria that we had listed above. During testing, we will be evaluating the type of power source of the datalogger (whether it needed to be plugged in or not, the average battery life, and so forth), the accuracy of the recorded temperature and relative humidity, and the ease of use of both the loggers and their software.

We decided to use saturated salt chambers to test the accuracy of loggers’ ability to detect relative humidity because each type of saturated salt solution has its own relative humidity (you can see a table documenting each relative humidity for its respective salt here). There are a number of recorded relative humidities for saturated salt solutions. We chose three salts for our testing chambers: sodium chloride (NaCl), RH 75.3%; magnesium chloride (MgCl), RH 32.8%; lithium chloride (LiCl), RH 11.3% . These three salts represent a broad range of relative humidities that will allow us to see how the devices perform under a range of conditions. To create the saturated salt solution testing chambers, we followed instructions posted on the Conservation Wiki written by Samantha Alderson and Rachael Perkins Arenstein. The lithium chloride and magnesium chloride were purchased from a chemical supply company. For the sodium chloride, we used Kosher sea salt purchased at a nearby grocery store. To create the chambers, we cut windows into three plastic food storage containers. Over each window, we taped a piece of Gortex. 

To prepare the salt solutions, we researched how much salt needed to be added to the water in order to create a saturated salt solution. We found a few publications that provided the ratios of water to salt used to achieve a saturated salt solution. Using these publications as a guide, for each salt solution, we measured 100 mL of water into a beaker. This water was heated on a hot plate, though not allowed to boil. For each of the salt solutions, salt was slowly added and allowed to dissolve. Once dissolved, more salt was added to the solution. Once the salt no longer dissolved (that is, it appeared on the bottom of the beaker), the solution was removed from the heat and allowed to cool. The result was a thick slurry mixture that was subsequently poured into the plastic food storage container. Each container and its salt solution were placed in a larger air-tight container. Within these larger containers, the datalogger devices will be placed. We will provide an update once we complete our testing.