Bed sheets, boot laces, coffee, floor wax, and toilet paper: Incarcerated artists’ books exhibition poses unusual conservation challenges

Voices From the Other Side is a student-curated exhibition of artists’ books and writings from Rose Library’s Phillips State Prison Book Project Records on view now on Level 1 of the Robert W. Woodruff Library. Many of these artists’ books were created by students in Bill Taft’s creative non-fiction classes, taught under the auspices of Read More …

From the Conservation Lab: Using Gels to Remove Stains from the “Oratio in die Omnium Sanctorum” (1483)

The Oratio in die Omnium Sanctorum is a series of sermons written for All Saint’s Day by Thomas de Capitaneis. From the Pitts Theology Library incunabula collection, it is a small pamphlet printed in 1483 with simple paper covers. The pamphlet appears to have been partially submerged in liquid and allowed to dry. As the Read More …

Rescuing Moldy Photographs

  In April, the Preservation Office of Emory Libraries received photographic items to be treated for mold from the African American Collection of the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. These photographs included sixteen studio prints, four tintypes, three ambrotypes, and two larger convex photographs. Mold covered the images due to moisture Read More …

Updating the Emory Libraries Conservation Lab

In 1990, the Emory Libraries Conservation Lab occupied a modest footprint of space. It was one-third the size of our current lab, which limited the treatment possibilities. Eight years later, construction of a larger lab expanded the overall space and the conservation work. After twenty years, our lab has been updated and refreshed again. Conservation Read More …

Welcome KIC Bookeye book scanner

On April 8th, the LITS Student Digital Life team, in partnership with the Library Service Desk, added a new service to the Woodruff Library in the form of a KIC Bookeye book scanner. It sits across from the Library Service Desk, in place of one of the EaglePrint multi-function printers (MFP’s). The new book scanner Read More …

Preserving the Telugu Manuscript

Emory Libraries recently acquired the Kōṭikalapūḍi Vīrarāghavakavi (1663-1712) manuscript. The online edition of this book is in the public domain, not protected by copyright, and has been made available by Emory University. The text is a work of poetry based on the Udyoga Parva of a Telugu Mahabharata by Kotikalapudi Viraraghavakavi (1663-1712). The Mahabharata is Read More …

Are You Going to Eat That? Integrated Pest Management at Emory Libraries

The Integrated Pest Management for Cultural Institutions workshop was held last November at the Michael C. Carlos Museum on the Emory campus. Seven presenters offered various perspectives on pest prevention, monitoring, and remediation. Two important things to remember regarding pests and how to manage them: keeping all pests out of a building is an unrealistic Read More …

Nuremberg Chronicle

The Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library’s treasured Nuremberg Chronicle (first edition, 1493) received conservation treatment prior to traveling to Pitts Theology Library for the exhibition, The Materiality of Devotion: From Manuscript to Print (opening December 17). This lavishly-illustrated book, which purports to be a history of the world from creation to Read More …

Atlanta’s Great Speckled Bird Rises from the Ashes (and Mold)

While conducting conservation treatment of particularly damaged rare books and other special collections materials, I sometimes imagine the adventures and misadventures which might have brought a page (and perhaps its reader) to such a state. Is that water damage and sandy residue evidence of a shipwreck? Is this dried, pressed leaf from one of the Read More …

Environmental Monitoring at the Emory Libraries

Emory Libraries Preservation Office is responsible for monitoring the environmental conditions (temperature, relative humidity, and light levels) of all libraries on campus. We currently use data loggers to monitor in twenty-seven permanent locations throughout campus: fifteen in the Rose Library, one in the Schatten Gallery, six in the Health Sciences Library, three in the Pitts Read More …

Preserving the Apollo 15 Flight Data Logs

In 2017, Emory University took the unique opportunity to create a digital learning hub centering around the Apollo Space Program. Emory Library and Information Technology Services borrowed materials from the 1971 Apollo 15 mission (NASA’s fourth manned mission to the moon) to use in creating an interactive website featuring the digital archives from the mission. Read More …

Umatic Tape, VHS, RuPaul: Audio & Video Preservation

Video and audio recordings are an important part of the collections at Emory University. As recording formats change, user accessibility can become problematic.  Currently, we are in the middle of an ongoing project to digitize many out of print videos on Umatic tape, an obsolete format that has been out of use since the 1980s, Read More …