In spite of having nearly no student employees in any of the Preservation units during this period, our output for the quarter increased for both the General Collections Conservation and Kasemake units while both the Paper Lab and Bindery Prep saw slight decreases that are typical of the summer.
In the General Collections Conservation unit total treatments increased from 2,407 during the previous reporting period to 2,615 for this one. Of these, the higher level treatments declined while enclosures nearly doubled as staff spent considerable amount of time working on projects for the Fine Arts Library.
Herb McBride was particularly busy during the quarter constructing enclosures for microfilm that will be moving from the East Tower of Wells Library to ALF2. In addition we have had a significant increase in requests from the Lilly Library for Kasemake enclosures since their hiring of a new staff person to be responsible for providing the needed information for the enclosures to be manufactured. For the reporting period, the Kasemake was used to manufacturer 3,851 enclosures. This compares to the 1,545 that had been made the previous quarter. We expect that the average for the coming reporting periods will begin to settle somewhere between these two levels.
One of the largest changes in the Lab happened in August when Nicole Wolfersberger resigned to return to graduate school. Nicole had been an employee with the Lab for several years and has worked with Doug Sanders in the Paper Lab for three years. During the quarter, the staff of the Paper Lab completed a long-term project of rehousing a manuscript collection for the Lilly Library. Sanders and Hufford met with Phil Bantin to discuss working more closely with the collections from the University Archives over the coming several months and years. The total number of items treated by the Paper Lab for the period was 96 which compares to the 112 previously reported.
Jessi Steiner has also been quite active in the Lilly Library conservation lab. During the quarter she was involved in installing eight exhibitions and deinstalling five including making 98 labels for the exhibitions. In addition she created 102 phase boxes, 56 folder phase boxes and encapsulated twenty-one items. She also constructed 46 enclosures for the puzzle collection and helped to flatten 81 items.
Bindery Preparation saw a small decrease in the total number of items that were processed (4,230 vs 4,377). Most of this decrease seems to have come from materials that were processed for the Music Library which declined to 1,333 items from the 2,136 that had been handled in the previous quarter. With the change in the government documents collections as well as the change in how the Music Library binding budget is being managed it will be interesting to note if there are any significant changes in the overall amount of materials that are processed by Bindery Prep in the coming year. So far it appears that the decrease in materials from the Music Library has been somewhat off-set by an increase in items from the Kent Cooper Room that seems to be at least partly attributable to a change in staff within Technical Services.
Most of the staff took part in providing an orientation to the Lab to Cathy Martyniak who was visiting from the University of Florida in order to observe how a joint ALF/Preservation Lab facility works. Harrison and Salkola-White took a new approach to hiring student staff when they attended the IU Job Fair at the beginning of the Fall semester. Over 200 students expressed initial interest in working at the Lab and about 35 of those followed-up with an application. Several were interviewed and three were hired.
Various members of the Preservation Lab staff took part in several webinars during the quarter including: NISO: Tangible assets – the management of physical library resources; NISO: Discoverable, available, accessible – preserving digital content; IULDLP: Is scalable digital preservation possible; and CLR: Print and digital archiving.
Detailed Statistical Summary for the Period
General Collections Conservation
Level I: 710
Level II: 123
Level III: 74
Enclosures: 1,708
Total Treatments: 1,615
Heckman prep: 120
TOTAL 2,735
Paper Lab
University Archives: 2
Geosciences: 1
Wells: 3
GIMSS: 13
Lilly Library: 75
Wiley House: 2
TOTAL: 96
Kasemake Enclosures
Lilly Library: 1,220
Wells: 129
Cook Music Library: 16
Lilly Puzzle Collection: 68
Microfilm Project: 2,418
TOTAL: 3,851
Binding
Serials: 2,624
Music Prepared: 1,333
TOTAL (includes all IUL): 4,230
Lilly Library Conservation Technician
Phase Boxes: 102
Phase Boxes (Folder): 56
Corrugated: 20
Encapsulation: 21
Clamshell: 6
Puzzle Enclosures: 26
Flattening: 81
Tin IN/Hinge: 2
Paper Mend: 27
Dry cleaning: 4 hours
Tape removal: 4 hours
Labels: 98
Exhibitions Installed: Walt Whitman; Cookbooks; Uslan; Critical Collections; Mongolian & Linguistics; Lilly Treasures I; Immigration; Lilly Treasures II
Exhibitions Deinstalled: Music Man; Immigration; Lilly Treasures I; Critical Collections; Mongolian & Linguistics
Leave a Reply