Hey there, it’s been… a minute! Many things have happened with the Preservation Unit over the past year-ish. Let’s get caught up.
The end of 2021: we found out Mullins Library Phase II renovations were slated to start in December 2022. Special Collections and the preservation lab were located on Levels 1 & 2, the floors to be renovated, and the collections and the lab needed to move out of the building. Many (many) discussions were had over the next few months of just what this project would entail and how we would provide preservation support for the move.
March 2022: Lindsey Williams, Preservation and Binding Specialist, accepted a position at another university conservation lab. While sad to see her go, I’m grateful for all her work while she was here–she established the lab, engaged in many wide-ranging discussions about conservation, and trained Sally Crutcher, Preservation and Binding Assistant.
April: planning and strategizing for the move continued, and preparation of materials for packing started in earnest.
August: Sally was hired as Preservation and Binding Supervisor. She also graduated from OU with her Master’s in Library and Information Science (congrats!).
May to November: we worked with Special Collections on packing, packing, ordering supplies, measuring oversize materials, packing, preparing items for packing, reviewing differently sized items, and more packing! I want to recognize Estefani Mann, a staff member from User Services who was cross-training with us during this time. She was a huge help in not just packing, but her engineering knowledge helped us figure out how to maneuver and pack some of the more large and unwieldy items into boxes. By mid-October, the three of us had basically perfected the book scootin’ boogie and had a new appreciation for the features of packing tape dispensers.
November: Sally packed up the lab in Mullins Library so everything could be moved to the preservation lab at LINX, the library annex and access facility.
Everything from Special Collections–including many large flat files–was successfully moved out of the building by the deadline in November. There were a few bumps along the way, so accomplishing this was definitely a big sigh of relief.
December: we unpacked the lab in its temporary location, and Sally has fit things into a smaller space. (Not to brag or anything, but the New York Times even featured the building and the lab in a recent article!)
January 2023: everyone settled in to their new work spaces. Along with staff from Content Services and Special Collections, I have an office (aka former dorm room) in Gladson-Ripley Hall on campus. With very minimal item repairs happening in 2022, we unsurprisingly have a backlog of items for treatment and repair, and those were sorted and prioritized.
February: Amber Cooper started working with us as the Preservation and Binding Assistant. She’s learned the process of receiving items from and sending items to the commercial bindery. She also began learning basic conservation skills from Sally, and will continue to practice and ramp up those skills over time.
I set up environmental monitoring sensors in Gladson-Ripley Hall. It’s a former dormitory that was constructed of concrete block (maybe in the 1950s or ’60s) and no central air conditioning. Each room has a window air conditioning unit and ceiling fan. Tracking the temperature and relative humidity in a new and different space is important since we have many material types in the building.
March & April: Sally and Amber collected periodicals to ship to the bindery, and processed the Fine Arts Library periodicals that were our first shipment since we put a hold on binding for the move last year.
We most often have books come through the lab for treatment, but have seen a variety of items lately, including film reels with vinegar syndrome, documents with pest remnants that need cleaning, vinyl records with mildew, and a poster for a psychedelic rock band that needs flattening.
Going forward: Mullins Library renovations are scheduled for completion in June 2024, so we’ll be working from our temporary locations for a bit longer. More regular updates on what we’re up to will come throughout the year!