About the Lab

The Conservation Lab is responsible for book and paper repair, preparing items for exhibition, and constructing protective enclosures for rare and fragile materials. The lab conserves items from the following departments:

Teaching and Continuing Education 

	The  video production phase of the Preservation Training Initiative, a project funded by IMLS. View our seminar about mold in libraries and museums

Lab staff answer daily inquiries from other institutions and the general public about conservation and preservation issues. Conservation lab employees also train student interns and staff members.

Holly Herro and Phu Nguyen taught SLIS 797H, Preservation Applications, for the School of Library and Information Science in Spring 2006. Holly has also taught continuing education courses for the library school. These include general collection book repair, book repair for media specialists, construction of simple enclosures, and matting and framing.

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Conservation Resources

The lab has a collection of conservation and preservation resources, most of which was donated by Dr. Henry Grunder, retired from the Library of Virginia. This non-circulating library includes items on conservation techniques, history of the book, and several years worth of various conservation and preservation serials.

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Workshops 

	Hugh Phibbs from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
	Stuart Brockman from the United Kingdom teaching a Gold Finishing Course.

The lab has offered workshops to professionals in the state of South Carolina and throughout the South. Past workshops include book conservation techniques with Bill Minter in 2000, matting techniques with Hugh Phibbs of the National Gallery of Art in 2001, and Stuart Brockman, who taught gold finishing techniques to conservators, staff, and University students in 2006.

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Treatments Performed 

Interior of the conservation lab

The lab performs many types of treatments. These include:

• Full conservation of:
  • books with leather, cloth, and paper bindings.
  • flat paper items such as:
    • manuscripts
    • maps
    • architectural drawings
• Enclosures such as:
  • matting and framing
  • polyester encapsulation
  • box construction
  • exhibit mounts

Kristi Wright uses the Zeiss Stereo Microscope while working on a watercolor.

Laboratory Equipment 

Some of the equipment used for treatments in the lab includes:

• Bill Minter Ultrasonic Welder
• Two Fume Hoods
• Large suction table
• Stealth Sucker
• Deionized water system with the capability to heat water and adjust the pH as necessary
• Zeiss Stereo Microscope
• Approximately 300 gold finishing tools
• Guillotine
• Kensol press
• Drill press
• Vaggelli board shear
• Job Backer
• Leafcaster
• Portable fume extractor
• Donaldson dust extractor

Links