Oh the weather outside is frightful....

..but the fire is so delightful...and since we've no place to go,
Let it snow Let it snow Let it snow!

Yes those winter days will soon be upon us.  What better way to prepare for the fun of the season than to sit down with a delightful book about the beloved Santa Claus.

This wonderful book was sent to the Conservation Lab for restoration and  received some much needed care and adoration.

 

The front cover board was broken. The text block had fallen from its casing. The endpapers had suffered the wear and tear from delighted hands who rifled through its lovely pages. 

 

Spine was split

Spine reattached with Japanese Paper and endpapers restored.

 



The book was given careful treatment and reconstruction and looks close to its original state.

So as our days move into the restful peace of autumn and towards winter be sure to pick up a good book and enjoy that tactile pleasure of the printed page.  This volume from Special Collections may now rest easier within its newly restored covers.  

OH THE IRONY

In pursuit of Preservation information, a recent patron applied tape to the pages in order to then underline what they deemed significant passages.

TAPE.

Was this to protect the paper?  We don't know.  We do appreciate they did not want to actually write on the page itself, it not being their personal book, but tape is just as harmful to the printed page, if not more damaging.





Pressure sensitive adhesive materials leave a residue and cause the deterioration of the fibers in paper.  These include all variety of sticky notes and every kind of tape, even if the manufacturer has marketed it as a repair material.

Tape is tape is tape...
and will ultimately cause harm to those special materials you are trying to preserve.
(We recommend using thin Japanese paper and rice starch or wheat starch paste to repair torn pages.)

Luckily, after some careful use of tools, we were able to remove this harmful material from the book's pages.  This time...