So, what exactly is preservation? And is it the same as restoration and conservation? Despite how often the terms preservation, conservation, and restoration and used interchangeably, they are different.
Preservation actions deter future damage to materials.
Conservation actions deal with current damage.
Restoration actions attempt to return an item to its original state through invisible repairs.
Preservation actions include things like rehousing, building enclosures, and environmental monitoring. Conservation actions include paper mending and repairs, and stabilizing items. Restoration of items can include actions like book rebinding and restoring color and paint in artwork.
At UNT, our Preservation Unit mostly does preservation actions, creating enclosures and safe spaces for our collection materials. Occasionally, we will do some basic conservation like paper mending, but the golden rule we always follow when working directly on collection materials is IT MUST BE REVERSIBLE.
Out of the various enclosure types we build here at Special Collections, the clamshell is the most time-consuming. It is therefore also selected rather sparingly. Traditionally, we use it for books of high value that warrant a visually-appealing enclosure. Although it is very protective, it is just slightly more protective than a heavyweight phasebox. For context, it takes about 30 minutes to build a heavyweight phasebox. It takes about 5 hours, uninterrupted, to make a clamshell.
In late-July/early-August, I was tasked with making three clamshells. Now, at the end of August, I can say that I have made six. That is a lot of clamshells! Did I have to? No. Nonetheless, this month in the Preservation Lab I have had several marvelous artists’ books and an artbook land on my shelf, and I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to spend a whole week making clamshells.
Pssst… pssst… I also couldn’t pass up this opportunity to explain the difference between artists’ books and artbooks. An artists’ book is a book that is a piece of art while an artbook is a printed selection of an artist’s works. Took me a while to know which one was which. It kinda sounds like it should be the other way around…
Mexican Punitive Expedition diaries by George Burt Lake
Here are three clamshells made by my talented preservation assistant, Natalie, and myself. The clamshells contain a three volume series of diaries written by George Burt Lake during the Mexican Punitive Expedition (a.k.a. the Pancho Villa Expedition or the Mexican Expedition). The goal of this almost year long expedition spanning from March 1916 to February 1917 was to capture the Mexican revolutionary Francisco “Pancho” Villa in retaliation for a previous attack on Columbus, New Mexico led by his revolutionary forces.
I had three main considerations for the creation of these three clamshells. The three clamshells had to be somewhat reminiscent of the book’s colors, the first volume had to have additional protection due to it coming unbound and having red rot, and, since the books will all live aside one another, I wanted to create a slipcase for them to live in.
Rather than following instructions for the creation of a slipcase, I figured, “Well, I know what a slip case looks like! I can just make one.” Was that true? Somewhat. Was it the best choice? Certainly not. While the slipcase works, the processes of lining it with fabric and finding the accurate dimensions for the inside space had too much trial and error for my taste. If you look at the sides of the case, you can see that I had to add in additional boards to take up more space.
Next time, I will be following instructions for creating a slipcase, and I will also ensure that all clamshells in the slipcase will have the same exterior dimensions so they all fill the space equally. Despite difficulties in this process, this sparked some desire to continue making clamshells.
Lucky for me, two weeks later we received a large order of artists’ books from Passages Bookshop, and all of them needed enclosures…
Artists’ Books Clamshells
As you can see, these books vary quite drastically in shape, size, and materials used for their construction. The book on the bottom right is a classic hardcover book, while the other two books have unique wooden cover material. Not to mention, one of them is not rectangular!
All but one of these clamshells were created without issue. If you look to the right side of the last clamshell, you can see that I added in two additional pieces of board to take up excess space. Nonetheless, I think it still turned out quite nice.
Furthermore, I have recently gotten quite obsessed with creating custom labels for our clamshells. This process entails using our foil letterpress machine to press hot metal letters onto a piece of metallic foil. The combination of the foil with pressure and heat transfers the letters onto the material. This takes some trial and error. I typically print the same thing a few times on a single sheet of book cloth or buckram before deciding which one looks best. After that, I cut out the winner and create a border around it.
Large Artbook Clamshell
Finally, to end this saga of rapid clamshell creation, I made an oversized clamshell for a book of photography by Ian van Coller titled Interior Relations. Both miniature and large items alike generate similar levels of increased difficulty when building preservation enclosures. Special considerations must be made, and measurements become much harder to accurately take. It is also quite hard to cut either miniature or large pieces of binders board. It is a Goldilocks situation, a regular-sized book is just right.
Perhaps due to the increased attention I had to pay to making my measurements and cuts, this clamshell ended up fitting the book perfectly. It was, well, just right.
Where can I access these books?
These books, and their clamshells, are all part of UNT’s Special Collections and can be made available by appointment to access at the Sarah T. Hughes Reading Room on the fourth floor of Willis Library. Below, I have provided the links to them through the UNT Discover catalog:
The five main types of enclosures that we build in preservation are: clamshells, lightweight phase boxes, heavyweight phase boxes, four-flaps, and custom boxes. Enclosures are used for various reasons including protecting items from light exposure, keeping out dust and dirt, providing support for warped or brittle items, and isolating items that have received mold treatment or that are displaying red rot in their own environment.
Clamshells are customarily built for our rare books. These types of enclosures are custom built out of board, PVA glue and book cloth. To see some images of clamshells we’ve built, take a look at some of our Custom Clamshell blog posts! Lightweight phase boxes are made of heavy-weight folder stock, double-sided tape and Velcro.
Heavyweight phase boxes are made of barrier board, PVA glue and Velcro. They are constructed the same way as a lightweight phase box, but is made of a thicker and sturdier material, providing a little more structural support.
We utilize both pre-made or custom built four flaps for items. They are made of heavy-weight folder stock, double sided tape, book tape, and barrier board.
Custom boxes are exactly what they sound like, boxes that are made custom for the item! They are made of corrugated board and PVA glue and sometimes if items are especially fragile, they are lined with polyethylene foam.
One small detail in the movie Nine to Five created an indelible link between two remarkable women; renown entrepreneur Bette Nesmith Graham, and world-wide celebrity Dolly Parton.
The Liquid Paper Company was founded in 1958 by Bette Nesmith Graham, a secretary who identified a need for easily correcting mistakes on typed documents. By 1969 the Liquid Paper Company was a multi-million dollar company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, but Liquid Paper found a new level of success in the hands of Dolly Parton.
This article from the October 1980 issue of Letter Perfect, the Liquid Paper Company newsletter, describes how producers for the movie Nine to Five used Liquid Paper to ensure that the office setting in the movie felt authentic to the time period. In the publicity still from the article Liquid Paper is featured prominently on Dolly Parton’s desk proving that it was something no office could be without.
There are three key benefits to mending torn documents and prints.
The first, and perhaps most important from a preservationist’s perspective, is preventing future damage. If paper is torn, then it is only easier to tear it more when handling, even if one is to handle it carefully. Through paper mending, these weak points are reinforced and future damage is halted.
Second, paper mending can improve an item’s practical accessibility. As previously mentioned, one must exercise caution when handling a torn piece of paper, especially if it is embrittled. This often discourages or prevents entirely the handling of these fragile items. Upon mending tears and holes in a piece of paper, it can be picked up and examined closer without fear of causing harm to it. Always exercise caution, of course.
Finally, paper repair can improve the aesthetic presentation of a print or document. If one looks at a beautiful image with a rip through it, one is likely to shift their focus rather fast to the fact that the print is damaged. Paper mending, when done right, minimizes the appearance of tears to the point of their imperceptibility (when observed on the opposite side of the mending).
Guarding with Heat Set Tissue
Guarding is a simple, quick method of paper repair that involves adhering heat set tissue paper to damaged areas of paper. This process of adhering the tissue is done with an iron at around 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and heat can also be used to remove heat set tissue paper if an item needs to be returned to its original state.
The simplicity of heat set tissue paper mending is somewhat evident through its appearance. It typically is a translucent, almost-white color, so it rarely blends nicely with prints that have stood the test of time. Furthermore, it can often loosen through handling, especially if not allowed to rest after its initial application. This can make it somewhat finicky and untrustworthy.
Japanese Tissue Paper Mending
If a print is mended with Japanese tissue paper, it has “made it big.” This time-consuming, but rewarding, process entails tearing strips of Japanese tissue paper and applying them along tears or holes. The tissue is applied using a preservation-friendly reversible adhesive, we at Special Collections opt. for methyl cellulose. It is reversible, a little goes a long way, and it dries clear!
Japanese tissue paper can have very loose fibers. When torn, the frayed edges “melt” into the paper being mended, creating an almost-seamless result. Because of its malleable property, it can be layered to give more reinforcement to areas that need it.
Like heat set tissue paper, Japanese tissue paper also is off-white in appearance, typically contrasting itself from the paper being repaired. Luckily, depending on the thickness used, it can often be translucent enough to be applied over text without affecting legibility. Small, precisely torn pieces also minimize the appearance of the tissue used.
Who Wins?
On paper, no pun intended, Japanese tissue paper mending seems like the clear winner. It can be used precisely to reinforce almost any hole or tear, it blends nicely into surrounding paper, and it can be layered upon to provide varying levels of reinforcement.
Guarding damaged paper with heat set tissue certainly does not have the “oomph” that Japanese tissue paper provides. It does not look as good, nor does it have the same level of strength. Nonetheless, a paper with multiple tears could be repaired with heat set tissue in 30 minutes at most while, on the other hand, the same repairs would likely take twice the time or more with Japanese tissue paper.
As always, the true answer is, “It Depends.” I opted for heat set tissue repairs on the poster because it is large, has several spots of damage, the backside of the poster is blank, and it is a duplicate. The other matching poster was scanned and encapsulated. In this instance, the guarding was only done for the purpose of preventing future damage. The Harper’s Weekly page got the Japanese tissue paper treatment due to it having content on both sides, having long tears and areas that needed more reinforcement than others, and it lacks a duplicate.
Working in an archive, you are bound to come across mold at some point. We want to ensure that mold does not cause health hazards for future researchers viewing the materials, and ensure that it does not spread to other materials in the collection.
When mold is brought to our attention, we immediately isolate the material and place it in vapor sealed (Ziplock) bags. These bags are then placed into a frost-free freezer for at least 3 weeks. We freeze the mold to deactivate it. This will not destroy it, but it will make it much easier to clean and hopefully keep it dormant. After this time, the bag is removed from the freezer and placed into an acclimation chamber (a cooler) where it’s temperature is brought back to room temperature overnight to help prevent condensation buildup. Then cleaning can begin.
When dealing with mold, safety is always the first priority. Mold can cause significant health problems, and we want to ensure anyone working with or around mold is protected. Anyone dealing with mold should be wearing full PPE (Nitrile gloves, N95 mask, goggles, and an apron).
Utilizing a variable suction HEPA vacuum, we place the item under our vent hood and slowly vacuum the entirety of the item with a soft bristled nozzle. If the item is particularly fragile or is a photograph, we place a piece of mesh screen over the item to keep it from getting damaged. After the item is cleaned, we will create an enclosure for it (i.e. phase box, four flap, or encapsulation) with the hope that if the mold ever does reactivate it will be contained to its enclosure.
There are times, however, when the mold is too extensive and dangerous for us to mitigate and clean. To ensure the content of the item survives, we digitize the item, upload it to The Portal to Texas History, deaccession and discard it.
Identifying mold can be tricky if you’ve never had to do so before and sometimes it can be confused for foxing. But what exactly is foxing? Foxing is a deterioration process where impurities in paper (such as iron) oxidize and create brown or rust colored spots. This type of deterioration appears when exposed to certain temperatures and humidity, but it will not spread to other items.1
It is important to distinguish between foxing and mold as one can wreak havoc to other materials in your collection. So, let’s play…foxing or mold???
Example 1
It’s mold!! This image displays very active, thick black mold in the bottom corners of these images. It has a powdery/fuzzy look to it and is bunched up in patches. If you were to swipe a gloved finger over it—I AM NOT CONDONING TOUCHING MOLD—the mold would smear. This will occur with active cases of mold.
Example 2
It’s foxing!! This page in this book does display some round brown spots across the page, but they are not clustered in certain areas and there is nothing raised on the surface of the page.
Example 3
It’s foxing!! The edge of these pages may look suspicious, but they more spread out not raised.
Example 4
It’s mold!! This mold is not nearly as active as the one depicted in the first image, but this is still mold. It is clustered and powdery and has discolored the backing.
Example 5
It’s foxing (and some staining/discoloration)!! This page in this book displays round brown spots across the page. These ones are a little more confined to a certain area, but not in the same way as the mold examples. The large discolored area is from acid migration from the book jacket wrapped around the book.
The characteristics described in this post are things we commonly see when we come across mold, but there are times that we’re not sure if something is mold. If you are unsure something is mold, ask for help or play it safe and treat it as if it is mold. Better safe than sorry!
As north Texas prepares to welcome World Cup fans from around the world, Special Collections will be exhibiting a rare collection of soccer memorabilia. The collection was acquired in 2017 from the daughter of the original coach of the first professional soccer team in Texas, The Dallas Tornado Soccer Club.
Bob Kap was well connected in the soccer world as a sports writer and coach for local and minor league soccer teams in Canada. When he was offered the job to coach the Dallas Tornado, he knew he would need to find a way to generate local excitement and interest in the sport of soccer.
He decided that the Dallas Tornado Soccer Club would embark on a tour around the world, playing against major teams in Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. To ensure that the media understood that this team represented Dallas, they were often seen in their “PR outfit” consisting of a cowboy style shirt, Levi jeans, and often a Stetson hat.
Team members were recruited and trained at the beginning of a whirlwind tour, which took them through 20 different countries over 7 months, and consisted of 45 matches against some of the best and worst soccer teams in the world.
Bob Kap and the Dallas Tornado on the field in Taiwan, 1967.
The Kap Collection contains a wide array of physical artifacts, photographs, documents, and home movies that document the first Dallas Tornado season. With matches in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands, players were constantly travelling, often in places lacking in modern luxuries. They played in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and played matches in extreme heat while touring India.
After his time with the Dallas Tornado Soccer Club, Kap spent time recruiting European soccer players to kick for the National Football League (NFL). He designed a special type of kicking shoe with the laces positioned towards the outside edge of the shoe, so that they did not interfere with kicking. Kap was an avid entrepreneur and sports enthusiast throughout his life, patenting a special type of turf, marketing new sports, and speaking up for women’s rights in the world of sports.
Bob Kap died in 2010, but his legacy lives on in his vast collection of correspondence, memorabilia, photography, and news clippings. Only a fraction of his collection is utilized in this exhibit, to tell a single story in the interesting and exciting life of Bob Kap.
The Lantern Press was a partnership between antiquarian Leon Gelber and businessman Theodore Max Lilienthal in San Francisco. They began their publishing company under the imprint Lantern Press. Many of their editions were printed at Grabhorn Press, beginning with Hildegard Flanner’s A Tree in Bloom and Other Verses (1924).
Author Stella Benson (1892-1933) was an English poet, novelist, and travel writer. Her work, which blended fantasy and reality, is not well known today. her short story The Awakening, was only published once in this limited edition of 500 copies. Artist Donald William McKay (1895-1974) provided the sole illustration in the book.
When a lot of us think of archives, we imagine a dark, dusty corner of a library in a detective show. They sort through boxes of information, thick manila folders of looseleaf paper with financial records or newspaper clippings. After hours of back-bending research they find what they are looking for, some pivotal information that leads to an arrest or major discovery. While this is a reality for a lot of archives (and excitingly so!), there is a more colorful side to these spaces. For a lot of researchers, archives are where they go for inspiration, a trip down memory lane, or simply to look at rare objects they may not come across otherwise. So, what is so special about Special Collections? In this humble student’s opinion, I think it is an opportunity to interact with incredible works of art.
The University of North Texas has been collecting Artist Books since the 1990’s, a feat that has culminated into a really exciting collection. You might be wondering, what is an Artist Book? An artist book is “a medium in which to convey artistic expression using the form and function of a book,” as described by UNT. It is hard to imagine a book as anything other than bound pages with a front and back cover, but amazing artists like Alyssa Berry have imagined it in forms like a VHS tape! The artist book “Movies that Made Me: Vol.1” is one of the many standout creations housed by UNT Special Collections. Not only can you see this Artist Book in person, but you can turn the pages with your own hands. In this way, Archives become an interactive museum. Anywhere else and you’d have an attendant telling you to stand five feet back!
As if the Artist Books were not enough of a draw, UNT has also been working towards creating a Zine Library. Zines are independently published magazines, the creation of which started with science fiction fans in the 30s and 40s, according to the AMON Carter Museum of American Art. UNT’s collection of zines has a wide variety, with topics ranging from trans-allyship to Denton cats and even Bojack Horseman. There’s so much to discover in the 500+ zines housed in the collection!
Archives are special facilities and one like UNT’s is hard to come by. Not only does it house rare materials like medieval manuscripts, Kelmscott Press editions of classic literature, university records, and many other exciting traditional materials, it is a home to many works of art. So, the next time you are asked “what’s so special about special collections?” you’ll have an answer.
