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Conservation Lab

Conservation Lab

In the Conservation Lab of Stanford University Libraries, every story has a happy ending.

Each story begins with the arrival of a university treasure – a rare book, map, serial or manuscript that needs repair, or a one-of-a-kind object that needs a custom-made box.

Like all artisans, Stanford's conservators have a deep appreciation and respect for precious objects rare to modern, from a first edition On the Origin of Species published in London in 1859, to a small white plastic robot named "Andy" produced in Silicon Valley in 1985.

When damaged items arrive at the Conservation Lab, which is part of the Preservation Department and is located in Redwood City, Calif., conservators carefully assess each item's individual needs – with the goal of keeping as much of its original material as possible.

Repairing a prized item from one of Stanford's Special Collections is hands-on work that requires patience, close attention to detail and a deft hand with a needle, scalpel, art brush, bone folder and scissors.

When a valuable object needs a box in which it can be safely stored, displayed and removed by students and scholars for study, conservation technicians design and build custom cases using archival materials.

No matter what the project, their goal is to ensure that precious objects in the rich and varied constellation of Special Collections will be accessible to Stanford students and scholars – and to researchers from around the world – for generations to come.

Photography by L.A. Cicero

Text by Kathleen Sullivan

Debra Fox, paper conservator, (left) and Kristen St. John, head of conservation services, examine a map of the North Pacific Ocean made in 1853.

On the Origin of Species

A first edition On the Origin of Species arrived at the Conservation Lab with its textblock – composed of 502 pages – detached from its green cloth cover. Written by Charles Darwin, it is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. The volume was targeted for repair as part of the "The Summer of Books," a concerted effort to fix texts from Special Collections that are used heavily during the academic year. It departed the lab whole, and ready for a new generation of students.
North Pacific Ocean Map

An 1853 map of the North Pacific Ocean once used for navigating between Asia and the United States arrived in pieces – some parts crushed – and adhered to heavy blue paper. The map was washed to remove the blue paper lining and old adhesive, dried under a sheet of wool felt, then relined. The map departed the Conservation Lab lined with Japanese Kozo paper – handmade paper that is lightweight, flexible and strong – with its tiniest fragments painstakingly reassembled.
The Wasp

An issue of The Wasp, a satirical magazine first published in San Francisco in 1876 that arrived in the Conservation Lab with numerous torn pages, departed with its edges reinforced and tears mended with hand-tinted Japanese paper.
A paper fan

A paper fan made in 1797 that provided satirical advice on morals and manners to women, entitled The Lady’s Adviser, Physician & Moralist or, Half an Hour’s Entertainment at the Expence of Nobody! arrived in the Conservation Lab needing an archival box for storage and display, and an internal design that would allow librarians to easily remove the fan from the box for viewing by scholars.
Andy the Robot

“Andy,” a programmable robot produced in 1985 by a Silicon Valley company, arrived in the Conservation Lab needing a custom-made case for storage and display.
Story Scroll

An early 19th century story scroll comprising 24 hand-colored aquatint etchings, titled Fashion and Folly, or the Buck's Pilgrimage, arrived in the Conservation Lab without its original boxwood case and mechanism for turning the scroll. When the new case – made of archival material – is completed, students will once again be able read the story and enjoy its illustrations by winding the scroll from its original drum over a smooth, foam-lined base using acrylic knobs.

Repairing On the Origin of the Species required taking the entire 150-year-old book apart. Elizabeth Ryan, rare book conservator, repaired torn pages, including the frontispiece, with Japanese kozo paper, which is strong and translucent.

Ryan washes some of the book’s signatures in pH-neutral water so she could remove the brittle and deteriorating adhesive that once held its pages together.

Standing at a sewing frame, Ryan sews the book’s pages back together with unbleached linen thread, guiding the needle through the very same holes created by a London bookbinder in 1859.
Debra Fox, a paper conservator in the Conservation Lab, aligns fragments of the map to ensure that the map is as complete as possible before she lines it with Japanese paper.

Working at a light table, Fox carefully guides the four largest pieces of the map back together, in preparation for lining.

A wooden bowl filled with refined wheat starch paste, which has been used since antiquity as an adhesive for mounting of screens and scrolls. In the background, Fox brushes the back of the map with the paste.

Fox removes a thick sheet of wool felt, which had been placed over the newly relined map to control the rate at which the paper dried.
David Brock, a rare book conservator, examines a damaged page of "The Wasp."

Brock hand tinted pieces of Japanese paper with artist's acrylics to match the warm beige color of the magazine's pages.

Brock rubs the mend with a bone folder to assure good contact between the hand-tinted mend and the magazine page. He adhered them with refined wheat starch paste.
Sarah Newton, a conservation technician, designed and created a new case made of archival board for the fan. The case features an attached display stand that folds up into the lid of the storage box.

The fan, which was made in London, features six black ink engravings, each with its own heading, including “How to fall violently in love,” followed by “A gentle cure for it.”
Sarah Newton, a conservation technician, places “Andy” in the base of the custom-made case she designed and created for the pint-sized robot.

Newton used archival material to create a new case for “Andy,” a robot produced by Axlon, a Sunnyvale, Calif. company founded by Nolan Bushnell, an engineer and entrepreneur often cited as the father of the video game industry.
The hand-colored aquatint strip panorama, made in 1822, is about five inches tall and 20 feet long. Fifty four-line verses appear beneath the images.

Elizabeth Boyne, a conservation technician, designed and produced several models of the original scrolling mechanism in order to reverse engineer a new case for the scroll.