{"id":5579,"date":"2026-10-02T10:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T14:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/?p=5579"},"modified":"2026-10-02T10:00:34","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T14:00:34","slug":"staff-spotlight-jessica-ebert-conservation-technician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/staff-spotlight-jessica-ebert-conservation-technician\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Spotlight: Jessica Ebert, Conservation Technician"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

This year marks Jessica Ebert’s 20th working anniversary at the University of Cincinnati Libraries. Jessica’s career has been one of maximizing on opportunities and learning and growing on the job. She is a vital team member of the Preservation Lab<\/a> and valued colleague to everyone in UC Libraries. She also bakes a delicious cake and creates beautiful pottery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. What is your role in the Preservation Lab? Tell us what you do.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    I am currently an Assistant Conservator in the Lab. As a conservator, I conserve and preserve the special collection materials of UC Libraries and our Third Party clients. I also work with my fellow conservators, Catarina and Ashleigh, to oversee the special collections workflow, attending meetings, determining appropriate treatments and housing solutions and mentoring staff. I am the conservator who oversees our specialized imaging projects, maintains our photographic documentation studio and uploads the Preservation Lab treatment documentation to our digital repository.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I am also currently the student supervisor in the Lab, overseeing our conservation students who perform repairs and create housing for our general circulating collections. I also oversee and maintain the Lab\u2019s Instagram (@thepreservationlab<\/a>) and our YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. Tell us a little about your background. What did you do before coming to UC?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"Staff<\/figure>
      \n

      I started at UC Libraries right after receiving my bachelor’s degree from Xavier University. I honestly didn\u2019t know that conservation was a career path; I lucked into it. I was just looking for a library position, having worked in my high school library and then in the XU library all throughout college. After graduating, I interviewed for a desk supervisor position at the DAAP Library, which was not the right position for me at all, since I hadn\u2019t worked at a desk since high school. I got a call from UC Libraries HR (the wonderfully kind Peggy Welker, I believe) telling me I didn\u2019t get that position, but they had another position that they thought was perfect for me. That position, which I interviewed for and got, was in the Lab (which was called Conservation & Binding, at the time), as a Materials Evaluator, evaluating general circulating collection items for repair. At the time, the Lab didn\u2019t have a conservator and was not doing special collections treatment.\u00a0I then proceeded to grow and learn on the job. I was trained in-house and through external workshops and grew my skills and became what is known in the field as \u201cbench-trained\u201d conservator. I\u2019ve been extremely fortunate throughout my career to have a supervisor who has supported my development and that UC Libraries has funded that development, allowing me to expand and grow my skills, knowledge and expertise over the last (nearly) two decades.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

      <\/div>\n\n\n\n
        \n
      1. You advanced the photography work in the lab. What spurred that on? Was that a passion or skill you had previously, or have you learned on the job?<\/strong>\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

        When our conservator Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer joined the Lab in 2013 she saw that we needed a photographic documentation (or PhotoDoc) studio, and luckily, she had just graduated from a program with the man who literally wrote the book on it<\/a>, Dan Kushel. The plan was to create a PhotoDoc studio and train one of the technicians on it fully, so that they could take over the workflow for special collections. I had a prior interest in photography, but no formal training; but what made me an ideal candidate was my knack for process-oriented, procedural work and problem solving. Ashleigh trained before, during and after PhotoDoc, with the studio that she had put together. Over the years, with our department head Holly Prochaska\u2019s continued support and funding from UC Libraries, I gradually improved our setup, started a blog series called \u201cFun with PhotoDoc\u201d,<\/a> attended additional trainings, including a granted funded RTI training at Yale with Cultural Heritage Imaging<\/a> and UV Fluorescence workshop at Duke University with FAIC<\/a> and streamlined and improved our documentation. I spent over a decade as the PhotoDoc lead, doing all the before and after photography for items in the Lab, and, as of last summer after several months of training, now everyone is doing their own PhotoDoc. It will always hold a special place in my heart, but letting go of PhotoDoc, allows me more time for treatment, which is definitely a plus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

        \"jessica<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
        <\/div>\n\n\n\n
          \n
        1. Can you tell us about one of your favorite projects?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

          This is always such a hard question for me to answer, mostly because I\u2019m so bad at remembering projects that are not right in front of me (I have the worst memory). The book that comes to mind right now is an alchemy manuscript from the Oesper Collection in the History of Chemistry<\/a>. The volume I treated was volume 3 of a three-volume set, while my fellow Assistant Conservator, Catarina Figueirinhas, treated volumes 1 & 2. This volume was fun because it was collaborative, working with and learning from Catarina, and also because it involved resewing the volume and mending the text block in several areas where Iron Gall ink was present, which requires additional levels of caution, as the ink should not come into contact with our standard method of mending, wheat starch paste, due to the moisture content which accelerates the degradation of the corrosive ink. The treatment posed several challenges, but in the end, I like how it turned out. We even made a reel of our sewing process for Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \n
          1. Can you tell us about a memorable project (if not also your favorite)?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

            Since I decided to go with a treatment project on the last question, I\u2019m definitely going<\/a> with a PhotoDoc project on this one…but now I have to pick which one! You\u2019re getting two, because I can\u2019t pick. It\u2019s like choosing between children (or in my case, cats).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \n

            The first was an opportunity in October 2019 to take a medieval choir (undated) from the Classics Library to the UC Medical Center for radiography. After asking various departments around campus about radiography (x-ray) I finally got linked up the Director of Diagnostic Radiology at UC Health, and on October 22nd<\/sup>, Holly, Ashleigh and I took the large volume over to the medical campus for imaging. It was fantastic. We worked with the imaging technician to position the volume and get images of the boards, spine and furniture. And then after the radiography was complete, they asked if we would like to the book in the CT scanner. Well, how could we say no to that?  I wrote a blog post about the experience<\/a>. A huge thank you to the staff at UC Health, they were so wonderful.<\/p>\n<\/div>

            \"Staff<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
            <\/div>\n\n\n\n

            The second project was a collaborative RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging) documentation project across the Atlantic ocean, which I also wrote about on my Fun with PhotoDoc series<\/a>. Emeritus faculty member and collector of Andreas Vesalius texts, Dr. Stephen Joffe and his wife Sandra were preparing to loan a number of their Vesalius volumes to the Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions<\/a> for an upcoming Cecil Striker lecture and accompanying exhibition. Dr. Joffee was interested in a number of the volumes having RTI performed on the covers, however, the volumes were in their home in Scotland, which posed a slight problem. While I would have loved to go to Scotland to do RTI, it was 2021, and that still wasn\u2019t safe or practical. Instead, I virtually met with a Scotland-based photographer, Iain McLean who had worked with the Joffes in the past, but who had never done RTI before and I walked him through the process. After some document creations and sharing, a Zoom meeting with Iain, a test run with Iain and his assistant photographer, John Linton, a quality control check on my end of their work, and another Zoom to discuss the results of the test run, Iain and John were ready to complete 14 captures sessions on seven volumes (front and back covers of each). Once they completed the capture of the seven volumes, they sent me the raw files, which I processed and shared out. It was such a beautifully collaborative experience and Dr. Joffe was so pleased with the results!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

              \n
            1. Can you tell us about a challenge you faced on the job and how you faced it? (I know it sounds like a job interview question, but I’m really interested)<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

              I think conservation in general is full of little challenges, whether it is problem solving a treatment or housing solution or something that did not go as planned, or responding to a water emergency or mold discovered in the stacks. But I find that lately, one of the things we are facing is resources. Over the last 5-10 years, many of the companies and vendors we used for conservation and preservation materials are no longer around, and the field in general is finding it harder and harder to find cost effective archival materials. Again, we have been fortunate that UC Libraries has supported us financially as the cost of preservation materials has risen over the last decade, but sourcing quality materials becomes harder and harder every year. We continuously collaborate and reach out with other colleagues in the field and try to support our favorite smaller vendors that are still around, but it has been a challenge and I fear it is one that we will continue to face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                \n
              1. What’s something about the lab that would surprise people?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

                I think some people (though definitely not our curators or anyone who reads our blog or follows us on Instagram) might be surprised that for a library conservation lab (aka a book & paper lab) we deal with a lot of non-book\/paper related items! We obviously have photographs in our special collections and diplomas, but we also have some rather strange items that often throw us for a loop. Things like, a polio leg brace<\/a>, a nurse’s uniform<\/a>, various statues<\/a>, huge clay tablets<\/a> and oozing maquettes of a former president<\/a>. Luckily, most of the time these objects come in as storage projects, however, whether they come in for storage, or, in the case of the Taft maquette, in need of treatment, they often require a good bit of problem solving, research and sometimes require us to reach out to specialty conservators in the field such as an objects, textile or photograph conservator for guidance and advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                  \n
                1. You’ve worked at UC Libraries for 20 years, what’s the biggest change you’ve seen?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
                  \"Staff<\/figure>
                  \n

                  When you work in the basement, which is where the Lab is located, you often feel like you work in a bubble, which has its pros and cons. One of the cons is you miss a lot of the day-to-day that is going on in the Libraries, but one of the positives, is you tend to just put your head down (and put on a good podcast) and focus on your work. So, for me, the thing that has changed the most in the last 20 years, hands-down, has been the Lab. When I started, it was Conservation & Binding. I was just a materials evaluator and we were only working on UC\u2019s general circulating collection items, and maybe an occasional box for a special collections item. Along the way, I was promoted to a conservation technician, which meant I got to start repairing items, which was really exciting, because I love working with my hands.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

                  <\/div>\n\n\n\n

                  Then in 2012 we formed our 13 year-long collaboration with the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library. As part of this collaboration, we gained a full-time conservator position and began treating special collection items, which was huge. Then in 2014, I became the PhotoDoc Technician, and then in 2015 the man who trained me on general collections repair and the student supervisor of the Lab, Pat Schmude, retired and I became student supervisor. \u00a0The Lab continued to grow and expand throughout all of this, taking down walls and adding bench spaces, built by our wonderful UC Carpenters and funded by our amazingly supportive Library Administration. We added equipment and staff, and continued to change and expand our skills and services we could provide to our clients. In 2024, 17 years after I started working at UC Libraries, I was promoted to assistant conservator after a lot of hard work and invaluable training. And then in 2025, we moved to a regional model, providing third party conservation and preservation services to cultural heritage institutions for a fee. None of the last 20 years could have been possible without the guidance, support and fervor of my supervisor and our department head, Holly Prochaska. She has always advocated for us and pushed us forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                    \n
                  1. What is your hope for the lab in the next 20 years?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

                    Well, I will be happily retired by then. But I hope that the Lab will continue to serve UC Libraries and the broader Ohio community as a regional lab. We do so much great work and we have come so far, I would love to see us expand and grow. I have spent this past year on the leadership of the Ohio Preservation Council as co-chair for Education and Programming, and I think the Lab can offer so much knowledge and guidance to smaller institutions and historical societies across the state, and it has been a pleasure experiencing that firsthand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                    For more about the Preservation Lab, visit their website<\/a>, read their blog<\/a> and follow them on Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                    This year marks Jessica Ebert’s 20th working anniversary at the University of Cincinnati Libraries. Jessica’s career has been one of maximizing on opportunities and learning and growing on the job. She is a vital team member of the Preservation Lab and valued colleague to everyone in UC Libraries. She also bakes a delicious cake and creates beautiful pottery. I am currently an Assistant Conservator in the Lab. As a conservator, I conserve and preserve the special collection materials of UC Libraries and our Third Party clients. I also work with my fellow conservators, Catarina and Ashleigh, to oversee the special collections workflow, attending meetings, determining appropriate treatments and housing solutions and mentoring staff. I am the conservator who oversees our specialized imaging projects, maintains our photographic documentation studio and uploads the Preservation Lab treatment documentation to our digital repository. I am also currently the student supervisor in the Lab, overseeing our conservation students who perform repairs and create housing for our general circulating collections. I also oversee and maintain the Lab\u2019s Instagram (@thepreservationlab) and our YouTube channel. I started at UC Libraries right after receiving my bachelor’s degree from Xavier University. I honestly didn\u2019t know that conservation was a career path; I lucked into it. I was just looking for a library position, having worked in my high school library and then in the XU library all throughout college. After graduating, I interviewed for a desk supervisor position at the DAAP Library, which was not the right position for me at all, since I hadn\u2019t worked at a desk since high school. I got a call from UC Libraries HR (the wonderfully kind Peggy Welker, I believe) telling me I didn\u2019t get that position, but they had another position that they thought was perfect for me. That position, which I interviewed for and got, was in the Lab (which was called Conservation & Binding, at the time), as a Materials Evaluator, evaluating general circulating collection items for repair. At the time, the Lab didn\u2019t have a conservator and was not doing special collections treatment.\u00a0I then proceeded to grow and learn on the job. I was trained in-house and through external workshops and grew my skills and became what is known in the field as \u201cbench-trained\u201d conservator. I\u2019ve been extremely fortunate throughout my career to have a supervisor who has supported my development and that UC Libraries has funded that development, allowing me to expand and grow my skills, knowledge and expertise over the last (nearly) two decades. When our conservator Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer joined the Lab in 2013 she saw that we needed a photographic documentation (or PhotoDoc) studio, and luckily, she had just graduated from a program with the man who literally wrote the book on it, Dan Kushel. The plan was to create a PhotoDoc studio and train one of the technicians on it fully, so that they could take over the workflow for special collections. I had a prior interest in photography, but no formal training; but what made me an ideal candidate was my knack for process-oriented, procedural work and problem solving. Ashleigh trained before, during and after PhotoDoc, with the studio that she had put together. Over the years, with our department head Holly Prochaska\u2019s continued support and funding from UC Libraries, I gradually improved our setup, started a blog series called \u201cFun with PhotoDoc\u201d, attended additional trainings, including a granted funded RTI training at Yale with Cultural Heritage Imaging and UV Fluorescence workshop at Duke University with FAIC and streamlined and improved our documentation. I spent over a decade as the PhotoDoc lead, doing all the before and after photography for items in the Lab, and, as of last summer after several months of training, now everyone is doing their own PhotoDoc. It will always hold a special place in my heart, but letting go of PhotoDoc, allows me more time for treatment, which is definitely a plus. This is always such a hard question for me to answer, mostly because I\u2019m so bad at remembering projects that are not right in front of me (I have the worst memory). The book that comes to mind right now is an alchemy manuscript from the Oesper Collection in the History of Chemistry. The volume I treated was volume 3 of a three-volume set, while my fellow Assistant Conservator, Catarina Figueirinhas, treated volumes 1 & 2. This volume was fun because it was collaborative, working with and learning from Catarina, and also because it involved resewing the volume and mending the text block in several areas where Iron Gall ink was present, which requires additional levels of caution, as the ink should not come into contact with our standard method of mending, wheat starch paste, due to the moisture content which accelerates the degradation of the corrosive ink. The treatment posed several challenges, but in the end, I like how it turned out. We even made a reel of our sewing process for Instagram. Since I decided to go with a treatment project on the last question, I\u2019m definitely going with a PhotoDoc project on this one…but now I have to pick which one! You\u2019re getting two, because I can\u2019t pick. It\u2019s like choosing between children (or in my case, cats). The first was an opportunity in October 2019 to take a medieval choir (undated) from the Classics Library to the UC Medical Center for radiography. After asking various departments around campus about radiography (x-ray) I finally got linked up the Director of Diagnostic Radiology at UC Health, and on October 22nd, Holly, Ashleigh and I took the large volume over to the medical campus for imaging. It was fantastic. We worked with the imaging technician to position the volume and get images of the boards, spine and furniture. And then after the radiography was complete, they asked if we would like to the book in the CT scanner. Well, how could we say no to that?  I wrote a blog post about the experience. A huge thank you to the staff at UC Health, they were so wonderful. The second project was a collaborative RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging) documentation project across the Atlantic ocean, which I also wrote about on my Fun with PhotoDoc series. Emeritus faculty member and collector of Andreas Vesalius texts, Dr. Stephen Joffe and his wife Sandra were preparing to loan a number of their Vesalius volumes to the Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions for an upcoming Cecil Striker lecture and accompanying exhibition. Dr. Joffee was interested in a number of the volumes having RTI performed on the covers, however, the volumes were in their home in Scotland, which posed a slight problem. While I would have loved to go to Scotland to do RTI, it was 2021, and that still wasn\u2019t safe or practical. Instead, I virtually met with a Scotland-based photographer, Iain McLean who had worked with the Joffes in the past, but who had never done RTI before and I walked him through the process. After some document creations and sharing, a Zoom meeting with Iain, a test run with Iain and his assistant photographer, John Linton, a quality control check on my end of their work, and another Zoom to discuss the results of the test run, Iain and John were ready to complete 14 captures sessions on seven volumes (front and back covers of each). Once they completed the capture of the seven volumes, they sent me the raw files, which I processed and shared out. It was such a beautifully collaborative experience and Dr. Joffe was so pleased with the results! I think conservation in general is full of little challenges, whether it is problem solving a treatment or housing solution or something that did not go as planned, or responding to a water emergency or mold discovered in the stacks. But I find that lately, one of the things we are facing is resources. Over the last 5-10 years, many of the companies and vendors we used for conservation and preservation materials are no longer around, and the field in general is finding it harder and harder to find cost effective archival materials. Again, we have been fortunate that UC Libraries has supported us financially as the cost of preservation materials has risen over the last decade, but sourcing quality materials becomes harder and harder every year. We continuously collaborate and reach out with other colleagues in the field and try to support our favorite smaller vendors that are still around, but it has been a challenge and I fear it is one that we will continue to face. I think some people (though definitely not our curators or anyone who reads our blog or follows us on Instagram) might be surprised that for a library conservation lab (aka a book & paper lab) we deal with a lot of non-book\/paper related items! We obviously have photographs in our special collections and diplomas, but we also have some rather strange items that often throw us for a loop. Things like, a polio leg brace, a nurse’s uniform, various statues, huge clay tablets and oozing maquettes of a former president. Luckily, most of the time these objects come in as storage projects, however, whether they come in for storage, or, in the case of the Taft maquette, in need of treatment, they often require a good bit of problem solving, research and sometimes require us to reach out to specialty conservators in the field such as an objects, textile or photograph conservator for guidance and advice. When you work in the basement, which is where the Lab is located, you often feel like you work in a bubble, which has its pros and cons. One of the cons is you miss a lot of the day-to-day that is going on in the Libraries, but one of the positives, is you tend to just put your head down (and put on a good podcast) and focus on your work. So, for me, the thing that has changed the most in the last 20 years, hands-down, has been the Lab. When I started, it was Conservation & Binding. I was just a materials evaluator and we were only working on UC\u2019s general circulating collection items, and maybe an occasional box for a special collections item. Along the way, I was promoted to a conservation technician, which meant I got to start repairing items, which was really exciting, because I love working with my hands. Then in 2012 we formed our 13 year-long collaboration with the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library. As part of this collaboration, we gained a full-time conservator position and began treating special collection items, which was huge. Then in 2014, I became the PhotoDoc Technician, and then in 2015 the man who trained me on general collections repair and the student supervisor of the Lab, Pat Schmude, retired and I became student supervisor. \u00a0The Lab continued to grow and expand throughout all of this, taking down walls and adding bench spaces, built by our wonderful UC Carpenters and funded by our amazingly supportive Library Administration. We added equipment and staff, and continued to change and expand our skills and services we could provide to our clients. In 2024, 17 years after I started working at UC Libraries, I was promoted to assistant conservator after a lot of hard work and invaluable training. And then in 2025, we moved to a regional model, providing third party conservation and preservation services to cultural heritage institutions for a fee. None of the last 20 years could have been possible without the guidance, support and fervor of my supervisor and our department head, Holly Prochaska. She has always advocated for us and pushed us forward. Well, I will be happily retired by then. But I hope that the Lab will continue to serve UC Libraries and the broader Ohio community as a regional lab. We do so much great work and we have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[240,239],"tags":[215,56,218],"class_list":["post-5579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-volume-25-issue-1","category-volume-25","tag-enrich-our-collections","tag-staff","tag-the-preservation-lab"],"gutslider_comments":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5579"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5617,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5579\/revisions\/5617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}