Category Archives: Book

Adapted From the Food Industry: A Handheld Ultrasonic Welder!

Like many tools used in conservation, some of our most useful equipment didn’t begin in the field of conservation. Conservators often adapt tools from other industries for highly specialized preservation work. This ultrasonic welder is one of those examples.

What Is Encapsulation?

Adapted From the Food Industry: A Handheld Ultrasonic Welder!

In conservation, encapsulation is a common preservation method for storing fragile documents or artifacts, such as the dried botanical specimen pictured. The vulnerable item is placed inside a clear sleeve made from polyester film, which supports the object during handling while keeping all of its physical features and information fully visible.

Encapsulation is often confused with lamination, but the two are very different. Lamination uses adhesives or waxes that permanently bond to an object, making it non-archival.  The adhesives and waxes often cause discoloration of the object overtime. Encapsulation uses no adhesive at all. Instead, the polyester film is sealed to itself around the perimeter of the item, leaving the object untouched inside. The process is fully reversible and safe for long-term preservation.

Bill Minter’s Ultrasonic Welder

At the Preservation Lab, we have the luxury of using a specialized ultrasonic welder designed specifically for conservation work. Unlike commercial welders that can require objects to be fed through a machine, this model has a metal tabletop, magnetic blankets, and a movable electronic arm that glides over the object, holding a document secure in place. The settings can be adjusted for speed and weld intensity, making it ideal for creating custom polyester enclosures for flat paper materials without using a traditional heat weld.

This machine was developed by conservator Bill Minter in the 1970s–80s. Existing units are highly sought after by conservation labs, and every time ours needs maintenance, there’s a sense of collective anxiety in the lab. It can still be serviced, but replacement options are limited.

Metal table that's on a tilt that's partially uncovered below a black cover. Green magnetic blankets cover table. At top of table is an arm with a motor, converter and anvil that slides across the top of the table.
Used to create custom polyester sleeves for flat paper items without heat. Unique to the conservation world, this specialized machine was invented by book conservator, Bill Minter.
Metal box with dials and gauges.
Generator with motor/speed control dial
Grey foot pedal resting on the ground, connected to a cord.
Foot pedal to engage and control direction of weld
Metal shims stored on a magnetic mount
Shims to place between horn and anvil to control intensity of weld

Looking for Alternates

Because these conservation welders are increasingly scarce, conservators have been exploring newer options.

  1. In the comments on a 2022 article about creating a spine-pocket wrapper for books with detached spines on the Book and Paper Gathering blog, conservators discuss the use of an HDS portable hand-held ultrasonic spot welder, produced by by Harry Singh in the UK.
  2. Others have recommended the UltraTek 40KHz Hand-Held Welder; however at around $6,000, it remains quite pricey and would require an additional metal base to operate on top of.
  3. A more recent option comes from Museum Services Corporation in the USA, which offers the 1000 Series: MS Handheld Ultrasonic Welder.  It’s a unique model that houses all the components in the handle (no metal base needed), is easily portable – and more affordable at $840!

Museum Services Corporation 1000 Series: MS Handheld Ultrasonic Welder

After spotting this device at an Midwest Regional Conservation Guild Annual Meeting in Columbus, IN, our lab jumped on the opportunity to purchase and test it out.

It comes with two welding wheels: one flat wheel that creates a solid weld line and a slotted wheel that creates a dotted weld line. They are interchangeable in the handle.

Adapted From the Food Industry: A Handheld Ultrasonic Welder!
MSC Handheld Ultrasonic Welder in new enclosure
Adapted From the Food Industry: A Handheld Ultrasonic Welder!
The slotted welding wheel is used in the food industry. It may be worth trying for a more continuous weld (?) but may not be considered as pretty.

Tips For Using the MSC Welder

After some trial and error, a few practical observations emerged:

  • Practice is needed. There is a learning curve to producing a straight and connected weld.
  • The unit has an internal safety timer that automatically stops the weld after a max of 6 seconds.
  • Turning dial fully to right allows the maximum interval between welds.
  • Ensure polyester is clean and dust free before welding.
  • Extend polyester over the edge of the table ~ ½ inch.
  • Use the table edge as a guide to push against while sliding the welder.
  • Hold “stapler” handle with both hands to improve control.  To get a straight weld, move with the handle using your body and arms as a single unit (more like practicing Tai Chi or wheel pottery throwing), rather than moving only one arm along. 
  • Only a light pressure is needed.

It’s always exciting when a new tool expands what’s possible in the lab, especially when it helps bridge a gap left by equipment that is becoming increasingly rare to find and difficult to maintain.

Additional Resources

If you’ve followed our blog, you might recall my earlier post on creating a CoLibri jacket with an encapsulated spine using our CoLibri Cover welding system. 

Now that we have the MSC handheld spot welder, I’m excited to experiment with new enclosure possibilities, such as creating polyester pockets for spines within jackets, like the example shared on the Book and Paper Gathering blog, mentioned above.

I’ve also had success testing out encapsulation possibilities such as the ones we used during our project to encapsulate pages from Althea Hurst’s scrapbook, such as welding Hollytex or paper hinges into the sleeves.

This new welder may also open up interesting applications for polyethylene welding or creating circular welds as well!

Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer – Book and Paper Conservator

Creating a Cradle for Frankenstein

When a copy of Frankenstein: the Man and the Monster came into the lab from CHPL, Catarina asked me to make an enclosure for it – easy enough. What I didn’t imagine was how tricky a book this little can be. This book measured around 6 inches tall by 4 inches wide and maybe a quarter of an inch thick – small, thin, and not very heavy at all. 

The problem wasn’t the box, but the integrated cradle, which is essentially a few pieces of corrugated board adhered together to create a rest so the book can open with less stress on the spine. With a book as small and lightweight as this one, the pages and cover weren’t heavy enough to weigh down the arms of the cradle, therefore I needed to figure out a way to keep the arms of the cradle down so the book could open fully.

To achieve this, I used linen tapes to hold the two halves of the arms together so they stayed firmly down without needing the book to weigh them. The tape on the outer part of the arm is tied into a bow with another piece of tape that is attached to the base of the cradle. 

Corrugated cradle with cloth ties laced through it to tie and keep the cradle open.
Aerial view of a small book strapped in a corrugated cradle.

Furthermore, to keep the cradle from opening too far, I used more linen tapes on the interior of the arms to hold the arms at the exact width I wanted them from the spine of the book. This helped the cradle keep it’s shape, and created tension for the ties.

View of a small book strapped in a corrugated cradle with weights in along the base to hold the cradle in place.

Nicole Browning – Conservation Specialist

A CoLibri Jacket with an Encapsulated Spine

UC Libraries are faced with many books in need repair. Often, books must be thoughtfully housed while they wait their turn for treatment priority.

For books with a detached spine, this option can be challenging to find a solution to prevent the spine from becoming lost or crushed (especially if fragile leather!).

As an alternative to storing a loose spine in a baggy or envelope, or holding the spine in place with a cloth tie, behold a satisfying and easy solution…

…to encapsulate the loose spine in a SCRAP of a polyethylene CoLibri jacket, then attach it to the jacket itself!

This option gives the look and feel of a repaired binding, with none of the work!

Detached spine and book are sitting on the bed of the CoLibri welding machine next to plastic sleeves to use for the jacket.
Cloth covered binding with a fully detached spine ready for a CoLibri jacket

To Encapsulate:

1. First make a polyethylene pocket with the spine inside. Create a pocket taller than the book height. Weld the pocket only on the long sides at this time. Continue to leave the length taller than the book at both the top and bottom. You will weld the head and tail later and will need this length for both welds!

The spine is encapsulated in the polyethylene clear plastic on the long edges. There is excess plastic material at the top and bottom edge where it is not welded.

2. Grab a CoLibri jacket that is larger than the height of the book. Wrap the CoLibri jacket around the book. Take care to make the book squared and centered in the jacket.

The encapsulated spine pocket sits next to the closed book. The book is sitting on top of an un-used CoLibri jacket that is taller than the book.

3. Position the encapsulated spine under the jacket against the spine of the book. Center it and align as close as possible to where it would have once sat.

Book is closed with the jacket wrapped around the book. The encapsulated spine pocket is loosely in place at the spine.

4. Place light weights on the opened covers to help hold the pages upright and prevent the jacket from sliding. Make any last minute spine adjustments at this time.

The book is laid cover side down with the covers opened on each side with bags of weights to hold it in place. The pages are closed, sticking upright with the help of the weights.

5. Weld the jacket at the head to secure the pocket in place.

Book with jacket and spine pocket welded at the top edge. The un-welded bottom of the jacket and pocket protrudes out from below the book in excess.

6. Next, weld the jacket at the fore edges. At this time you can close the book and wiggle the book side to side to also help re-position the spine into place.

7. Weld the CoLibri jacket at the tail. The pocket will now be attached to the top and bottom welds on the jacket!

Book with completed jacket. Book is sitting on the CoLibri welder bed with view of spine.

This solution results in a spine that is safely held to the book during storage without a concern of it becoming lost.  The only way it can become lost is if the jacket is removed from the covers!

Overall view of book with finished CoLibri jacket with encapsulated spine.
Encapsulated spine is securely attached with CoLibri jacket.
Book with front cover opened with view of the spine.
When book is opened, the encapsulated spine pops away from book.

Below are two preventive-conservation treatment reports where this option was successfully utilized for two leather bound books. Click the links to view the reports on the University of Cincinnati’s Digital Resource Commons:

Ashleigh Ferguson Schieszer – Conservator

I Got 99 Problems, but the Lawrence Notebooks Ain’t One: Finishing the Conservation Treatment of 99 Volumes

For the past few years, I have been working on the conservation treatment of the Lawrence Notebooks, a remarkable collection of 99 handwritten volumes created by William J. Lawrence that document his extensive research on the Irish stage from 1630 to 1911. Over many years, Lawrence filled these small, lined notebooks with careful handwriting, news clippings, photographs of actors, typed play transcriptions, and detailed notes on theaters, performances, ticket prices, and even personal anecdotes. Together, the notebooks offer a rich and vivid window into the history of Irish theater and the cultural life of Dublin from the seventeenth through the early twentieth centuries.

A library book truck filled with various small notebooks and conservation boxes.
In 2021, we had already completed 37 of the 99 volumes, and we still have 62 volumes in the Lab.

This project was a collaborative effort and was completed gradually over several years, with individual volumes treated alongside other conservation projects rather than all at once. Our former colleague Chris Voynovich created custom cloth-covered clamshell enclosures for all 99 volumes, while I was responsible for the evaluation and conservation treatment of the notebooks themselves.

Although the Lawrence Notebooks shared a broadly similar format, closer examination revealed subtle but meaningful variations in both their covers and text blocks. Most volumes were small, square notebooks with thin boards covered in cloth or paper covers, in a range of muted colors including red, orange, green, blue, and black. The text blocks were generally composed of one or several gatherings sewn through the fold, with the primary support most often being lined paper.

Overhead of a notebook with a missing corner.
Overhead of a notebook with tape along the spine.
Overhead of a notebook with a shiny red cover.
Overhead of a notebook with a torn cover.
Overhead of a notebook with a black cover and red spine.
Overhead of a notebook with a tan cover.
Overhead view of six notebooks with different covers in their enclosures, with the boxes opened.
Variations in cover materials and colors across the Lawrence Notebooks.

Once all the volumes were received in the lab, each notebook was evaluated for its condition and assigned to one of three categories: good (no treatment required), fair (requiring stabilization), or poor (requiring more extensive treatment). The notebooks showed clear signs of long-term handling and use. Many volumes had weakened or detached covers, some of which had been previously repaired with pressure-sensitive tape. Other common condition issues included broken sewing, tears along the spine folds of the text block pages, and brittle newspaper clippings that had also been repaired with pressure-sensitive tape.

View of a stack of cloth clamshell enclosures, with several opened to show notebooks inside.
Condition evaluation of the Lawrence Notebooks prior to treatment.

When determining the most appropriate conservation treatment for each volume, it was also important to consider their future digitization. Treatments were selected to stabilize the notebooks while ensuring they could be safely opened, handled, and imaged without placing additional stress on the original materials.

Most of my conservation treatment ended up being hours spent removing pressure-sensitive tape, many more hours toning Japanese paper with acrylics for the repair and stabilization of paper covers, along with surface cleaning and a lot of time dedicated to tear repair. 

Japanese paper that has been toned red hanging off the edge of a table to dry.
Toning Japanese paper with acrylics.
Japanese paper that has been toned red with acrylics being lifted off a sheet of polyester film.
Toning Japanese paper with acrylics.
A dry piece of Japanese paper that has been toned red with acrylics next to the original notebook.
Samples of toned Japanese paper next to the original notebooks to show color matching during treatment.
Toned Japanese paper for repair and stabilization next to the respective notebooks.

Completing the conservation treatment of all 99 Lawrence Notebooks marked the end of a project that unfolded slowly over several years. Because the work was done alongside many other conservation projects, progress often happened one volume at a time, making the moment when the final notebook was finished feel especially satisfying.

With treatment complete and each volume now housed in a custom clamshell enclosure, the Lawrence Notebooks are stabilized and better supported for future handling, digitization, and research. While the notebooks still show the signs of long use that make them such compelling working documents, they are now structurally sound and prepared for the next phase of their life in the collection. 

Projects like this reveal how conservation work happens slowly and methodically, often behind the scenes. Completing treatment on all 99 notebooks and seeing them reunited as a stabilized collection reinforces the importance of long-term care in preserving these records of Irish theatrical history for future research and access. 

View of the boxes containing the notebooks lined up on the library shelves.
View of the boxes containing the notebooks lined up on the library shelves.

The Lawrence Notebooks shelves in the Archives and Rare Books Library stacks.

Catarina Figueirinhas – Assistant Conservator

When you THINK you know the difference between handmade and machine-made paper!

We were delighted to have Dr. Cathleen Baker come to UC for 4 days to teach us all about paper, paper making and printing in a collaborative programming and outreach workshop entitled Identification of Western Hand- & Machine-Made Paper, 1750-1900. The workshop included Preservation Lab staff, staff from UC Libraries Archives and Rare Books Library and the Content Services department, and Kathy Lechuga from Signature Conservation.

With Cathy’s teaching and guidance, we soon discovered some of the key characteristics is in handmade paper and how the introduction of machine-made paper just made everything more complicated. Oof, that dandy roller… But it was so exciting to make discoveries in the paper and learn new tips for paper identification. This will be particularly helpful for Preservation Lab staff when we do our examination of items for treatment proposals.

We are all beyond grateful to Cathy for sharing her immense knowledge and expertise with us. We all learned so much about handmade and machine-made paper and printing. Here’s just a taste of the workshop and us examining special collections items from the ARB Library and the Science Library collections:

We also took a field trip to the Cincinnati Type & Print Museum to get a paper understanding of printing. It was a fantastic experience! A big thank you to Gary and his staff for a wonderful time printing and a great tour.

13 people and a baby posing in front of a large wooden printing press.
All participants of the workshop and Cathy posing in front of the Cincinnati Type & Print Museum’s wooden hand press.

Jessica Ebert – Assistant Conservator

A Timeless Tale – How Inscriptions Tell Stories

It’s amazing the different ways books can tell us stories. There’s the obvious: the words that are written on the page and create the story the author wanted to tell. But there’s also what lies beneath the surface — the wear and tear of the book, how it was bound, what materials were used to make it. There’s the outright story a book was meant to share, but there are also context clues, and deeper ways we can dive into the history of a book.

Sometimes, a book just outrightly tells its story through notes left by previous owners. A handwritten message about where it was bought, a book plate of whose library it came from, or an inscription with notable information about damage to the tome are all ways prior owners can document what the book has been through. This latter suggestion is the case for a two-volume set of Cajus Julius Caesar by Georg Brandes.

A Timeless Tale – How Inscriptions Tell Stories
Pictured: volumes I and II of Cajus Julius Caesar.

These books were published in 1925 by the Erich Reiss Verlag publishing house. On the fly leaf of both of these volumes is a handwritten inscription which reads “The water stains in this volume are due to air raid damage. London, 1941.” In graphite. What a big journey for two books, from Berlin, Germany, to London, England, and then to Cincinnati, Ohio!

A Timeless Tale – How Inscriptions Tell Stories
Pictured: inscription in Julius Caesar Volume I.
Inside of both volumes, open to the first blank page, where the inscription is visible on both books.
Pictured: inscriptions in Julius Caesar Vol. I and II
Two volumes stacked on top of each other with the bottom of the text block visible. The text block is stained brown on the lower right corners of both volumes due to water damage.
Pictured above: signs of water damage on the book.

The water damage to the books is there but it isn’t too drastic. There is some obvious staining and cockling to the pages, as well as some warping of the covers. These books were treated with v hinges on the front and back fly leaves to prevent further separation of the cover from the text block and were also put in Colibri covers to help keep them protected on the shelves and during use.

One of the books with the front cover open and the text block under weights while being repaired.
Pictured: both volumes of Julius Caeser being treated with v hinges.

These books needed minimal treatment, and then will return to their home at the Classics library. With some care from the preservation lab, these two volumes can continue to tell their story for years to come.

Nicole Browning — Conservation Technician

Faux Jacket-Sling Hybrid?

I recently created a cloth covered clamshell enclosure for this small leather volume from the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library. The volume has eight full color miniatures which received surrogate photography. The surrogates were printed to roughly 5×7 inches, making them substantially larger than the text, so an insert was created within the cloth clamshell to house the smaller volume.

Cloth clamshell with insert and small book inside
Interior tray of the cloth clamshell enclosure with the surrogates placed on top of the small leather volume housed within the custom insert.
Small book in insert inside of custom box
To build up the enclosure to the size of the surrogates, an insert was created using archival corrugated board covered in Cotlin bookcloth. I lined the portion of the insert where the volume would rest with thin Ethafoam sheeting, so the fragile leather edges wouldn’t be abraded.
Small book in insert inside of custom box. Book is wrapped in a custom polyester wrapper.
To aid in lifting the volume from the enclosure I created a partial polyester wrapper of sorts. Part jacket, part sling. A faux jacket-sling hybrid, if you will?
Book is wrapped in a custom polyester wrapper.
A closer look at the polyester creation, with rounded corners.

Overall, I think it’s a quick and easy solution that could be beneficial in future situations where a simple modification of an existing enclosure is needed, but space within the enclosure is at a premium.

Jessica Ebert – Assistant Conservator

Fun with PhotoDoc – X-rays and CT scans, Oh My!

An alternate title to this blog could be, “That time we X-rayed medieval choir book at the UC Medical Center, and then the pandemic happened I forgot to write a blog post about it”. Oops!

X-ray image of an oversized medieval book

Let’s rewind the story back to mid-2019, when our Associate Conservator, Ashleigh, expressed interest in radiography on a beautiful, oversized choir book from the Classics Library. I, at the time, was the Photographic Documentation Specialist and had never carried out or assisted with any radiography projects, so I was very keen to start reaching out to anyone I could think of on West and East campus who might have access to such equipment. The most logical answer, UC Health, proved to be the winning one when finally the Director of Diagnostic Radiology put me in contact with the Enterprise Director of Imaging, who said yes to my request, and ultimately put me in contact with my main contact for the project, the Radiology Manager at UC Medical Center.

The date was set, October 22, 2019. Ashleigh, Holly and I packed up the heavy, choir book and carefully transported it from West campus to East campus to be imaged. The UC Health staff were beyond friendly, and I think they got a kick out of imaging the oversized leather volume. The technician really worked with us to adjust the intensity of the radiography depending on what we were trying to capture, whether it was the cover, the sewing and the supports, or the illuminated text (which was a little harder to capture with their equipment).

Positioning book for imaging
Aligning the book
Discussing images
Viewing the first images
Staff repositioning book
Positioning the cover
Staff repositioning book and tech positioning equipment
The technician position the equipment for the optimal scan
Viewing x-ray images on screen
Attempting to image the illuminated text
Staff repositioning book
Repositioning the volume
Tech X-raying book
Imaging the spine
Staff repositioning book
Repositioning the volume to image spine

Overall, we discovered…a lot of nails, split thong supports, and on the lower board, four mends to the wooden board that appear to be bracing a split in the wood that is running vertically.

Detail of lower board with cover open
Detail of lower board with cover open
Detail of lower board with cover open
Detail of lower board with cover open
Red arrows indicate metal braces adhered to the wooden boards
The larger red arrows indicate metal braces while the smaller red arrows indicate the crack in the wooden board.
X-ray image of the spine
Image of the spine which allows you to see the split thong supports and you can even see the tattle-tape security strip!

Then following the radiography session, they were kind enough to ask if we would also like to place the volume in the CT scanner. Since the scanner could easily and safely accommodate the volume while keeping it wrapped in foam, we jumped at the chance!

CT imaging tech moving the book into the scanner
Tech scanning the book
"UC Book" on screen being scanned

We received all the imaging files on two CDs from UC Health, and then I went about making heads and tails of it. The radiography images were fairly straightforward. For the most impactful imaging, namely of the spine, upper and lower boards, I created composite images using the panorama feature in Photoshop to merge the images. For example, each cover consisted of four separate images.

With the CT imaging, the CD came with a reviewer software (Sorna) to view the files. Frankly, the CT scans were a little bit harder to comprehend, but nonetheless interesting. Ultimately the CT scanner allows you to view the various materials within the object. Whereas normally for the equipment that was used that would mean bones, organs and tissues, for the choir book that meant metal material like brass, leather, ink and pigment. Within the viewer function there was also an interactive component to the CT data as well, which allowed you to manipulate various levels to see various intensities, but even after a lot of trail and error and experimentation I found it very confusing, though I did get some interesting, and some less impactful, results. Let’s just say, I do not have a future as a CT technician!  I’ll stick to my day job.

  • Still image from CT scan
  • Still image from CT scan
  • Still image from CT scan

Jessica Ebert – Assistant Conservator

Historical Binding Structures with Julia Miller

This week the Preservation Lab and the Archives and Rare Books Library hosted a 2-day workshop with the conservator and book historian Julia Miller. The workshop, Identifying and Describing Historical Binding Structure: A Stacks Appraisal Workshop, provided the Preservation Lab staff, University of Cincinnati Libraries’ (UCL) special collections catalogers, and UCL special collections stewards an opportunity to strengthen their skills of historical binding identification and description. We honed our descriptive skills by examining collections from the Archives and Rare Books Library and models/exemplars from Julia’s personal teaching collection.

Julia Miller is in the fore ground holding a highly decorated book that is read with gold stamping and tooling.
Julia Miller presenting to the Historical Binding Structures class.

Thanks to Julia Miller, one of the most knowledgeable and giving people that we have had the privilege to learn from.

Thanks to Chris Harter for providing access to so many Archives and Rare Book treasures and a wonderful space to learn and collaborate.

Thanks to Catarina Figueirinhas for suggesting the course and being the on-site coordinator and organizer.

Lastly, thanks to University of Cincinnati Libraries for their continued support of staff professional development!

Holly Prochaska [UCL] — Preservation Librarian

Problem Solving: An Exhibition-Style Enclosure for a Collection of Lafcadio Hearn Japanese Bindings

This set of Japanese side-sewn, crepe paper bindings, or Chirimen-bon, came to the Preservation Lab housed in their damaged traditional Japanese wraparound case, known as a maru chitsu. The set belongs to the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library, which has an extensive Lafcadio Hearn collection. This collection of volumes was printed by Hasegawa Takejirō, a Japanese publisher who specialized in books written in European languages on Japanese subjects. The Japanese Fairy Tale Series was one of the more popular series, beginning with six volumes in 1885; though this later collection only has five volumes of fairy tales. Lacadio Hearn was one of the foreign translators employed by T. Hasegawa.

Original enclosure laying on a table
Original enclosure
Five volumes withing the original enclosure, the enclosure is open
Five volumes withing the original enclosure (pictured after treatment)

Due to the high profile nature of Lafcadio Hearn for the library and the beauty of the bindings, the collection is often shown during tours and used for display, however, the crepe paper volumes, while in excellent condition, are extremely floppy, and they are also side-sewn, both factors make them difficult to handle and display. The original enclosure is also very fragile and damaged, and susceptible to further damage if used as an enclosure moving forward. For all these reasons, the curators wanted an enclosure that would not only store the collection long-term, but could also be used for display.

This proved to be a challenge, but a fun one. I started by making a couple of sketches and then a couple of models…

Three models pictured, two are collapsible cradles and one display stand with foam insert
Models – two types of collapsible cradles and one model of the display tray/stand

For the models, I had two main focuses: 1) a collapsible cradle that would house and display one of the volumes, and 2) a display component that would act as a tray or level within the enclosure and house the remaining four volumes, in two stacks of two, side by side.

I will always advocate for making a model if you are trying to work through a new enclosure or adjust an existing enclosure or display piece, like a cradle. For example, I knew that a normal collapsible cradle wasn’t going to fit the bill for these volumes. Instead, I was going to need a stiff, squared off spine piece built into the cradle to help support the bindings’ spines.

Closed collapsible cradle with volume inside
Closed collapsible cradle
Collapsible cradle opened, detailed image showing the spine support piece of the cradle, with volume inside
Supported spine piece
volume sitting in cradle open
Cradle opened
volume sitting in cradle open
Volume displayed

One of the main areas I had to troubleshoot was the display tray, which would house the four remaining volumes. I knew I wanted to create a stand that would basically replicate one side of a collapsible cradle and have a 1/2 inch Plastazote foam insert, which happened to nestle the thickness of two volumes perfectly, that was covered in Tyvek. But I had concerns about gravity and reliability of PVA to hold the foam insert in place overtime. And I wasn’t happy with my initial ideas of how to remove the volumes (and also the original enclosure and collapsible cradle) from the insert(s), which consisted of a tab underneath the volume. It created friction that would ultimately cause damage to the actual volumes.

Ultimately, I am extremely happy with what I came up with. I think it functions very well, and checks all the boxes it needed to check. Safe, secure storage. Elegant display. User-friendly.

Display tray open, with four volumes in it, two volumes are visible and on display
Display stand open
Detail image of the display tray
Display stand closed. A lip was added to support the foam insert overtime
Display tray closed with one set of volumes removed
Display stand closed with one set of volumes removed
two volumes supported by a polyester film sling
Polyester slings were created as a solution for removing items safely and easily from the enclosure

The display stand includes a cloth tape inserted into the boards to keep it from opening too far, a foam insert covered in Tyvek, a lip to support the foam insert overtime, and two polyester film slings to aid in removing the volumes from the foam insert. The polyester slings proved to be an excellent solution for removing all the elements from the enclosure safely and easily.

For those interested in how some of the components were constructed, here are some in-progress images…

Photo showing the display stand being made
Detail of the turn-in for the display stand lip; cut similarly to how we cut our clamshell enclosure tray turn-ins
Photo showing the display stand being made
Detail of the turn-in for the display stand lip; cut similarly to how we cut our clamshell enclosure tray turn-ins
Foam insert being covered in Tyvek
Foam insert, vertical panels covered in Tyvek first
Tyvek cut in preparation for covering the foam
Tyvek sheet cut in preparation for attaching to foam
Tyvek cut in preparation for covering the foam
Tyvek sheet cut in preparation for attaching to foam
Foam insert being covered in Tyvek
Tyvek attached to the front of the foam piece
Tyvek turn-ins cut
Tyvek turn-ins cut

Because of the way the trays/components of the enclosure are constructed, they are actually interchangeable. So if the “lower tray” with the original enclosure and collapsible cradle ends up on top of the display tray/stand, that’s not an issue at all. And there is a 1/4 inch Volara foam piece adhered to the outer tray of the clamshell enclosure, so whatever items are on top will be cushioned by soft foam in the enclosure.

Contents of the enclosure pictured
Lower tray pictured in the enclosure

Get a full tour of the enclosure by watching our reel on Instagram:

Jessica Ebert [UCL] – Assistant Conservator