{"id":344,"date":"2013-07-03T20:21:20","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T20:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/thepreservationlab\/?p=344"},"modified":"2013-07-03T20:21:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T20:21:20","slug":"changes-in-best-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/thepreservationlab\/2013\/07\/changes-in-best-practices","title":{"rendered":"Changes in Best Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the best parts of the formation of our joint lab was the addition of a full time conservator.\u00a0 The University of Cincinnati lab had been performing a variety of conservation repairs or mends on general collection items for years.\u00a0 Tip-ins, tears, tape removal, sewing and spine repairs were all familiar types of mending to those of us who had been working in the existing UC lab.\u00a0 But when our joint lab began and our new conservator, Kathy Lechuga, started we quickly began to see that not all our repairs or mends were up to par.\u00a0 Kathy had a vast knowledge of conservation, including best practices that were more up-to-date.\u00a0 Even straight forward repairs like spine repairs (or re-backs) that haven\u2019t changed much in the last 30 years needed some minor tweaking.\u00a0 But one repair stuck out as needing a major update, a paper hinge repair we had been doing for years and years.
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\u00a0When it was originally created this paper hinge was remarkable.\u00a0 It could take a book where the textblock had broken away from the cover either partially or completely and with little time or money the book was in one piece again.\u00a0 Using two pieces of paper cut to the height of the textblock, the first sheet would cover the spine and then lay over onto the textblock, about 1\/2 inch, with a beveled edge to prevent a clear break line.\u00a0 The second piece of paper would also wrap around the spine (adhered to the first) and the rest would be laid down onto the inside of the cover.\u00a0 The paper hinge was quick and inexpensive, but as we would learn from Kathy, not very effective in the long run and not of the current best practice.
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\"An<\/a>

An example of a completed paper hinge repair.<\/p><\/div>
\nWe had wondered for some time whether there was something out there that was newer and better, that would last longer and not fail as quickly, but without the knowledge of a better repair there was little us conservation technicians could do on our own.\u00a0 Recently, I was evaluating a UC general collections item that had previously received this paper hinge repair.\u00a0 It had received a \u201ctype II\u201d paper hinge, which means it had been broken at the front and back.\u00a0 The paper hinge was far too stiff and rigid for the relatively thin textblock paper and overtime the textblock broke in two new spots.\u00a0 So, once again, we were left with a textblock that was completely separated from its cover.\u00a0 Now the only logical course of action for us, taking into consideration time and cost and the fact that it was an adhesive bound book, was to remove the paper hinge and send the book to our commercial bindery to be rebound.\u00a0 Since it was adhesive bound and the individual pages could be removed I decided to float off the old paper hinge a water bath.
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\"After<\/a>

After a little more than 5 minutes in the water bath the original paper hinge popped right off. While the repair is not the current best practice for reattaching the textblock to its case, it was always performed using quality, archival materials that could be removed, if need be.<\/p><\/div>
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\nWe no longer perform this type of paper hinge repair.\u00a0 When Kathy arrived she immediately explained to us why this hinge repair was out of date, that it placed most of the strain on the pages rather than on the spine.\u00a0 And then she introduced us to the cloth hinge, a current best practice in many conservation circles.\u00a0 Using cambric as an inexpensive but effective reinforcing material, we learned to attach the cloth to the spine and then place it under the lifted pastedowns.\u00a0 Since the cloth hinge is independent of the paper, the weight of the book now rests on the boards and the spine (see below).
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\"Left:<\/a>

Left: The cloth hinge is adhered to the spine of the textblock and then the flap is adhered directly to the board, underneath the lifted pastedown. Right: When the pastedown is laid back down only a small portion of the hinge is visible.<\/p><\/div>
\nThe cloth hinge has new become a staple in our list of general collection repairs we perform.\u00a0 Its durability is outstanding.\u00a0 And while it takes just a tad more time than the paper hinge repair we were doing, it is definitely worth the effort.\u00a0 In some cases, especially with oversized coffee table books, the cloth hinge actually makes the book infinitely stronger than it ever was before\u2026just like us.\u00a0 Before our joint lab was formed the UC lab was functioning and repairing books, but our knowledge of current best practices was stunted.\u00a0 But now!\u00a0 Now, we are moving forward, learning news techniques with new tools, and we are becoming better and stronger day by day.
\nJessica Ebert — Conservation Technician (UCL)
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One of the best parts of the formation of our joint lab was the addition of a full time conservator.\u00a0 The University of Cincinnati lab had been performing a variety of conservation repairs or mends on general collection items for years.\u00a0 Tip-ins, tears, tape removal, sewing and spine repairs were all familiar types of mending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,1],"tags":[51,65,129,136,171,225],"class_list":["post-344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book","category-collection_care","category-uncategorized","tag-cambric","tag-cloth-hinge","tag-floating-off","tag-general-collection","tag-jessica-ebert","tag-paper-hinge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/thepreservationlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/thepreservationlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/thepreservationlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/thepreservationlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/thepreservationlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/thepreservationlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5691,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/thepreservationlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions\/5691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/thepreservationlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/thepreservationlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/thepreservationlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}