Guarding the Dazzle of the Past

Inside the four-story, glass-and-concrete building near Harvard Square, past busy coffee shops and restaurants, Harvard social clubs, and a flower store, women and men in white ministered to rare books and unique materials from Harvard Library to save them from the ravages of time.

It was a spring afternoon, and specialists at the Weissman Preservation Center labored with a mix of tenderness and skill at the conservation lab on the fourth floor, where entry is restricted. In one corner, Alan Puglia, senior rare book conservator, was mending tears in a letter book kept by an American diplomat during the years of the American Revolution.

Continue reading the article from the Harvard Gazette here.