Preservation Services Across Campus: Weissman Preservation Center

A view of a conservation lab with a few people working at their benches.
A view of the WPC lab with people working at their benches.

This series of blog posts highlights the different spaces across the Harvard campus where Preservation Services staff work to preserve and conserve library materials.   

This week’s lab: Weissman Preservation Center! WPC opened on the top floor of 90 Mt. Auburn in March of 2006. It is a purpose-designed space intended to address the care and treatment of rare and unique collections across Harvard Libraries—those that cannot be checked out of the library. The Weissman Preservation Center is named after Harvard alumni Paul Weissman and his wife Harriet, who have been committed supporters of our work and our staff for decades.  

A person cleaning a photograph with a small fume hood trunk above.   A person working on a small parchment object at his bench.
Conservator Amanda Maloney cleaning a photograph (L) and conservation technician Bill Hanscom mending tears in a parchment deed (R).

The lab houses conservation interns, conservation technicians, and conservators across three disciplines: books, works on paper, and photographs. With many large collections that come into the lab, we often work as a team which allows us to collaborate and complete projects in a timely manner. This approach also allows us to take advantage of the skills of our staff across many disciplines. On a regular basis, book, paper, and photo conservators work side by side. 

In the lab, we work on objects from across the Harvard Library collections. We do everything from treatment of special collections, preservation reviews, rehousing collections and building custom enclosures, exhibition and loan prep, collection surveys, and digitization prep. 

We are offering a virtual tour of the space with lots of information about our work and a few specific collection items we have worked on. Tour the space on your own here or watch the recording of our guided tour

A person working on a book cover at her bench.    A person working at a microscope.
Conservator Amanda Hegarty working on a book cover at her bench (L) and conservator Kelli Piotrowski consolidating a watercolor painting under the microscope (R).

Two people standing behind a table filled with Tibetan and Mongolian materials.
Book conservation intern Rachel Bissonnette (L) and paper conservator Debora Mayer (R) preparing Tibetan and Mongolian materials for a class visit.

Two people standing at a work bench discussing a book.  
Book conservators Katherine Beaty (L) and Catherine Badot-Costello (R) discussing the treatment of a book for exhibition.

 A group discussing different options for housing a large collection of tintypes.
A group discussing different options for housing a large collection of tintypes.