Weissman Preservation Center Opens Its Doors

At its annual open house, Weissman Preservation Center staff members shared their work with visitors from across Harvard.

Conservation intern Carolyn Burns talks about consolidating pigments on an illuminated manuscript under the microscope.
Conservation intern Carolyn Burns (R) talks about consolidating pigments on an illuminated manuscript under the microscope.

(Right-click images to view at full size)

Weissman Preservation Center hosted its annual open house on April 9, and as soon as the event began, people flooded into the lab. Over the course of the two-hour open house, close to 100 people from all across the Harvard community came through to see what projects the conservation team is working on.

 

Conservation technician Kathryn Kenney describes work on an oversized Tibetan book from Harvard-Yenching.
Conservation technician Kathryn Kenney describes work on an oversized Tibetan book.
We had a number of physically large collection items out for viewing. Among them were a ledger book from the Barberini family records from Baker Library, weighing about 65 pounds; a mammoth plate daguerreotype from Houghton Library; and a large Tibetan book with lacquer boards from Harvard-Yenching Library. The Tibetan book (left) is getting ready to be fully digitized and then moved to long-term storage at the Harvard Depository. The pages of the book itself weigh 116 pounds, and about 100 hours of work have gone into cleaning and restacking the text block.


The conservators, technicians, and interns had objects out from nine libraries across campus and are doing treatment with a variety of different objectives, such as:

 

Drawings being treated for digitization by senior conservation technician Karen Walter.
Drawings being treated for digitization by senior conservation technician Karen Walter (L).
  • collection maintenance
     
  • large digitization projects, such as a collection of cryptogamic and vascular plant drawings from the Botany Libraries being treated for digitization (right)
     
  • the preparation of items for loan, including:
    • items from the Fine Arts Library that are being loaned to the Imperial War Museum in London
    • an illuminated manuscript from Houghton that will go on loan to the Getty Center

Thank you to everyone who came out to see our work, and for those who missed it, this is an annual event, so keep an eye out for the next chance to visit the conservation lab!
 

By Kate Levy, Conservation Technician for Special Collections in the Weissman Preservation Center

See also: Conservation