Conservation Staff Profiles: Anne McLain
Anne McLain is a conservation technician working in the Collections Care lab at Widener Library.
What led you to this job/the field?
A lifelong love of books and being made aware of the bookbinding program at the North Bennet Street School. I also had the good fortune to talk to a lot of folks in the field. This came at a time when I was burnt out from years of bookselling (after NOT using my design degree directly) and wanted to stay in the world of books but was done with retail and didn’t have any real interest in publishing.
What do you do every day?
It varies, which I love. In the Collections Care lab, we handle a wide variety of treatments on books and other bound items as well as items printed on paper. When it comes to books, we generally work in batches of like treatments which could be anything from minor paper repair to making a new case for something with extensive damage and occasionally, having to entirely resew a text block when necessary. Books come in with wear and failure from regular use and age, but also from patron damage because accidents happen. I really appreciate it when an older item comes across my bench with age/use wear, as indicated by multiple sheets of circulation dates because it just underscores how valuable these resources continue to be to our patrons.
What is your favorite project/object/treatment you’ve worked on? If it is a Harvard object, can you include a link to it/call number?
I do love the challenge of repairing a foldout map in a book. Also, while not a 'treatment' itself, but a byproduct of a treatment process, one of the most interesting things we often come across when we need to disbind a book in the Collections Care lab, is the choice of original supportive lining material for both the book’s spine and the spine stiffener on case bindings. Frequently, they've used waste from other printed material, so you may get just text, or colorful images that look like they’re from advertising, or in the case of the first image, uncut printed playing cards. We might also find handwritten material being reused.
What do you think people should know about the importance of conservation?
There is so much to learn from primary sources and original materials/items and part of stewarding these collections is preserving and conserving them for current and future users. I think the further away we’ve gotten from physical materials it’s easy to forget that there are now generations of young people whose learning is heavily (or primarily) digital. I get a lot of joy in watching students handle older books and being so interested in the materials, aesthetics, and how we treat items. They usually have great questions that make me appreciate the knowledge that I sometimes take for granted. It’s also gratifying, when you’re stabilizing an item for imaging, to know that we’re helping create another level of accessibility; that outside researchers who can’t physically get to Harvard to see the original, might have online access to the content of that item.
