Another year over, and a new one just begun

December 31, 2020December 31, 2020 / Victoria Stevens ACR Library and Archive Conservation and Preservation Ltd.

I think everyone reading this will be glad to see an end to the last twelve months: what a year.

The rollercoaster that was 2020 has carried me along like everyone else, and has brought both good and bad times. Dealing with a close family bereavement in lockdown was by far the hardest, and the feeling of helplessness when you can not be with people you care for can not be underestimated.

But as you can see from the selection of images above, work has continued to develop and I have been truly lucky to have the range of projects I have enjoyed this year: everything from the conservation and mounting of a letter to Santa from the 1930s to fasciculing C13th medieval French manuscript fragments. I have been fortunate to be able to conduct several major collection assessments, with appropriate Covid-secure measures, three exhibition installations including for the remarkable (and alas, under-attended due to Covid) British Baroque exhibition at Tate and numerous studio based projects for both institutional and private clients. Several long term projects ended, with new work taking its place: for this I am thankful.

I have been amazed by the response of the heritage sector in their ability to adapt their practice and share their knowledge, much of which I distilled into the open-access Resources Roundup spreadsheet, now in its 20th incarnation. The degree to which the sector, both home and abroad, has pulled together to pool information and resources is incredible, and it is this attitude and spirit by which we will haul ourselves out of this. Working with the ARA committees on which I sit has also kept me connected, gaining from and giving support to colleagues through all the different experiences they have had in lockdown.

Presentations have been a feature of 2020, with in-person speaking opportunities being transferred online. So although my planned trip to speak at the AIC’s conference in Salt Lake City in May was abandoned – I can’t deny this was a bitter blow – I did take part in the online symposium which was more than a consolation. Speaking and discussing what I do is one of the best bits of the job, and I welcome every opportunity I am offered. Connecting with colleagues outside of my normal sphere has been one of the most positive aspects of 2020 and I have shared virtual spaces with people from all over the world and in a kaleidoscope of heritage disciplines.

Lockdown has given me a chance to think anew about where I can contribute, leading to the formation of a project to bring engagement opportunities to those groups who may not have easy access to written heritage materials or who learn by means other than purely sight and reading. This has taken the form of a CIC, Take 5 Engagement Ltd., with the aim of facilitating tactile engagement workshops for a wide range of people and involving sight, sound, touch, smell and hopefully even taste to show how and why objects were made. 2021 will see this new bolt-on venture develop, with a bit of luck and hard work, and I already have a couple of pilot workshops lined up with partners such as The Avenue School in Reading.

The several work trips and holidays I had planned – including a short break for my husband’s 50th birthday (he will be 52 by the time we go – if we go – this coming year!) – have had to be shelved. Even though the temperature was at least 10 degrees less than our planned Spanish break, the sea and sky in Cornwall this summer were a very Tyrrhenian blue, and the caravan’s hot tub made up for the lack of warmth in the air.

On a personal note, I was delighted to be chosen as a volunteer HLF-funded Women into Heritage Engineering apprentice at Crofton Beam Engines. Having had a lifelong interest in industrial archaeology (I come from Co. Durham after all, so it is kind of in my blood) this was genuinely a dream come true. This vastly important industrial heritage site on the Kennet and Avon Canal has always fascinated me, and to be contributing to its continued use as a place to inspire and enjoy is just fantastic. In January I am learning how to weld: I can not wait. I have also been heavily involved in cataloguing the history of my home town, Consett, and specifically the steelworks that made the town and its people – as well as the steel for a whole host of ships, buildings and even Blackpool Tower. For a bit of end of year fun, check out the advent calendar I compiled: who knew steel production would make such a good topic for this sort of countdown?

At the end of this bruising year, I wish all my clients both past and present all the very best for a happier and healthy 2021. Larkin missed something out: what survives of us is not just love, but also hope.

It’s Friday, it must be Winchester

June 9, 2019June 9, 2019 / Victoria Stevens ACR Library and Archive Conservation and Preservation Ltd.

This week I have been extremely fortunate to have some company on my travels and in my studio, with Surjit Singh joining me as part of his two month internship in the UK.

Surjit has just completed the first year of his Masters degree at the National Museum Institute of History of Art, Conservation and Museology in New Delhi, and is in the UK to develop his understanding and practice in library and archive conservation.

It was a bit of an immersion into the life of a conservator in private practice, with the days being spent both on the road and in the studio. Monday saw us visiting several clients in Oxford, and Surjit got straight into the swing of things by helping me take some cradle templates for a forthcoming exhibition at New College library.

Tuesday was a studio day, and together we worked on the cleaning and repair of the early C19th Petitions of Assistance collection of paper documents for the Salters’ Company archive. This NMCT funded project was a great way for Surjit to practice some key paper conservation techniques and get experience of handling and treating different types of paper which had a variety of damage types, including iron gall ink corrosion.

Wednesday saw us back on the road and heading west, this time to Winchester Cathedral, where I have been working on the Morley Library cleaning project for a number of weeks. We began by helping the volunteers set up the next phase of the cleaning of the collection, and then Surjit moved on to start the installation of the fishing line handling deterrent. In this system, originally developed for use in National Trust libraries, fine nylon fishing line, dark brown in colour, is laced between two conservation grade boards at either end of the shelves. This discourages and prevents casual browsing of the books, and acts as an aide memoir for visitors that touching is not allowed.

Thursday was a welcome studio day after all the activity of the week, and we looked at case binding repair and methods to conserve circulating library collections at Corpus Christi College library. This included scraping and poulticing old degraded spine linings and sewing on new textile linings for additional strength.

We were back on the road again early on Friday morning, bound for Winchester Cathedral to complete our part of the project as well as hand over the cleaning to the volunteers to continue to work their way around the 2000 books that make up the library. It’ll be great to see the progress they have made next time I visit.

Friday afternoon was all about iron gall ink, that key – and rather tricky – component of so much of our manuscript heritage. I showed Surjit how to make and use gelatine-coated remoistenable tissue, through which repairs may be made on iron gall ink media whilst controlling the level of humidity, the primary cause of iron gall ink corrosion.

The week with Surjit Singh went by all too fast. He put up with my hectic schedule, spirited driving style, the menagerie of wild animals that seem to be taking over my garden and my attempts to cook Indian classics for him admirably. More importantly, it was great to revisit some of the techniques and procedures that I do as a matter of course and see them from a fresh perspective. It was even better to see Surjit taking these techniques, thinking how they could be adapted and making them work for him: this is how we all develop as conservators.

Good luck to Surjit Singh, there’s a great future for him just around the next corner.

My thanks to all the clients and sites we visited during the week, and for allowing the reproduction of the images in this post.

Making a full recovery

May 26, 2019May 26, 2019 / Victoria Stevens ACR Library and Archive Conservation and Preservation Ltd.

Despite my New Year’s resolution to be a more frequent correspondent, like so many other people the good intentions enthusiastically made on that clean temporal slate in the first hours of every January are easy to make but difficult to implement. As you can see, it has taken me until May to have time to actually put virtual pen to paper.

But what a year so far!

I spent a good part of the first two months condition assessing the most remarkable collection of bound volumes in advance of a current installation at Tate Modern, Yinka Shonibare’s The British Library: a three-dimensional work of art that is so much more than the sum of its 6327 parts.

Having assessed and measured every single book in the work it was incredible to see it installed in all its impressively colourful glory in the gallery. The books themselves are carriers of the concept of the work: through the application of various patterns of Vlisco’s veritable wax hollandaise textile and with the names of notable Britons with heritage from all over the globe or links to immigration policy or protest blocked in gold on selective spines, the volumes are elevated beyond that of usual library book stock. The atmosphere in the library-like gallery space was fantastic, with visitors really engaging with and responding to the installation.

A large part of the year so far has also focused on the completion of a treatment based binding project which also has a twist to its covering method, but instead of modern art this was working with very old craft indeed.

Abbots’ Register B is a C14th cartulary that is part of the manuscript collections at Gloucester Cathedral Library and Archive and was conserved through the generosity of the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust and the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester Cathedral.

The manuscript had clearly had some history to tell during its 700 years of life. Having undergone at least two previous sewings, the final binding was no longer extant and the sewn parchment textblock came to me very much au naturel and without boards or a cover.

Where every project starts: the manuscript waiting to be surface cleaned in the dusting box

The lack of a binding presented a great opportunity to preserve the now visible evidence of the structure, sewing and binding history, and it was important not to impose a binding style that was either inappropriate or would potentially create problems for future analysis of the manuscript.

One of the few decorative initials in the manuscript

A non-adhesive binding method was used to attach a beautiful thick linen rag paper cover made by the Moulin de Verger papermill in Angouleme, France using traditionally stamped rather than beaten fibres. This creates a strong and durable paper with excellent stability. Alum tawed supports, laced through the cover, and stitched alum tawed and linen textile linings provided the primary cover attachment, mechanically fixing the paper cover to the textblock without the need for any adhesive. The cover, linings and sewing may be removed at any stage without additional disruption to the textblock, particularly as the previous sewing holes were used.

Linings and sewing supports being sewn into place

Punching the lacing holes through the cover – nerves of steel required!

Alum tawed slips laced through the cover

Before treatment, the back of the spinefolds were heavily glued. By removing this adhesive and by choosing a non-adhesive method of lining as well as through the use of a structural endband and packed sewing, the textblock now opens much more easily and with much greater fluidity and flow, allowing improved access to the gutter margin and reducing the strain on the sewing structure by more even distribution of the weight of the textblock.

A structural endband, non-adhesive lining method and packed sewing provides a good level of fluidity in the textblock

My year continues at an exciting pace, with some fabulous activities in the pipeline, including several externally funded conservation projects ranging from large format C19th mine working plans to Livery Company records saved from the Great Fire in 1666, as well as conference presentations for the CILIP Rare Books Group and ARA 2019. More as these projects unfold, and hopefully before another five months elapses…

The completed manuscript project with laced in linen rag paper cover

All images reproduced with the kind permission of the Chapter of Gloucester Cathedral and the Trustees of Tate

All that’s gold may not glitter

May 11, 2017 / Victoria Stevens ACR Library and Archive Conservation and Preservation Ltd.

I have recently been fortunate to work on two book conservation projects which, to outward appearances, concern the conservation of quite humble bindings. However, these modest objects have great significance and importance to their owners. Both are well-used and well-loved family heirlooms, and their conservation has ensured they can be passed on and enjoyed by future generations of the families concerned.

The first project was to conserve a well-thumbed, and judging by the fantastic array of stains and accretions on the pages, well-used cookbook of handwritten recipes, passed down from mother to daughter and then to grand daughter. The recipes themselves are fantastic – who wouldn’t want to eat Orange Velvet, Sticky Bread or Creme a la Russe? – and are both carefully written and fully indexed. They are also a record of friendships and family relationships, with recipes being named as a particular person’s recipe. The binding was a simple, off the shelf stationery binding with a cloth cover, which I suspect had been covered with sticky back plastic at some stage as a means of keeping it clean and durable.

The textblock was breaking down, and the pages themselves had clear evidence of water damage – this is a hard-working cookbook after all. As well as bleeding to the media, this had led to softening and losses to some of the pages. The binding itself was cracked and split, with the spine exhibiting the worst of the damage.

After repair and resewing, the textblock and binding have been returned to functionality, ready for the next generation of budding cooks.

We all have significant books from our childhood, texts that we never forget and are almost like constant companions throughout our lives. The second project was to conserve just such a book, passed from father to daughter and enjoyed by both.

This cloth case binding was showing classic damage from being a well-loved book, with a detached upper board and some minor splits and tears to the textblock from over-zealous and excited page turning. It was important to make sure the repair to the binding and the reinstated upper joint was as in keeping with the binding as possible – such books are like well-known faces, and any difference in appearance will jar and be very obvious. Through careful toning the new joint is as invisible as possible, and in keeping with the overall fading of the covering textile.