Get it Flat: Keep it Flat

We often get books with boards that seem to be ready to fly off the book because the boards are bending out of shape. In this case we got a set of vellum covered books that had been exposed to a humid environment. One of the books was clearly affected as you can see from the photo below.

The boards were flattened by lightly dampening the outside of the cover in tandem with lining the inside with two layers of bond paper that had been wetted and pasted out. It was then allowed to dry under pressure, with frequent fresh blotter changes.

The big question was: “Will the volume maintain its new sleek profile?" To insure that it would, I designed a quick and simple “straight jacket” using 40 and 20 point board, book cloth and Velcro. With this design the spines remain exposed and the Velcro straps ensure that the volumes remain flat.

Open, showing the cover made from the 40 point and the inner flaps
made from the 20 point board, with the cloth straps.

Closed, ready for shelving.

Written by Deborah Howe

DigCCurr Professional Institute

DigCCurr* Professional Institute is an IMLS funded program of the School of Information Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For the past three years Professors Helen Tibbo and Cal Lee, along with other internationally recognized experts, have hosted a one week professional development class on the theory and practice of digitial curation for the digital object lifecycle.

I was a student in the May 2011 session and it was an amazing week!

There were about thirty of us representing a broad range of organizations (university, government, and business archives; academic libraries; museums; historical societies) and a wide range of responsibilities (digital managers, catalogers, archivists, preservation librarians, directors, access services librarians). Each day was filled with lectures, hands-on labs, and discussion.

Some highlights:
• Manfred Thaller gave an overview of the PLANETS software and a tool to stimulate digital aging. It was a lot of fun to see how far you could corrupt a file and still get a usable document -- and at the same time discover file formats that need very little change to be un-openable.
• Nancy McGovern spoke about OAIS and the need for digital curation program development.
• Seamus Ross walked us through the DRAMBORA audit tool.

At the end of the week we were assigned to develop a project based on what we had learned at DigCCurr and implement the project during the next six months. Come January 2012 we will meet again in Chapel Hill to report on our projects, celebrate our successes, and console one another on imperfect implementations.

My project is to use the DRAMBORA tool for a risk assessment of our digital preservation policy. I'll post my experiences with the tool as the work moves forward.

Two other items related to DigCCurr:

-One of the program goals is to develop a community of digital currators. To that end Professors Tibbo and Lee have developed the Digital Curation Exchange. The DCE is a web based community open to anyone interested in digital curation; DigCCurr uses it as a home base for students to share information, however, anyone may join. If you haven't visited the site take a few minutes and look it over.

-Our class attended a Durham Bulls Baseball game and I discovered a new fried food: potato chips on a stick.

*Pronounced dij-seeker

Written by Barb Sagraves

Digital Preservation Series, Part 5 – Resources to Help Us Figure it All Out

Ok, now that I’ve covered some of the concerns, causes, and solutions related to digital preservation, I’m going to stop talking and let the real experts take over. There are many organizations doing fabulous work on the digital preservation front, so I’ll just link to some of the resources that Dartmouth College Library refers to and participates in. If you know of other great tools or resources for digital preservation, please list them in the comments!

Digital Preservation Resources

Membership-based services:

• LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe)
• Portico
• HathiTrust

Standards:

• PREMIS – a preservation metadata standard
• METS – a standard for encoding descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata
• OAIS – Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System

Tools:

• Bag-It – a file packaging format for storage and transfer
• DAITSS – open-source digital preservation repository software
• DRAMBORA – a Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment
• DROID – an automatic file format identification tool
• PLATO – a digital preservation planning tool
• JHOVE2 – a file format characterization tool
• PREMIS-in-METS Toolbox – a set of tools for converting between PREMIS and METS, and using the two standards together
• PRONOM – a registry of information about file formats

General Information

• DCC – Digital Curation Centre
• Digital Curation Exchange
• Digital Preservation Management Tutorial and Workshops
• DPE – Digital Preservation Europe
• NDIPP – National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program at the Library of Congress
• Planets – Preservation and Long-term Access Through Networked Services
• Trusted Digital Repositories: Attributes and Responsibilities
• Trustworthy Repositories Audit & Certification: Criteria and Checklist

And to end this post with something a little more lighthearted, here’s a great cartoon by Digital Preservation Europe that explains some of the basic concepts of digital preservation. Check out their YouTube channel for more awesome videos from this series!

Written by Helen Bailey

Paper, paper everywhere...

One of the techniques I was able to show in an earlier blog post was paper repair with heat set tissue. But sometimes heat set isn't the right way to go. It can be a little too abrasive with some of the more delicate papers. Delicate papers like... newspaper!

What I'm going to show you is a step by step walk through of a paste and Japanese tissue paper repair on newspaper. This particular newspaper's issues were once bound into one big volume, but it was decided that it needed to be disbound. During that process the folds, which were already delicate, tore slightly or created larger holes where the cords used to hold it together.

Once out of the bound edition they looked something like this--not exactly pretty.

In order to assess the damage fully, the issue needed to be completely flat. Thanks to the use of these little weights that was easily accomplished.

This one has a hole that's a little too big, but don't worry, I'm going to patch that right up!

Next, I cut strips of tissue that were just a little bit longer than the height of the newspaper. This saves on time if you cut a bunch first rather than as you go. With a brush, I pasted up the strip of tissue and placed it over the tear.

To keep the issues from sticking to each other while they dry, there is a small layering process that keeps everything separate and dry. The layers are something like this: first table, then blotter, then Reemay, then newspaper, Reemay, blotter and a weight.

The blotter absorbs the moisture, the Reemay keeps the paste from sticking to the blotter, and the weight and the table keep the newspaper drying nice and flat!

Once everything is dry, it's time to fold them back up again.

And look at that! Good as new!

Written by Beth Hetland