Conservation treatments and repairs are performed in the Preservation Lab. We work with damaged items and sometimes even new items to make them accessible and shelf-ready. Our goal is to stabilize and improve the condition of the Libraries' circulating collections, with a focus on high-priority materials and cost-effective solutions. Special Collections materials receive minimally invasive and reversible treatments, and include paper, books, photographs, film reels, and objects.

Pages with tissue repairs under weights to facilitate drying and flattening:

Dirt is visible on the left edge of the page before cleaning (left photo), and it is gone after cleaning (right photo):

Endsheets and textblock removed from book cover:

With new endsheets pasted in:

If book boards (covers) are loose or detached, or an item has loose pages, it may be treated with cloth ties. Unbleached cotton tying tape holds all pieces of an item together and provides stabilization. The cloth is dye-free to prevent any bleeding of tape to item.

Sometimes items are tied together until they are ready to be repaired. In some cases, items will be placed on the shelf with ties because it is the most appropriate solution (e.g., it's the most economical, the item is low-use).

Once a volume is tied, we place an information sheet under the ties on the front cover; it instructs the user how to handle the item.