Conservation Repairs for Reference Books

Reference books present several unique qualities for conservation treatments.

First, the nature of the material is usually out of the ordinary. Some examples include:

• Oversize and overly thick volumes: dictionaries or atlases
• Undersize items: single sheet ready reference materials or very thin, and flimsy, index volumes
• Weight: usually associated with oversize volumes, but even regular size books can be too heavy for their binding if on clay-coated (i.e. shiny) paper
• Inserts and foldouts: Maps, charts, etc. which are larger than the actual volume can either be put in a pocket (which makes them easy to misplace) or be attached as a foldout (where they are liable to tear easily). Either way, folding and unfolding these extra items can cause the paper to tear at the folds
• Three-ring binders: An easy way to add updated information, it also is an easy way to lose the information. The paper tears easily at the holes or the pages are removed and never returned
• Marking and labeling: Reference books have extra markings both inside and on the binding. The markings on the outside of the binding can easily come off, making locating and/or reshelving more difficult.

Second, books in a reference collection are heavily used, which means any items taken for repair must be returned as quickly as possible. To acheive this, any reference repair project has to be well coordinated between the reference staff and the conservation lab. Ways to make this a successful project include:

• Only taking a few items at a time with a fixed date of return
• Always making sure items taken for repair are identified, either with placeholders on the shelf or by a consistent sweep of selected areas
• Working on projects during "down" times, such as between semesters or during the summer.

Below are some reference department-specific examples of what to look for when identifying a book as needing repair. Also look at the general examples on the Collections Conservation webpage.

These pictures illustrate that what is at first a small tear in the spine will, with time, become a problem. While it may not seem like much, catching the damage early on makes the repair easier.

  From left to right, the damage progresses.

Details of the damage to the spine (early on left and what happens if it isn't repaired on the right):
   

Very thick books or books with clay-coated (shiny) and heavy paper will often times sag and deform while just sitting on the shelf. This pulls the textblock out of the cover, weakens the hinges and eventually the cover will separate from the textblook.
      

  On the left is the book which has lost it's round (become concave),
  or started to pull away from the cover. On the right is a book which
  still has the round in the spine (thus is still convex).

All samples are from the 4 volume set of Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology, Ref QR 81 .S6 1984.

For further information, contact Eric Alstrom or call the Conservation Lab at 432-8828.