more Book Arts news

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Ever wanted to make your own book? Curious about careers in bookbinding or wondering what the Midwest Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers does?

ISU’s new Conservator Andrew Huot sent the information below, and I thought it would be of interest to others. Sign up today!

Bookbinding and Book Preservation Workshops at Milner Library

The Center for Conservation and Preservation at the Milner Library is

continuing to offer workshops in bookbinding, book arts, and book repair

to students, faculty, and staff. All levels are welcome, all tools and

materials provided. Bring your sense of adventure and come have some fun

making books.

The schedule and registration information is at

http://www.library.ilstu.edu/page/1562

[The student discounts are available for IWU students.]

The Center is also sponsoring lectures on book history and the book

arts. All lectures are free and open to the public. The topics and dates

are at http://www.library.ilstu.edu/page/1614

Summer fun

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Due to a combination of professional development time (thanks, Karen!) and vacation days, I recently spent two weeks at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign for a class on letterpress printing. The class took place at the home of The Soybean Press in the Printing Services building. Soybean Press is a cooperative effort of The Rare Book & Manuscript Library, The Graduate School of Library and Information Science, The University of Illinois Press, Facilities and Services Printing Department, and the School of Art and Design.

Some of the equipment we used and prints I created are in the gallery of images below. I’ll have these prints and more on display at this fall’s Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works Celebration. Additionally, my copy of the broadsides my classmates and I compiled into a folio with the theme of “State of Illinois” will be added to IWU’s Special Collections holdings of Artists’ Books. These books explore the many ways people interpret the idea of “book” as well as what constitutes suitable content for such vessels.

FYI, our Artists’ Books are a small part of a larger collection containing examples of changes in printing techniques and other types of book art throughout history. For now, suffice it to say that while I’ve always felt it was true, I now have the ink stains to prove I Love Type! (The blog at that link is not related to my class but the sentiment is 🙂 )

I started summer classes long before they were offering credit for them, but next summer I will have completed enough credits for the UIUC Certificate of Special Collections Librarianship. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll ever stop taking classes there, especially now that I’m hooked on book arts!

Check out the Museum class exhibits!

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Four groups of students prepared exhibits for ANTH 270 this semester. This project required them to become familiar with artifacts on a topic, research it using primary and secondary sources, and create a visually appealing and informative display.

One of the groups used ethnographic material collected by Dr. Rebecca Gearhart. Their exhibit, titled Rhythms of the East African Coast is located in a display case by the Anthropology department on the second floor of CLA.

The remaining three groups used materials from the University Archives. The exhibit titles and locations are as follows:

The Long Lost Fame of the IWU College of Law, 1st Floor, John Wesley Powell Rotunda

     –photographs and documents related to the Bloomington law School and IWU College of Law.

Turbulent Titans: Student Issues from 1970-1971, 1st Floor, across from Circulation

     –an analysis of issues tackled by the student publication “Rhetoric and Propaganda.”

The Center of the University: Its Rise and Its Demise, 3rd Floor, outside Thorpe Center

     –photographs, an architectural plan and documents surrounding the history of Old Main/Hedding Hall/Duration Hall.

Great job, ANTH 270!

Save Your Stuff!

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Memories and treasures should last a lifetime and be passed on to future generations. The first national collections Preservation Week, “Pass It On!”, is taking place May 9-15, 2010.

The American Library Association and partners that include the Library of Congress, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, The American Institute for Conservation, Heritage Preservation, and the Society of American Archivists, are promoting Preservation Week to highlight collections of all kinds, and suggest simple steps to help you make sure your treasures and memories last a lifetime and are passed on to future generations.

What can you do?

1. Take a look around your home or wherever you store the mementos of your life and the lives of people who are important to you. Is a lot of it in long-term storage? Is the storage room subject to temperature and humidity fluctuation?

TIP: You don’t need to have cold storage to make paper and print photographic collections last. Constant levels of each are the most important thing. 70 degrees F is the upper recommended limit, but keeping spaces well-ventilated and preventing frequent fluctuation can help your stuff go a long way into the future.

2. Is your stuff sitting on the ground? Try putting a pallet underneath boxes or raising them 4-6 inches off the floor with something else.

3. Avoid stacking boxes directly on each other if at all possible. Open shelving is optimal: leaving space on all sides of stored material promotes air circulation and limits the chance that mold will develop.

4. Is your stuff digital? Do you back up your hard drive or use a commercial company for online storage? If you’ve got a back up hard drive, is it located near your primary digital storage place? Explore ways to back up your important files and keep them in a separate location to lessen the chance for loss if there’s a fire or natural disaster in your area.

5. Is your digital stuff labeled? File names like DSC7723, DSC7724, and so on can accumulate faster than you think. After awhile, how will you know what you are saving?

TIP: At a minimum, make folders with event names and dates to store photos in or create an index that associates this information with the program-generated file names.

6. Are your physical collections falling apart? Books, photo albums, scrapbooks and textiles need attention if they are to last. Taking photos out of old albums whose adhesives are failing and making sure they’re labeled is a good start. Some books may be rebound, but many will survive well into the future in a box or wrapper designed for them. Photocopying or scanning newspaper clippings can preserve their information without worrying about deterioration due to typically acidic scrapbook pages and/or newspaper itself.

TIP: Don’t seal anything in a plastic bag! Condensation forms quickly in plastic and promotes mold.

If you have concerns about any of your personal collections, I’m happy to talk with you about them. Use Preservation Week as a time to take stock of what you’re keeping, why it’s important to you and how you can act in ways that will keep your stuff safe for years to come!

Note: more ideas are available in one of my previous blog posts

The Argus online

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Well, a project the archives started in 2002 has reached its final stage…at least for this time in history. Who knows what tomorrow may bring? New ways for finding and using archival material are constantly evolving!

For now, you may enjoy easily getting to all Argus issues dating from 1894-present in one searchable interface located at http://collections.carli.illinois.edu/cdm4/index_iwu_argus.php?CISOROOT=/iwu_argus

Tips to make an archivist’s day…

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Here are some recent musings I thought I’d share that I’m sure will make any archivist appreciate your efforts and ensure your documentary heritage has a pleasant, regret-free life!

Dos:

Date all photos, documents, publications, etc. At the minimum, a year will make future generations think fondly of you!

Provide a minimum of an event or occasion name on the back of a printed photo in pen, at the edge. Try not to write hard enough to make an impression bulge through to the image side! For digital images, embed the info in the file name or in the “properties” summary. If you don’t know how to do that send a typed list with the corresponding file name along with the images or just save them on a CD in a file folder with the event name.

When sending a box to the archives, put your or your office’s name on it and one or two words about the contents. If the box has been stored in a damp location, call ahead to let the archives know before sending it over. We’ll need to have it delivered someplace other than main archives area until we can evaluate the contents for pests or mold.

If you have a large amount of material to remove from an office, I am happy to visit it in place to determine how much needs to be moved to the archives and what might go directly to recycling/shredding or other disposal. Labor Crew will appreciate only having to move boxes once!

Dont’s:

Post-it notes leave a gummy residue on historical records. Try slipping a strip of paper inside a cover or making a note in pencil. Or putting the whole packet of material in its own envelope.

If you use a paper clip to attach notes, make sure it’s steel or plastic. If you have to use a metal clip (steel or otherwise) try folding a small scrap of paper over the material to act as a buffer with the clip. And if you find material with a clip that’s been on so long it’s rusted and/or making an impression in a packet, leave it there and we’ll take care of removal in the archives.

Rubber bands create long-term problems, too. The bands dry up and can leave pieces permanently attached to material. It’s best not to use these at all…even paper clips do less damage!

Where have all the lawyers gone…

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IWU was home to the “Bloomington Law School” (aka The College of Law) from 1874-1927. The archives holds registration records, course descriptions, photographs and a book with the constitution and minutes of the Class of 1903. One undated history of the school, written by one of its graduates, is now digitized and available for viewing on the Web.

Cover of undated four-page circular (L) and 1888 Commencement invitation

      

Help wanted

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Two archives interns created the framework for an oral history program last summer. We now have a series of sample questions geared towards alumni, staff and faculty that the students arrived at after reading some campus histories. Nell and Robert Eckley were kind enough to be our first interviewees and we’re experimenting with ways to make those interviews available on the web with corresponding photographs and transcripts.

Now we need interviewers! I would like to have current students and alumni involved in conducting these interviews as a way to get them involved in a new tradition and to bring their own perspectives to the table when asking others about their time here.

Our first pool of subjects will be alumni at the 50+ anniversary mark and faculty/staff who have worked at IWU over 40 years. People who reside locally are all we can accommodate right now, but during Homecoming we will  actively invite out-of-town participants. All interviews will be audio-only and participants will be given a chance to review their transcripts before releasing them for future use. Contact me if you are interested in interviewing or being interviewed: mminer{at}iwu.edu

Audio and video recordings

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The archives recently had several recordings transferred from media we could not listen to (due to outdated formats or fragile magnetic tape) to digital formats. The content of these recordings is mostly unexplored but includes some film clips of the 1952 incoming class and an undated commencement with nurses in capes. There are also a series of audio recordings, some labelled “Peopletalk,” that have alumni and faculty in the 1970s talking about what IWU means to them.

Some recordings are talks given for specific events like a 1949 dinner on the west coast that featured the then-oldest living alumni: Dr. Sam VanPelt, Class of 1875; or a 1969 recording by Hubert Humphrey during the long-running Steveson Lecture Series; or a 1971 visit by Helen Hayes who is speaking to students in Theatre Arts. An undated recording has Sociology Professor Dr. Emily Dunn Dale responding to commentary by Phyllis Schlafley on the topic of women’s roles in society.

Additionally, current faculty member Dr. Pam Muirhead created a video interview with Dr. Paul Bushnell in 2004 for the McLean County Black History Project. The original video tape had 10 minutes of sound distortion at the beginning, and the archives contracted with a media restoration company that was able to make all but the first two minutes understandable again. The subject of Dr. Bushnell’s interview is his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

There are other digitized recordings available and many other analog recordings await exploration in the archives, too. Some of these recordings could be added to our online collections, but first they could use a reviewer to determine suitability of content and basic descriptions that will let online researchers know how they are relevant. Some may be suitable for research projects and some may hold interesting insights into IWU’s history. All are here for the asking!

Les Arends’ artifacts

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In a previous post, I described collections we hold related to Political Science. One of these collections contains manuscripts, publications and memorabilia related to 17th Congressional District Representative Leslie C. Arends (1935-1975). Thanks to the talents and efforts of Physical Plant employees, we were able to move a cleaned and polished Arends’ desk, previously stored in Sheean Library, into the archives’ reading room last year. And with funds from the Ames Library’s budget this year, we were able to have a local upholsterer repair and clean the chair that was donated with the desk. Physical Plant transported the chair from its Mennonite storage room to the upholsterer and then into the archives this week. Both pieces now provide the Archives’ Student Assistants with an ample work surface that’s also elegant and inspiring!

Now, what to do with his bull whip, wall tapestry and golf clubs…?