Category: Paper and book conservation

An important record of an organization, in the form of a scrap book, was brought to our lab for treatment and preservation. The data was important and the originals need to be rescued from further deterioration. The pictures, maps and…

Its our experience that insects that damage books are mainly attacking spine. This is because the spine receives liberal amount of adhesive while book making. After eradicating all the various stages of insects thriving in the books, book conservators repair…

Aspergillus niger is one of the most active cellulolytic fungi. The roll of drawings in the above picture is mainly infested by A. niger and Chaetomium sp. as identified from the cultures isolated from the deteriorating inner-side of the roll….

  This black powdery sheet (!) is not burnt paper, but, paper eaten by fungus. Cellulolytic microorganisms are hiding nicely all around us and are much more destructively powerful than we can expect from the tiny spores. Storage enclosures that…

In paper conservation literature, there are many ways and materials advised to be used to remove foxing or at least lighten its scars. Here i am not going to suggest what to use, but would like to mention the importance…

That peculiar smell/odor when some old books are opened, might at times be associated with mold and foxing. We come across books with foxing that may have very strong odor. All old books have vellichor, but some have stronger musty…

All the conservation labs/workshops have mylar or melinex as the most commonly used material while treatment procedures as well as in packaging and safe storage or display etc. Such widely and frequently used material is known to all by these…

Info from the print Condition Assessment We received the map in a folded form. There was some adhesive residue visible on the outside. On opening of the very first fold we found that due to the application of some adhesive,…

Finally, all the books that came to our lab have been restored and given a kind of new life. They are going back to the library tomorrow morning. Following is a re-sharing of a summary of all the conservation processes…

Team Heritage Preservation Atelier had a challenging task of conservation of a set of books that could not be digitized by a library because of the extremely brittle pages and stuck up and deteriorated condition. We started with making a…

The drawing under study is made in 1868 (as evident from the signature) and the watermark mentions the paper manufacturing year to be 1866. ‘Watermarks’ are markings put into paper during its production, by making thinner or thicker  layer of…

June 26, 2018   By Manit When we first saw the drawing on site, it appeared to be in a fairly good condition. Once it arrived in our conservation lab and we started a thorough diagnosis, there were a lot…

When the pages have turned very brittle and there are tears, lost areas and old repairs with incompatible and damaging materials, it is not that simple to mend and rebind a book with traditional sewing technique.   Some binding procedures…

What is sellotape?  Sellotape is basically a brand of transparent, polypropylene-based, pressure-sensitive tape. But, this term is also used for any such pressure sensitive tape of any brand. Sellotape is generally used for joining, sealing, attaching and mending. The older…

Once the old damaged binding was opened and stuck up pages of the books (to be treated) were separated/opened-up and the torn pages mended, the information in the books was digitally preserved. This digitization process was done before re-binding because…

This video demonstrates some basic steps of paper conservation