By Dan Linke
In February, a group of 30 of the Friends of the Princeton University Library (PUL) enthusiastically toured the Preservation and Conservation (P&C) Lab to see examples of the amazing work that they do regularly, which inspired me to share their work with a wider audience. I asked each member of the lab to send me before and after photos and a description of something they worked on in the past year. I thought I would choose two or three, but each staff person’s example was compelling, so I’m pleased to share all of them with you today.
Mick LeTourneaux has been a book conservator at Princeton for over 30 years, handling everything from ordinary books with minor problems to extraordinary books with intricate challenges. The item below is in the latter category.
After the 2021 Piranesi exhibition, Mick treated this 1743 volume (Prima parte di architetture e prospettive inventate ed incise da Giambatista Piranesi) that had been on display, pulling the textblock, mending the signature folds, and resewing the textblock employing the original sewing supports. He then fabricated a new spine-piece and rebacked the binding, resulting in this:
This work required many hours, a steady hand, and a surety of knowledge. A preservation adage states that one should only do things that can be undone, and that every action should follow well-established practices. If, at some point in the future, this book would require another repair, that future person would readily recognize and understand Mick’s handiwork because it fits into a many-centuries-long tradition of bookbinding techniques.
Melody Chen, a paper conservator with PUL for the last six years, treated a recent acquisition for the Cotsen Children’s Library that featured a rabbit image created by Beatrix Potter.
This watercolor was originally affixed onto an acidic board and the brown adhesive along the edges was likely used to adhere a now-missing window mat. Her testing determined that the adhesive was water-soluble, so she decided to use a water-based gellan gum (similar in texture and appearance to clear jello) to controllably soften and absorb the adhesive. As the gum did its work, it became discolored from the adhesive, appearing more yellow on the side that was in contact with the old glue. After adhesive removal, Melody removed the backing board, then humidified and pressed the watercolor under weight, resulting in this:
Similar to book binding repair, conservators use substances with paper treatment that, like medical treatment, first, must do no harm. Understanding the composition of various paper types and how different treatments could affect them (or the many types of ink used on them) requires a sophisticated understanding of this specialized chemistry.
Preparator Brian George had many years of gallery experience before we lured him to Princeton just over two years to work on all the material that ends up in the Milberg Gallery’s exhibitions. For the upcoming fall show, Forms & Function: The Splendors of Global Book Making, this six-foot section of an Egyptian Book of the Dead (Pharaonic Rolls, no. 9) required a new mat and reframing.
After removing its previous frame and matting, Melody Chen performed some conservation work and then passed it on to Brian. Due to its size, the board would not fit in any standard mat cutter, requiring Brian to cut the new mat by hand, setting up his bench with weights, clamps and an eight-foot ruler, and then using a hand-cutting tool to produce a new six-foot window mat.
Happily, the cut was perfect the first time through: no over-cuts and perfect 90° corners. In the coming days, he would hinge The Book of the Dead onto a new backing board, assemble all the parts of the frame, and fit this incredible object into its new home. This is impressive work, made even more so by this fun fact: this was the first time Brian ever cut a beveled mat by hand, let alone such an oversized one. This is an example of where experience combined with ingenuity successfully came together.
Much of the lab’s work revolves around housing fragile materials appropriately–both protecting them while also allowing ready access as needed. Martyna Gryko, who joined the lab as a Conservation Technician two years ago, rehoused these Chinese ink sticks.
They were originally housed in a small box, loosely stacked on top of each other. Martyna researched the process of how the ink sticks were made to determine what materials could be used for rehousing. Ultimately, she custom made mylar four-flap enclosures that both allowed the sticks to be handled and viewed easily from both sides. This approach also allowed her to put spacers between the broken pieces to stabilize them.
This enclosure also prevents the ink from offsetting or abrading when the sticks are removed from their box, where she used Volara, a polyethylene foam, to create pockets that kept them secure within the box.
This is an excellent example of the innovative approach that all of the team brings to their work–confronted with unusual objects, they research the materiality of the item and then design solutions that balance the need to preserve with the ability to access.
We often think of the work done by P&C as repairing materials damaged by use or misuse. However, sometimes the work required is to repair an earlier repair. Book Conservator Maren Rozumalski, the newest member of the lab who recently completed her first year at Princeton, tackled these Japanese woodblock prints (米利幹新誌 Meriken shinshi) that will be on display in the Fall 2026 Milberg Gallery exhibition.
The book had previous treatment (before we acquired it) to mend the worm tracks throughout the bookblock (see lower left and lower right above), but the repair paper used was noticeably stiffer than the book’s pages. It was also darker, leaving a dark “shadow” around the repairs. This would be especially noticeable under exhibition lighting.
Maren removed the previous repairs and replaced them with kozo paper of more suitable weight and color. She also continued the bold black lines of the images by stippling black paint onto the mends before adhering them to the underside of the images, ensuring the paint didn’t transfer onto the original images. The continuation of the black lines helps the viewer’s eye skip over the repairs, making them less visible.
We cannot fault our predecessors for the decisions they made at the time, as we assume they were working with the best information available. In fact, we owe them a debt of gratitude because we learned from them, just as our successors will learn from the mistakes we might be inadvertently making today. However, mitigating these possible mistakes is the approach–already mentioned–taken by those within the preservation field: first, do no harm while also treating materials only in ways that could, if necessary, be undone.
Coming up on her two-year anniversary at Princeton, Eli Boyne works at the opposite end of the spectrum from most of her colleagues as the Preventive Conservator. As her title suggests, Eli works to systematically avoid situations and conditions that could harm any of PUL’s collections, addressing emergency preparedness, monitoring environmental conditions, and conducting risk assessments.
This past spring, Eli received a report that some leather bound volumes had a white substance appear on their bindings. Eli brought the volumes to the lab and postulated that the discolorations were accretions of “leather spue,” a powdery bloom that can be caused by either the natural fat in the leather or fatty materials applied to the leather with dressings. (Spue is now one of my new favorite preservation vocabulary words; another is frass.)
Fortunately, spue is not mold nor biological in nature. The bloom forms in areas where the leather is exposed to air, which comports with this instance where it was found on the spines or edges, and, thankfully, it can be removed with a soft brush. Unsightly but generally not harmful, spue is often found on leather books from the mid-18th to mid-19th century, which fits with these volumes as well.
Spue may be caused by fluctuations in temperature and humidity, and the cool conditions of the storage space for these volumes (typically 60°F), combined with slightly elevated RH levels, might have been a contributing factor to this formation. Eli partners with others across the library to monitor and maintain collection environmental conditions, as consistent monitoring helps identify potential problems before they develop. In this instance, working with the University’s HVAC staff, together they found a solution to slightly lower RH in the space, and therefore reduce the risk of spue occurring in the future. This episode reveals how paying attention to small details can pay big dividends when caring for our collections, as an ounce of prevention is always better than a pound of cure, especially with rare materials.
When the Library underwent an organizational restructuring in 2021 that resulted in P&C reporting to me, I told the P&C staff that in any meeting I had with them, I would be the least knowledgeable person in the room when it came to the details of their work. While this is still true, in the past four years, I have developed a deeper and nuanced understanding of what they do, and with it a concomitant appreciation for their expertise and dedication. They are a small but mighty team, and their work will be appreciated by this and many generations to come.
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