The book and paper Conservation Studio at Dundee University offers intensive care to precious paper objects. The studio recently claimed a conservation coup by being commissioned to care for a remarkable collection of books and manuscripts from the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum. The team told Norman Watson about the unique challenges presented by the historic consignment.
Conservators in Dundee have looked after some of the most prized paper objects on the planet.
Their spectacular skills have been applied to drawings by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for Glasgow School of Art, the papal document which gave Scotland its first university in 1413, a manuscript attributed to Sir Isaac Newton and the historic letters of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, the father of plant classification, for which the Dundee studio was nominated for a British conservation award.
Treating items from the most important Burns collection in the world, now under the care of the National Trust for Scotland, added to the amazing treasures which have passed through the conservators’ hands in the 25 years since the studio was established at the university’s library.
“The collection comprised books that were in the possession of Burns’s immediate family, some with annotations from family members and Robert Burns himself,” said senior conservator Vanessa Charles.
“It included what is known as Highland Mary’s Bible, an exchanged love token, which has a lock of Highland Mary’s hair inside it.
“It also featured a very rare Kilmarnock edition from 1786, and contemporary editions from Edinburgh, Belfast and Dublin.
“But the collection spanned from his own time to the modern period, with volumes in Esperanto and other languages, including one titled ‘Roberta Burnse’!”
The main problem for the conservators was that the books, fragile in any case, had been on display for many years often opened at specific pages for long periods. Their bindings were ‘cemented’ into the shapes in which they had been left open.
“Many of the most important pages were badly discoloured after long exposure to high light levels. This legacy of years in the public spotlight determined the team’s proposed treatments.
Senior conservator Philippa Sterlini explained, “Think of the American Declaration of Independence document. It travelled around the United States on display as it was important for people to see it.
“And it has very nearly faded away. They didn’t realise what they were doing to it.’Burns material'”It was the same with the Burns material the important signatures and annotations by Burns were naturally chosen for display, so these were the pages most affected by light. Until recently, there was less information about the long-term damage this could cause.”
A team of five Dundee conservators worked on 95 books, with, for example, the two volumes of Highland Mary’s Bible, dating from 1782, requiring around 55 hours of attention. Many of the complex treatments were carried out by book conservator Emma Fraser.
“I’d previously worked on books that had been on display, but I had never seen anything quite to this extreme,” said Emma.
“The fact that the books would not close from sitting open for so long had changed them fundamentally. We needed to redress this, but the aim of the work was to stabilise the volumes for safe display, rather than preparing them for regular use.
“The bindings of the books we worked on for this project were generally solid, but in some cases the extent of the damage was so great that we needed to make structural repairs.
“We often use a strong Japanese mulberry fibre paper to secure loose parts of the book and repair splits and tears, but we also sometimes have to strengthen a binding with traditional sewing thread.Adhesives”We make our own adhesives at the studio in order to be sure of what is in them. Some of the substances that were used historically for restoration work are now avoided because they have actually caused long-term harm.
“We have to be happy that what we are doing won’t cause problems in the future.
“A striking problem with this collection was the extreme discolouration of some of the paper. In the past I’ve maybe treated a water stain on a small section of a page, but for this project we had to treat whole pages.
“This presented its own problems. Paper expands when wet and thus the page being treated behaves differently from the rest. So dealing with the expansion required careful thought and testing.
“But for me the Burns project was very special. I was born in Ayr and I’m a huge fan.
“It was quite amazing to work on it. It is a great privilege as a conservator to be close to such things and to be able to handle them.”
In front of us is an Edinburgh edition of Burns’s Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect from 1793. It is inscribed by Burns, “To Elizabeth Burns, her father’s gift, the author.”
The book is secured on a vacuum suction platen, a sophisticated device known in the studio as a ‘stealth sucker’. This speeds up the process of removing discolouration by absorbing the wear and tear of four centuries in the manner that kitchen roll absorbs surplus liquid.
As the vacuum extracts age-old stains, the poignant inscription by Burns to his daughter is protected by a wax-like substance which removes the possibility of the ink running and allows the delicate ‘washing’ process to be completed safely.
“We also have to be careful as the iron gall ink that was used at the time is susceptible to ink burn, which means that over time the ink becomes corrosive to the paper that it is on, forming tiny holes,” Vanessa added.
“So we spend a lot of time weighing up the pros and cons and trying to make a reasonably accurate judgment about the most important treatment options. We will also tailor the treatment to what is required by the client, in other words how an object is going to be used after it leaves us.”
In the strictest sense, conservation is actually about the least intervention possible. The white-coated Dundee conservators aim to do as little as required, and if they can get away with doing nothing, they do nothing.
A bite-sized chunk of the lower pages of one of the volumes was missing, for example, as if the bard’s famous mouse had wreaked its revenge.
Although the damage is extreme, it is compelling evidence of the previous ‘life’ of the book, and is as much a part of the history of the object as the text it contained. Consequently, the damaged areas were simply made secure and stronger, without trying to disguise the original hole.
“Your immediate instinct is to make an object better, but you have to take a step back,” said Philippa.
“A conservator shouldn’t have a big ego. You are not trying to show what you can do, but showcase what’s there. That’s really what people want to see.”
The studio plays an extremely important role nationally in that it offers a post-disaster response to objects from collections and individuals affected by extreme weather conditions.
It was to Dundee, for example, that archives damaged at Perth Museum during the devastating floods of 1993 were taken for rehabilitation.
“Yet in the current economic climate conservation is often sacrificed,” said Philippa.
“Too many institutions are forced to regard it as a luxury, not a necessity. But only conservation can ensure precious objects can be safely handled by future generations.
“We really believe it is the best and most cost-effective way of protecting the wonders of our cultural heritage.”
The Book & Paper Conservation Studio is happy to discuss the condition of documents and can be contacted on 01382 384094, or via www.dundee.ac.uk/conservation
Pictures courtesy of the Book & Paper Conservation Studio, University of Dundee, with kind permission of the National Trust for Scotland.
In front of us is an Edinburgh edition of Burns’s Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect from 1793. It is inscribed by Burns, “To Elizabeth Burns, her father’s gift, the author.”
The book is secured on a vacuum suction platen, a sophisticated device known in the studio as a ‘stealth sucker’. This speeds up the process of removing discolouration by absorbing the wear and tear of four centuries in the manner that kitchen roll absorbs surplus liquid.
As the vacuum extracts age-old stains, the poignant inscription by Burns to his daughter is protected by a wax-like substance which removes the possibility of the ink running and allows the delicate ‘washing’ process to be completed safely.
“We also have to be careful as the iron gall ink that was used at the time is susceptible to ink burn, which means that over time the ink becomes corrosive to the paper that it is on, forming tiny holes,” Vanessa added.
“So we spend a lot of time weighing up the pros and cons and trying to make a reasonably accurate judgment about the most important treatment options. We will also tailor the treatment to what is required by the client, in other words how an object is going to be used after it leaves us.”
In the strictest sense, conservation is actually about the least intervention possible. The white-coated Dundee conservators aim to do as little as required, and if they can get away with doing nothing, they do nothing.
A bite-sized chunk of the lower pages of one of the volumes was missing, for example, as if the bard’s famous mouse had wreaked its revenge.
Although the damage is extreme, it is compelling evidence of the previous ‘life’ of the book, and is as much a part of the history of the object as the text it contained. Consequently, the damaged areas were simply made secure and stronger, without trying to disguise the original hole.
“Your immediate instinct is to make an object better, but you have to take a step back,” said Philippa.
“A conservator shouldn’t have a big ego. You are not trying to show what you can do, but showcase what’s there. That’s really what people want to see.”
The studio plays an extremely important role nationally in that it offers a post-disaster response to objects from collections and individuals affected by extreme weather conditions.
It was to Dundee, for example, that archives damaged at Perth Museum during the devastating floods of 1993 were taken for rehabilitation.
“Yet in the current economic climate conservation is often sacrificed,” said Philippa.
“Too many institutions are forced to regard it as a luxury, not a necessity. But only conservation can ensure precious objects can be safely handled by future generations.
“We really believe it is the best and most cost-effective way of protecting the wonders of our cultural heritage.”
The Book & Paper Conservation Studio is happy to discuss the condition of documents and can be contacted on 01382 384094, or via www.dundee.ac.uk/conservation
Pictures courtesy of the Book & Paper Conservation Studio, University of Dundee, with kind permission of the National Trust for Scotland.