Week 5

1) What I have accomplished throughout the week:

Preservation

This week I learned more book bending techniques and was encouraged to work independently. I learned how to fix a split hollow central on a book, which normally occurs at the top center part of a book (from people pulling the book off the shelf by the spine). To fix the book, I created a bridge for the gap using cardboard and glued the torn pieces together. I also learned how to fix a book whose boards had become detached from the text block. This involved creating a joint using cardboard to hold the spine in place. I also continued my work cleaning and sewing pamphlets, learning how to sew together pamphlets containing multiple sections.

Librarianship

I began my week working on a project concerned with art work stored in the rare books room. I had to pull items by an artist named Forrster, who went on Cook's second voyage, and check each item corresponded correctly with the published museum index. Many of these items were mislabeled, and it was necessary to check species names and picture descriptions. I also visited the library at the London Zoological Society with some co-workers. The LZS is part of the London Zoo and is used by the zoo staff members. We were given a tour of the library's holdings, including archives, art work, serials, books, and digital photographs. It was a very informative visit. As well, this week I met with the NHM cataloger to receive a tutorial on the cataloging procedures here at the museum. This was especially useful as my experience with cataloging is minimal. I was given a background on the development of international standards, and a look at how cataloging at a specialized library is unique.

Archiving

This week I continued to work on Nan Berger's archive. I finished cataloging the archive's photographs and slides, and then organized the archive into a final order. I then learned how to repackage the archive's items into folders and correctly label the folders according to the library's standards. I also learned how to tie together volumes included in the collection, and correctly label them with the contents contained in corresponding folders.

2) What intersections I have seen between my job duties:

In my tour of the London Zoological Society I was introduced to many different aspects of their library, including archiving and preservation. This demonstrated the point that most libraries do incorporate aspects of these fields into their librarianship work. As well, when checking the published descriptions of pictures held in the NHM rare books room, I was using published museum archive material to do so. Institutions as large as the Natural History Museum are able to publish aspects of their archives, showing the importance of keeping such records.