Field Trip #3 - Anderson Library

The adventure to Anderson Library started when we decided to meet on campus and drive as a group (it seemed the most logical as Sonja has no driver's license, and Becky is a bit handicapped). We all quickly learned that it was Graduation on campus and getting there, let alone finding places to park was somewhat of a challenge. But we met up and went on our way to the Library....or so we thought. We got a little lost, but we did see people plowing out TCF Stadium, Dinky town, both sides of the river, the back doors to the caverns, Wilson Library, etc. Basically we took an unexpected tour of the U. But after much searching we made our way over snow drifts to Anderson Library. From there we started the project of building an enclosure. Becky and I worked together on this as she had only the use of one and half hands. It went really well to be honest. We decided to use the heavier card stock as the book we were working on was an older hardcover book. Actually it worked out really well, as bending the heavy card stock was somewhat difficult. But in the end we claimed victory and got a very tight fitting enclosure. After that we went on our tour of the caverns and the building. I couldn't believe how big the caverns were! Especially when Tim said that there was room for 17 of them! It actually really reminded me of the FargoDome (where I worked for 6 years) which also has that poured concrete base to it that the caverns had. I did find it somewhat surprising that the humidity was so high in the caverns. I guess I had not thought about how the river and groundwater in that area would increase the humidity. I suppose that environmental control systems really become important when you go to less common environments such as 90 ft. under the surface. I thought the library was really interesting, I especially liked the displays, you can tell that people put a lot of effort into creating and displaying the objects. I found it funny that a lot of the reading rooms had been converted into other areas, generally storage for a specific collection. It gave the impression that space was becoming a problem, which made sense when Tim explained that down in the caverns they out-grew their space in 10 years. Overall I really liked the tour, even with the whole getting lost thing that started it!

Field Trip #2 - Minnesota Historical Society

Our second field trip at the Minnesota Historical Society with Carolyn Ogden was extreemly interesting. I found it interesting that they concentrated on one thing at a time, rather than the whole collection like at the Bindery. But it was also strange since they are in charge of some much. They have preservation responsiblitity for not just the collection at the historical society but also the Hill House, Ramsey House, and Mill City Museum.This made the 4 labs seem very reasonable since they don't work on tons of projects at once. The 4 labs were also really interesting, especially the Flag lab. I found it really strange that in every other lab they constantly washed EVERYTHING, but in the Flag lab they didn't at all! That did make sense when Carolyn explained that half of the historical value of the flag was where it had been flown, so the dirt and blood, and other stuff that make the flag dirty would be important and add value to the flag. I also hadn't realized that soldiers took parts of the flag with them....it makes me wonder if that is still done today.

I was also impressed with the security of the Preservation center. I had not realized that there would be so much. I does make sense that they would need to protect a lot of what the ywrok on as I'm sure some of it is very valuable, especially the things that are rare, like what is in the Mille Lacs Indian Tribe collection. I found it somewhat shocking that to some tribes the use of gloves was actually disrespectful. However I can see how learning about the culture attached to objects is important. It reminded me of Star Trek (yeah I'm gonna bring it up) and the Prime Directive, not to cause damage to another culture or to affect them. That seemed to be what Carolyn was getting at. I was impressed with the amount of work she had done to show other people interested in preservation the differences between modern american culture and the historical culture of Native Americans.

Field Trip #1 - U of M Bindery

Out first Field Trip to the U of M Bindery was interesting. First of all it was not in a part of town that I expected. For some unknown reason I thought that the bindery would be right in the middle of the U's campus, near the library. However after going there and learning about the different things that the bindery does it makes sense. If you serve so many facilities it doesn't make sense to stay close to only one of them. I was pretty surprised at some of the machines. I especially found the hand sewing processing startling. The machines that they were using were so far from modern they looked somewhat out of place. However, some of the other machines were actually more dangerous than I thought. Just looking at some of the stuff that was around was somewhat scary. When our guide showed how they trim pages, I was a little shocked. I understand that there are A LOT of safety features on those machines but then he was saying that they change the blades themseleves! That seems far from safe. Also the whole process of trimming pages makes me wonder how many times a book could be re-bound before it is impossible to do anything with. Or is that when you turn to some place like the Minnesota historical society to preserve the item?

 I don't know why but I origionally thoguht that a book bindery would be like a well- run shop. In fact it was more like a factory. I was also surprised at how their numbers had gone down. I found it interesting that they used to have people basically at every station working on something and would get as many students as they could and now they have people that jump from one area to another in order to have enough to do and only a few students. But it was also interesting that the Google Books project the U is working on is adding work for the bindery! I would not have thought that by scanning books you would need to rebind them, but I was happy to hear that the bindery would be able to compensate for that need. I really was really surprised at how quickly the books and periodicals could be re-bound, but I was surprised that paper played such a role in how the binding went. When our guide was talking about magazine paper versus normal paper I had realized that the texture of paper and how saturated with ink it was could cause that much of a difference!

I asked if theft was a problem, as it seems that books could go missing. Especially since we have learned how the unpacking process is where books are most vulnerable to theft when they are delivered to the library. While he said it wasn't an issue, I wonder if is more of one at larger facilities and at actual publishing houses? I wonder a publishing house has an insurance policy like the bindery does.