The British Library is the national library of the U.K. It is also, in terms of the size of its collection, the largest library in the world, containing in excess of 170 million items. Each year the adds some three million, which accounts for 6 miles of shelf-space. The library is located in London, close to St. Pancras railway station, although there are additional sites in the U.K., such as an archive at Lemington Spa and a newspaper depository at Colindale.
Some items of the collection are very old and very fragile, hence the need for conservation. Conservation is the treatment of artefacts by interventive procedures. The purpose of the conservation project is to preserve books, maps, photographs and sound recordings for those who need to access the collection today and for future generations.
Most of the conservation work is carried out at the London site. This is purpose-built Centre for Conservation. Here items that need the specialist skills and which cannot go offsite are restored.
Some of the hardest books to restore are those that include vegetable material, such as covers fashioned from hemp or cotton.
Digital Journal visited the center to find out what is involved. It was explained that the process starts with, in the case of a book, a detailed estimate of the proposed treatment and how long it will take to complete. A book project is then handed out to paper-based specialists, or those who are skilled in more archaic crafts such as parchment or vellum, or with photographs, as well as more modern materials.
Book binding older texts requires the use of manually intensive equipment, and it’s a skilled art.
A focus of the work is also on ensuring that prized items in the collection are well-maintained. This includes works such as the Magna Carta and the St Cuthbert Gospel. An important process here is assessing which items are likely to suffer the most damage, either due to time or to the extent they are handled. This requires judicious risk assessment and analysis.
For works that cannot be fully preserved, copies are made for people to view. Traditionally this was by microfilming, although today this is increasingly by digitization. Creating digital images is not straightforward and it requires appropriate handling and transport, plus the selection of camera equipment, lighting and cradles.
A current digitization project is the Qatar Digital Library. The aim here is to create a vast archive featuring the cultural and historical heritage of the Gulf and wider region, and to make this freely available online for the first time. This includes 500 maps, charts and plans of the Persian Gulf and the wider region.
As well as books, the center also hosts the sound preservation studios. Here rare records are also digitally converted.
Tours are available of the British Library conservation center. These show the work of conservation and provide visitors with an insight into the techniques used to care for the collections.
