[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/ASchell09.jpg” caption=”Audrie Schell, a book conservator, works in the Preservation Lab at McMaster. Photo courtesy of the Library.”]There are lots of labs on campus. However, few people are aware Mills Memorial Library houses one where books, archival documents, posters, maps and photographs receive conservation treatment.

The Preservation Lab, part of The William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections is staffed by Audrie Schell, a book conservator. Schell is one of only a handful of book conservators in Canada and to develop her specialty she apprenticed for three years with Belgian master binder, Hubert Leurs.

Schell's knowledge and special skills ensure the maintenance of McMaster's rare collections through everyday activities such as environmental monitoring, collection surveys, condition reporting, stabilization and the conservation treatment of individual items.

“Book conservation requires visual skills – you need to be observant, have an eye for detail, be patient and have the ability to think three dimensionally – to see how the book will act and react to the treatment methodology and materials used to repair the book,” says Schell. “One must know the chemical make-up of materials and also be knowledgeable of the different book structures.”

Schell uses her unique expertise to examine the conditions of rare books to determine whether they can withstand the rigors of digitization. Most recently she repaired Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Other recent projects include the humidification, flattening and housing of three tightly curled panoramic photographs, the repair of several deteriorated letters dated from the 1690s, dismantling the Penang Daily News from an inappropriate binding and housing it in an archival box, and repairs to a number of books most notably, Primitive History from the Creation to Cadmus and Sense and Sensibility.

Some special tools Schell uses are bone folders, a suction table, a finishing stove, a backing press, board shears, a backing hammer, scalpels and bank nippers. Many of the methods and materials used in rare book repair remain unchanged over the centuries and still require the use of hide glues, leather and sewing by hand.

For more information about the Preservation Lab, please contact Audrie Schell at schellaj@mcmaster.ca. To view pictures from the Preservation Lab, please click here.