The Real Thing: Using Collections for Collaborative Conservation
Velson Horie, Research Project Manager
British Library
October 2, 2008
About the Video:
View video (54:24 minutes)
About the Lecture:
The British Library is one of the top libraries in the world with responsibilities for a large number of books, approximately 625 kilometers (400 miles) of shelved items, including iconic books. In the United Kingdom (UK), this responsibility is shared with five other legal deposit libraries. Many of the items are now becoming fragile, depending on the paper used to make them and the subsequent degradation. The legal deposit libraries along with two major UK archives are performing research into the state of preservation of identical books deposited in the libraries. This group of institutions is looking at novel ways of assessing preservation condition. One method currently being explored is to correlate the volatile compounds being released by the books to their condition. The presentation was a description of the achievements and difficulties of this collaborative research.
About the Speaker:
Velson Horie
Velson Horie, BSc, Dipl. Arch. Cons., ACR, FIIC, FMA, MAPM.
Since 2006, Velson Horie has been the Research Project Manager at the British Library, coordinating a 2½ year research project on the condition of books in the six United Kingdom (UK) legal deposit libraries and two major UK archives. For the previous 28 years, he was Keeper of Conservation at the Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, responsible for improving care and storage conditions of five million objects ranging from archaeology to zoology collections, and a £21 million capital re-development project. He has published over 80 articles in conservation, research, and professional coordination. He has taught university lectures, Chemistry for Conservators distance learning course, and courses both in the UK and abroad.
