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UI preservationists restore Czech and Slovak phonograph records after flood
The University of Iowa Libraries Preservation Department has completed restoration of approximately 1,500 flood-damaged phonograph records from the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library (NCSML) in Cedar Rapids.
The NCSML’s entire collection of 5,000 phonograph records was damaged from the flooding of the Cedar River on June 13, 2008. The collection documents 80 years of recorded Czech and Slovak music, representing a variety of musical genres and playing styles as expressed in the United States and in former Czechoslovakia. Each recording was covered with mold, bacteria, and river debris, and showed obvious signs of damage.
Approximately 1,500 33 rpm and 45 rpm have been cleaned and will be returned to the museum. Final restoration work on the remainder of the collection comprised of 78 rpm records will begin in January 2010.
Nancy Kraft, head of the Preservation Department at the University of Iowa Libraries, said recovery of the phonograph records was very labor intensive, with UI Libraries conservation lab staff spending more than 500 hours on this project. After retrieving the records, staff wore face masks and gloves and worked in July and August 2008 offsite to rinse the river debris from the records and covers. The records were then transferred in September 2008 to the UI Libraries Conservation Lab for a more intense cleaning. Each record was washed in distilled water, air dried, and inserted into a new archival protective plastic sleeve.
“The covers were so contaminated that the image was peeled away from the cardboard,” Kraft added.
The covers were cleaned, flattened and then inserted into a polyethylene sleeve along with a three-flap enclosure to hold the record. The archival paper for the three-flap enclosures was donated by Archival Products, Des Moines, Iowa.
A new water purification system and conservation treatment sink that features a constant circulation and ultra-violet irradiation gate to prevent growth of bacteria and mold was installed in the conservation before beginning the record cleaning effort. This sink and water system and record cleaning were supported in part by the State Historical Society of Iowa’s Historical Resource Development Program.
“The UI Libraries Preservation Department has been wonderful to work with. Immediately after the flood, Nancy Kraft and her staff worked with us to recover items in our collections that were damaged, and they have spent more than a year carefully restoring our flood-damaged phonograph records. We are fortunate to have this great resource only 30 minutes away from us – imagine tying to ship thousands of damaged, delicate phonograph records to Chicago or New York for restoration,” Mulhena said.
For photos and information about the record cleaning project, visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kraftkapers/sets/72157623007446306/
Blog entries at the UI Libraries Preservation Department Blog Preservation Beat are available at: http://blog.lib.uiowa.edu/preservation/category/national-czech-slovak-museum-library/
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