Conservation Interns at Work

For most art conservation graduate programs in the United States, your final year is spent interning at an offsite museum, library, conservation regional center, or private practice. Students will work in their respective fields of study to gain more treatment experience, have a better understanding of the role of a conservator, and observe the inner workings of the conservation department within a larger institution.

The Folger Shakespeare Library has a storied history of talented interns dating back to the 1970s. The long list of conservators who have trained in some capacity at the Folger includes our beloved head of conservation, Renate Mesmer, who interned here toward the beginning of her career. The Library of Congress also has a robust conservation internship program dating back to the 1980s, a program that Renate Mesmer also participated in. For the 2024-2025 cycle, the Folger is hosting book and paper conservation intern Charlotte Starnes from the SUNY Buffalo State program, while the Library of Congress is hosting four interns in the areas of photo, paper, and book conservation. Their two book interns are Devon Blankenbaker, also from the SUNY Buffalo State Program and Brittany Murray from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation (WUDPAC).

In an effort to exchange knowledge and experiences with interns, the conservation labs at the Folger and the Library of Congress both agreed to offer two-week workshops for the interns of both institutions to take part in together. The Library of Congress offered a workshop on the conservation and preservation of parchment, and the Folger hosted a workshop on preparing, mounting, and installing items for the current exhibition, How To Be a Power Player: Tudor Edition.

Parchment Fragments at the Library of Congress

The workshop focusing on the care and conservation of parchment gave the interns the opportunity to work on an ongoing project at the Library of Congress: an effort to digitize hundreds of medieval parchment fragments that were incorporated in later book bindings and retained by the library for further research. The goal for the project is to stabilize these fragments for safe handling by library staff for digitization and future researchers.

As part of the workshop, book conservator Cathie Magee shared her parchment conservation experience and supervised the interns while they practiced common treatment techniques for this specific material. Before treatment, the parchment fragments were visually examined to determine condition issues, and then photographed using normal lighting and raking light, which is common practice. The interns then engaged in surface cleaning the parchment using soft brushes and cosmetic sponges.

After surface cleaning, all manuscript inks were tested for solubility in water in preparation for safely administering humidification. This was an important part of the workshop for the interns to experience. Parchment behaves and responds to the introduction of moisture differently than paper does. Some of the intern’s fragments were deemed safe to be humidified overall, while other fragments only received local humidification in areas needed. Overall humidification was done using a humidification chamber, while local humidification was done using deionized water selectively applied to specific areas. Drying and flattening parchment is another technique specific to this material learned in this workshop. The pieces were gently stretched using magnets, binder clips, and weight to flatten the surface.

Following humidification, different mending techniques were used on areas that had tears or losses. Using materials specific to parchment conservation, the interns gained insight on different adhesives and their properties and had the opportunity to test different supports for filing losses, such as alum tawed gold beaters skin and long fibered Asian tissues.

Exhibition Preparation and Installation at the Folger Shakespeare Library

As most know, in 2024 the Folger reopened to the public after a four-year long renovation. With the new space, the library acquired a larger gallery for exhibitions, increasing the Folger’s ability to share collection materials with the public. Being a smaller institution, the conservation team here is heavily involved in the assessment, treatment, mounting, and installation of items chosen by curators to go on display in the galleries, resulting in a great opportunity for budding conservators to learn several of the steps that go into this process.

In the conservation community, the Folger is known for making bespoke mounts for exhibition items. These are notable not only in their custom fit for each book and its specific opening, but also because Folger conservators try to reduce the amount of waste that can be associated with exhibition mounting and cradle-making practices by using re-usable metal bases. Along with books, the conservation team is also responsible for making mounts for prints, letters, photographs, theater items, gift scrolls, and more. All three interns worked on making cradles for books found in the current exhibition, How to Be a Power Player: Tudor Edition.

To kick off their workshop, the three interns started with the basics by first measuring the dimensions and angle for each of the books selected in its open position to the page that would be on view. According to these measurements interns would choose a sheet of vivak (a transparent plastic safe for rare materials) of appropriate thickness, and cut and bend it so it perfectly and unobtrusively cradled the book. Some minor adjustments were added to the mounts for each book’s specific needs, like adding slots for strapping the book to the mount. Final touches included rounding sharp edges and removing any excess material from the edges. The finished cradle was adhered to one of the reusable metal bases for support. After completing the mounts, the interns learned how to properly secure each book into its cradle using polyethylene strapping and hair silk. This exercise really highlighted the principles and nuances in safely displaying open books.

Brittany and Devon rejoined Charlotte at the Folger a few weeks later to assist with the installation of their mounted items into their respective cases in the gallery. In addition to making sure the environmental conditions (temperature and humidity) were right, the interns were also trained to consider each item’s “light budget.” Lighting is generally designed for optimal display and the interns were taught numerous things to consider in terms of how lighting can affect the preservation and longevity of books and paper objects for display. Lights were adjusted and measurements taken, calculating the amount of light exposure each object could safely receive during its time on exhibition.

Overall, this was a wonderful exercise in inter-institutional collaboration to further these third-year graduate interns’ overall experience in the field of preservation and conservation of library and archives materials. The interns are grateful for their supervisors at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Library of Congress for facilitating a fun skill exchange, allowing them to experience different treatment techniques and exhibition preparation at two very renowned but different institutions and laboratories.