In this post, Technician Robyn Rogers discusses the first events in series of Collection Care Task Days at the University of Edinburgh Heritage Collections.

Through July and August, myself and Senior Collections Manager Katharine Richardson delivered the first events in a series of Collections Care Task Days. These sessions offer volunteers a behind the scenes look at collections care and management activities, working collaboratively with staff to look after the University’s cultural heritage. Our volunteers for these first days were made up of students and recent graduates with an interest in careers in heritage, collections and conservation.

For the first of these sessions, we focused on the University’s collection of Draft Senate Minutes. We wanted to improve their condition and storage, with the aim of making them accessible for teaching and research. The collection is made up of draft minutes from the University’s Senate meetings between 1733 and 2002. While the Senate Minutes collection is well preserved and contains the official minutes from these meetings, the collection of Draft Senate Minutes contains documents and information that may not have been included in the final version. More information about the Edinburgh University Archives can be found here.

Unlike the official Senate Minutes archive, the draft minutes are not in accessible condition. The documents were previously stored in bundles that had been folded to fit narrow boxes, and nearly all the documents had a thick layer of surface dirt and grime. To be made properly accessible, the documents needed to be to be surface cleaned, flattened, and rehoused. These tasks are straightforward but time consuming, making this collection a perfect project for volunteers looking to gain skills and insight in collections care.

An example of a box of Draft Senate Minutes before rehousing.

Our team of volunteers attended two days to work on the project. On the first day, volunteers were taught surface cleaning techniques for historic paper, working through a box of material one document at a time. They used soft brushes to dust away loose debris, before going over each document with a smoke sponge to remove ingrained dirt and grime. I made a paper dust tray for each of us to work in, and to contain some of the mess produced in the process.

Our team of volunteers hard at work surface cleaning in the Heritage Collections Reading Room.

An example of a document in the Draft Senate Minutes collection before cleaning and rehousing.

After the first day, the cleaned documents were pressed for two weeks in the Main Library conservation studio. To press such a large quantity of documents, I needed to press a bundle of material at a time. To do this, I separated the documents into smaller piles, and sandwiched these piles between layers of blotting paper and Bondina. I then laid printing felts and large pressing boards on top of the Blotter/bondina sandwich to evenly distribute the pressure of two heavy weights, which I laid on top. After the documents had been pressing for two weeks, our volunteers returned for a second day, rehousing the material into folders and boxes, networking with our conservators and technicians who worked alongside. We finished the days with a tour of the storerooms and conservation studio at the Main Library.

Some of the collection before and after cleaning and rehousing.

These events were a huge success, with our collaborative team of staff and volunteers processing over 900 documents in total. We are keen to host more of these events, encouraged by enthusiastic feedback we received:

Some examples of the lovely we received feedback from our volunteers.