In 1999 the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh received a substantial grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, to preserve Andrew Carnegie's legacy. Materials were conserved from our Colonel Anderson Collection, The Collection of Carnegiana, Photographic Collections: Luke Swank, Charles Morse Stotz, Carnegie Benefactions, Carnegie Music Hall Scrapbooks, and the Andrew Carnegie Cartoon Scrapbooks. This grant lead to the creation of the Conservation, Preservation and Access (CP&A) Department in 2007.
From books and manuscripts to newspapers, photographs and more, the Library’s historical and special collections house thousands of items deemed important to local Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania history. The Conservation, Preservation and Access Department plays a vital role in making these collections available for generations to come.
While the Preservation Department does not offer conservation or repair services for the public, staff do answer patrons’ preservation-related questions. At Library events, the department provides recommendations on preserving family memorabilia, especially old documents, books and photographs. It has also presented demonstrations on bookmaking and the recovery of water-damaged books.
The standing press in the CP&A Department is used for a variety of tasks, such as while cleaning book's spine and during the final pressing of a book. It measures 17 by 30 inches, weighs 55- pounds, and features a cast iron construction with a threaded spindle to provide pressure on the center of the board, which travels on four posts.
The Margaret Barclay Wilson Collection of Carnegiana, compiled by Wilson in preparation for her 1915 book The Carnegie Anthology, was treated in the CP&A Lab to neutralize the natural acidity that causes paper to deteriorate.
Brittle scrapbooks from Carnegie Music Hall were reproduced in the CP&A Lab using archival materials. This allows researchers to access the reproduction scrapbooks while the fragile originals are stored for long-term preservation.
The CP&A Lab constructed archival storage boxes for each book in the Colonel James Anderson Collection. Starting in the 1840s, Anderson had opened his personal library to working boys, including Andrew Carnegie. This inspired Carnegie later in life as he became a library philanthropist.
Reduce, re-use, recycle! Join us for a bookmaking workshop where you will learn how to re-use an everyday file folder to make a book. In this workshop you will learn how to sew pages into the file folder using a needle and colored thread. After that, you’ll have plenty of free creative time to relax and enjoy decorating the outside of your new book using decorative paper, stickers, markers, or book cloth pieces. We will provide all the supplies, but you are also welcome to bring your own.
July 11 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm FREE
This bookmaking program will take place in the 3rd Floor Conference Room. We hope to see you there!
Our Conservation, Preservation & Access librarians will offer one-on-one advice on preserving your personal family documents, photographs, books and maps. Please let us know what item you’ll bring when registering. This program will take place in the 3rd Floor Conference Room.
May 21 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm FREE
As the family historian, you’re probably also the keeper of the family records. Learn the best way to care for the most common items found in family collections with Library Staff from our Conservation, Preservation & Access Department.
Note: This is a hybrid event. In-person attendees can join us in the 3rd Floor Conference Room. Virtual attendees should register below.
May 9 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm, Hybrid Event, FREE
In as little as an afternoon, beginners will be on their way to folding, gluing, and sewing handmade books in a variety of shapes and styles, from rolled scrolls to Jacobs ladders, folded flexagons to case bindings.
Learn how to make different types of books.
This how-to manual presents a detailed introduction to the processes and techniques of bookbinding.
Projects range from rain paper patterned envelopes to paste paper book covers. Every magnificent page encourages crafters to create their own exceptional items.
This book provides simple guidelines to ensure that your fragile treasures will survive for future generations.
In simple and unambiguous terms, Your Vintage Keepsake offers options for storage, guidelines for prevention and treatment.
A resource for the photographic conservator, conservation scientist, curator, as well as professional collector, this volume synthesizes both the enormous amount of research that has been completed to date and the international standards that have been established on the subject.
This book is a practical how-to guide for organizing your growing digital photo collection, digitizing and preserving heirloom family photos, and sharing your treasured photos.
This title explores what is meant by bit rot and how it can affect users of technology.
CP&A’s initial focus was on the Library’s “Heritage Collection,” the original collection influenced by Andrew Carnegie. That collection included the subject areas of Science & Technology (primarily industrial development), architecture and decorative arts, as well as the Local History and Genealogy collections.
The need for a dedicated conservation and preservation department became evident in 1999 and 2000 when the Library received a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The grant, known as “Preserving Andrew Carnegie’s Legacy,” marked the first time CLP was able to assess more than 100 years of accumulated needs and begin conservation work. This work included caring for books with brittle pages, cracked spines or missing covers; preserving damaged photos; and cleaning soot that had accumulated from years of local steel mill activity.
Through the grant, the Library established a system-wide plan of preservation and improved accessibility to historical materials housed at CLP – Main, the Allegheny Regional branch and the eight original branches of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. The Library also identified significant special collections in its holdings, concentrating on materials related to the late 19th and early 20th century business activities in Pittsburgh, including those associated with Andrew Carnegie.
In 2007, preservation work became a formal part of CLP –Main’s services. The Library hired a preservation coordinator, a preservation librarian, and a library assistant to staff the newly formed department. Some of the first official projects included work for the Local History Department, Reference Services Department and several special collections. Starting in 2008, CP&A’s work expanded to include historical books stored at the former Allegheny Regional branch. The building was closed to the public in 2006 when lightning struck its imposing clock tower. At that time, the former branch served as a depository for the Heritage Collection, pre-1970 journals and magazines, and other collections from across the Library system.
CP&A staff cleaned the Heritage Collection, tackled minor repairs to stabilize books, and created archival boxes to protect items too fragile to stand on shelves on their own. The Library also hired a cataloger to ensure readers could find these books through the Library’s online catalog.
From 2010 to 2012 operations commenced on the 2nd Floor of the East Liberty Branch. A formalized Depository, with compact shelving had been constructed in East Library's lower level to accommodate The Heritage Collection--named The John and Becky Surma Depository.
Since December of 2012, CP&A has been housed on the third floor of CLP –Main. The space includes workbenches, tools for repairing and binding books, a fume hood, commercial freezers for storing nitrate negatives, and museum-grade photo/negative storage cabinets. Day-to-day activities include book cleaning and repairs, as well as the construction of enclosures for brittle materials. CP&A works with the Library’s many special collections, including Trade Catalogs, newspaper microfilming/digitization projects, Children’s Historical Collections, History & Genealogy Department reference collections, Reference Services reference collections, special collections and archives, and others.
While the Preservation Department does not offer conservation or repair services for the public, staff do answer patrons’ preservation-related questions. At Library events, the department provides recommendations on preserving family memorabilia, especially old documents, books and photographs. It has also presented demonstrations on bookmaking and the recovery of water-damaged books.
From books and manuscripts to newspapers, photographs and more, the Library’s historical and special collections house thousands of items deemed important to local Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania history. The Conservation, Preservation and Access Department plays a vital role in making these collections available for generations to come.
Check out the Western Pennsylvania Conservation-Preservation Resource list.
What treasures are in the attic of the Carnegie Library in Oakland? Boaz Frankel visits the Carnegie Library’s Preservation, Conservation & Access Department on the top floor of the Carnegie Library in Oakland to find out!
Greetings again from Carnegie Library’s Conservation Preservation and Access Department. A major part of our work is making certain irreplaceable books can still be accessed by researchers and other curious patrons. When these books are almost 100 years old and extremely fragile, it can get tricky to know what to do. Sometimes, the best way to preserve a book and its information is to leave it in its delicate condition and make a sturdy safe place for it to live. This is where our custom made boxes come in!
There are many people working at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh who go unseen. We are the ones behind Staff Only doors, the ones who process and repair books and so much more. Here in the Conservation, Preservation and Access Department (CP&A) we are trying to share more of what we do with the general public. We are a small staff working primarily with the Library’s older and more fragile collection.
In the Preservation Department at CLP, we see books that enter the lab in varying states of disrepair. While some of our preservation “patients” are simply in need of a little TLC, others require much more attention. “Up-Town, Greater Pittsburg’s classic section : East End, the world’s most beautiful suburb” was a book that needed more than a little TLC.
There is no arguing the magnitude of the fashion and culture magazine Harper’s Bazaar. Sometimes it can be easy to forget how long this publication has been around, and how long it’s been shaping what is accepted as normal, good and beautiful. Founded in 1867 as “A repository of fashion, pleasure, and instruction” Harper’s Bazar (notice the single a) hit the ground running on bringing Paris fashion to an emerging leisure class in American society. The magazine, much like today, would feature articles on decor, travel destinations and the comings and goings of Kings, Queens and presidents. What’s different, of course, is in the details.
Like any well-loved tool or object, books have been decorated and embellished from their infancy. You know that feeling you get when you pick up a book that is such a joy to be holding? The distinguished spine catches your eye as your hand wraps around the boards perfectly, and as you crack open the front cover you are hit by a symphony of color and marks. You haven’t even gotten to the information yet, and you’re already under the book’s spell. We know that feeling, too. When every rounded corner, decorated page and font choice come together, a work of art is made. Although functionality is the heart of successful book design, much thought is put in the look and feel as well. Here at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, we are fortunate to have books that both enlighten the mind and delight the eye. Below are just a few samples of overlooked parts of books that elevate them from informative to inspiring.
For books, papers and photographs the number one rule is keep them in a clean and dry environment, avoiding direct sunlight. This does not mean a shoe box in your basement, next to the Pittsburgh potty. Get any sentimental and irreplaceable objects out of those damp spaces. Preferably, a regularly temperature controlled room or closet. Heating and cooling extremes are bad for paper. Think of paper as the once living organism it is. Like our own skin, it cracks and becomes rigid with dry cold air (think of wind chapped lips in February).
Back in the good ‘ol days of the 19th and 20th century, we decorated the inside covers of our beloved books with wildly colorful papers. Swirls, speckles, wavy lines and crinkled patterns were all used by book binders to ease the transition of a reader’s eyes from the cover of the book to the meat of the book, the textblock. This transition sometimes was decorated, relative to the context of the book. A book about trains might have had some engines merrily chugging across the flyleaf. Other books might have had plain white endsheets, and others wild, splashy, psychedelic colorful swirls.
In the Conservation, Preservation & Access Department, we work with beautiful, old books all day long. We carefully mend their broken parts, clean off the years of soot that has collected on them while they sat in the stacks—soot from long before air conditioning and the library’s windows were open to the steel mills and smog. We make custom boxes for these books to live in. The boxes protect them from the damaging elements of light, moisture and air pollution; all of the things that have potential to harm our beloved books.
If you have worked at CLP-Main, this is the most common ghost story that has been passed on for generations. I was skeptical of this story, because I’d never seen any writing appear. I had never heard first-hand accounts from anyone I worked with (some who have worked here for 40 years) see writing appear in that area. I thought, well this would be an easy story to debunk. Let’s find a list of city judges who died between 1895 and 1910. So that’s what I did.
CP&A had a blast creating accordion books with workshop participants. If you couldn't join us, don't fret! We've provided step-by-step instructions for you to try making your own at home. Be sure to click through and get inspired by the fantastic accordion books crafted by workshop participants.
CP&A worked with patrons to create Pamphlet Stitch Books. It was a great time! If you couldn't join us, click to the next slide to view the Pamphlet Stitch Instruction Sheets. Keeping clicking and you'll find participants' work; we hope you are inspired by their colorful creations!
CP&A worked with patrons to create an accordion book with a cover window. It was a great time! If you couldn't join us, click to the next slide to view the Make an Accordion Book with a Cover Window Instruction Sheets. Keeping clicking and you'll find participants' work; we hope you are inspired by their creations!
