Conservation Complete for Houghton Reading Room Reference Collection
Rachel Howarth, Head of Public Services at Houghton,
Nancy Schrock, Chief Collections Conservator for the
Harvard College Library, and Ethel Hellman,
CollectionsConservator for Widener Library review
materials in the Houghton Reading Room.
HCL Collections Conservation Laboratory recently finished a two-year project to repair the reference collection in the Houghton Reading Room. Houghton's rare collections are treated by conservators at the Weissman Preservation Center, but items in the reference collection are not candidates for special collection conservation and so fall outside of Houghton's normal preservation and conservation process. Nancy Schrock, Chief Collections Conservator for the Harvard College Library, in consultation with Houghton staff, decided that to prevent minor damage of pages and bindings from becoming major problems, a program for the review and treatment of the reference materials needed to be developed.
Reference books are among the most heavily used of all library collections and HCL Conservation Services has instituted a practice of reviewing and refurbishing reference collections including the Houghton, Loeb Music Library, and the Loker Reading Room in Widener.
