Day 4: A tour to the British Library: Digitization and Conservation Departments

A Visit to The British Library:

 One of the highlights of our visit to the British Library was to see the amazing original books that used to be at the British Museum.  These are found near the entrance and are stored on a glass shelf in  climate controlled glass shelves (the temp is about 17 Celsius according to our tour guide Kevin). We also walked around the Alan Turin Institute and we saw the original Enygma machine. We had to leave our bags  on the lockers before proceeding.

The Digitization and Conservation departments

Salvador and Liz Rose gave us a tour to the Digitization Programme department (Sixth floor), and the Conservation department (Second floor). I was impressed with the detailed workflow of the Gulf History digitization program funded by the Qatar Foundation, the National Qatar Library, and the British Library. The collection consists of rare books and manuscripts about Mathematic treaties, Alchemy and Astronomy. It was a collaborative effort that was executed in three stages. The project started back on 2012 and the completion is scheduled for 2021. More detailed notes on the digitization department are found in a previous post.

The Conservation department

The conservation department was the highlight of the day for me. It is a big room with all kinds of gadgets  to repair book covers and spines and conserve paper. We interviewed two employees, Jackie and Morgan who tolds us how they landed their jobs and what aspects of their conservation jobs they enjoy most. They both had degrees in Book Conservation. Before entering the room, in the hallway, they have a collection of tools used to print ancient books. Morgan has a four year degree from La Sorbonne. She explained the qualities of the Japanese paper. It comes in 7 or 12 grams, it is  conservation grade paper based on a wheat starch mixed with methacellulose to be used as adhesive or pultice. Then she adds a bit of distilled water tremouisten the tissue. The water reactivates the adhesive so the papers can be repaired.  It is a delicate job.  Ink is susceptible to water so to avoid moisture a gelatin instead must be used to minimize the damage preventing the release of water over the years which will damage paper.  The environment has to be controlled as paper and leather deay over time. Repairing a book page may take about one hour. Every conservation project has to be submitted as a bid and wait for approval based on financial and human resources. She focuses on projects that take under ten hours of work.

 We saw first hand the type of Japanese paper and paste they use to repair pages and book spines. JackieThey explained how she used Japanese paper to repair  a book cover from 1852. Is a fun job because it feels like solving a puzzle. She loves repairing book spines rib backs

Another interesting thing that I noticed in both departments conservation and digitization, is that each one has its own key peformance indicators and quality assurance standards printed on the hallway on  a big frame. I saw a KPI frame at the digizitation program and at the Conservation department I saw "Opossum Vellum Skin KPI" Mission and values. That means each employee is aware of the department targets and if what they are working on meets the standards. I think this is an important piece and it would be nice if every organization has something like this to motivate its employees  so these know they are doing a good job and quality assurance is consistent.


Well, I feel that in a short period of time I have learned so much about digitization and conservation at least how it is managed in an institution such as the British Library, what types of tasks and materials are involved, and what types of skills are needed for this type of job. Thanks to our Professor and the very kind staff for giving us access to the facilities and for sharing their precious time!