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Treating the Zoological Keepsake: Borrowing a Textile Conservation Approach for a Book Covered in Silk 

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By: Sue Donovan, Conservator for Special Collections

A wonderful opportunity for collaboration took place recently in Shannon Library’s Special Collections Conservation Lab. As part of our Orange Flag Workflow, or the process by which rare book catalogers and archivists alert us to preservation issues, a book entitled The Zoological Keepsake came to my bench. Published in 1830 in London, the book had its original boards which were covered in silk. It was purchased as part of the History of Childhood collection, and it is described as “a child’s miscellany of facts, literature, and prose on animals” (from The National Library of Australia’s catalog). The cataloger had flagged it because the silk was quite damaged and even missing in some parts. I had never worked with a book bound in silk before, so I knew it was time to reach out to a colleague in textile conservation, Claudia Walpole.  

Claudia cautioned against using any kind of adhesive to reattach or stabilize the silk since it could cause discoloration of the silk. Instead, she suggested using bobbinet tulle (“bobbinet” is the term for tulle that is machine-made in the UK) sewn around the book. Since any covering would have to be made to allow the boards to open independently, the first thought that came to my mind was to use the bobbinet like a dust jacket wrapper. The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library has one of the largest collections of dust jackets, so I am familiar with the kinds of wrappers that go around brittle paper, but I couldn’t use the same kind of wrapper with The Zoological Keepsake because it would create static that could damage the silk further.  

Creating a wrapper with bobbinet in the style of a dust jacket wrapper seemed to have potential, so I set to work experimenting with how to adapt a conservation textile to library and archives conservation.  

Nylon bobbinet was smooth and blended in well with the original silk, and I found out that I could weld two pieces together on the ultrasonic encapsulator, a piece of equipment that we use frequently to make reversible plastic enclosures for unbound sheets of paper, drawings, and maps.  

I molded nylon bobbinet around the book cover by welding a top seam with the encapsulator and using a heated spatula to create a crisply-creased bottom seam.

 Then I needed to fold a flap of the wrapper around each board to keep the wrapper in place. I experimented with using heat alone to attach the nylon to itself, but all my attempts failed, so I ended up using strips of heat-activated mending paper to tack the side flaps to the top and bottom flaps to hold everything in place.  

Image of the inside of a book: the turn-ins are a light pink and the paste-down is a cream-colored paper. The nylon bobbinet is wrapped around the cover, and two pieces of rectangular mending paper hold together the top and bottom flaps to the side flap.

Inside the front board of The Zoological Keepsake, showing the heat-activated mending paper.

Once in place, the bobbinet does a good job of protecting the original silk of the binding. All of the damaged silk is enclosed and protected from further damage. However, the bobbinet does make the book feel more slippery in the hands, so I thought it would be better to limit handling by placing the book itself in a drop-spine box. 

I made a custom box for the volume and included an image of the verso of the book inside the box itself so that anyone curious about the back wouldn’t have to handle the book to see the design.  

Image of The Zoological Keepsake shown inside a blue drop-spine box with the bobbinet wrapper in place. A printed-out image of the back cover is inserted into a mylar sleeve on the inside tray of the box with the following note reading: “Please refer to the attached pictures of the back cover before removing the book from its protective box. Thank you!”

Image of The Zoological Keepsake shown inside a drop-spine box with the bobbinet wrapper in place.

Overall, this was a great project to work on. It involved collaboration with a conservator in a different field and the adoption of a little-used material in library and archives conservation. I am pleased with the result, and I learned a lot! Two conservators have already reached out to me about the material and the process, so I think it will be helpful to other conservators if they encounter a similar item in the future.  

 

We’re Hiring a Reparative Collections Conservator!

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"We're Hiring. Reparative Collections Conservator. 2-Year Term. For more information, search R0068758 on Careers at UVA." QR code and UVA Library logo below text.

We’re thrilled to announce that UVA Library is seeking a Reparative Collections Conservator in the Preservation Services department of Special Collections and Preservation Unit for a two-year position beginning in September 2025. The position is aimed at early career conservators, especially those entering the job market for the first time in fall/summer 2025.

The successful candidate in this position recognizes the importance of reparative work in this field and strives to create equitable and thoughtful practices within cultural heritage conservation. More information about the position and details about how to apply can be found via the job posting.

Identifying Arsenical Books in the Library’s Collections

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Cover of a book entitled "Gift of Love" with gold text set against a bright green circle.

A book with arsenical emerald green inlay. Rufus W. Griswold, Gift of Love. New York: Leavitt and Allen, 1850. (PN6110.E5 G7 1850)

This post was written by Charlie Webb, a fourth-year student majoring in art history and working with our conservator Sue Donovan through the University Museums Internship. Charlie enjoys historical costuming and craft and can be found practicing viola as a member of the Charlottesville Symphony, fencing with the Virginia Fencing Club, or attempting to climb the hills of Charlottesville on an ancient mountain bike.

In mid-19th century England, France, and the U.S., a new trend arose across fields of textile and paper artisanship. Chemists discovered that, by including arsenic and copper in their dyes, they could achieve a range of incredibly vibrant green pigments. From approximately 1830 to 1870, arsenical pigments were used in many decorative effects, from bright green cloth binding to powdery green inlays and inks for colored engravings. Today, the Winterthur Library in Delaware has developed the Poison Book Project, which includes a list of books that have been tested to include the specific combination of arsenic and copper that produces a poisonous-looking color—arsenical “emerald green” bookcloth (Marcoon, 2021). The interest in arsenical books lies in concerns of safety, as pigments containing arsenic can flake off and be unintentionally ingested by those handling the books. With frequent exposure, or in large amounts, these arsenical pigments can cause skin and lung irritation, skin lesions, and even cancer of the skin and lungs (Arsenic, 2024).

Cover of a book entitled "A Winter Wreath of Summer Flowers" with gold floral and architectural decorations and bright red and green highlights.

This ornate book cover features floral and architectural designs with arsenical green inlay. Samuel Griswold Goodrich, A Winter Wreath of Summer Flowers. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1855. (PZ9.G625 W55 1855)

The Poison Book Project works to identify books that contain this chemical combination in order to safely house them for future research and, eventually, add them into the larger list of known arsenical books. In Special Collections conservation, our process for analyzing potentially arsenical books broadly follows the structure outlined above. After cross-referencing the arsenical book database provided by Winterthur with the UVA Library’s collections, we searched the library stacks for those books that had previously been tested by Winterthur—most of which were found in the Special Collections library. In analyzing “emerald green” bookcloth and decoration, it was necessary for us to visually identify the book as potentially containing arsenic before continuing with elemental analysis. Because of the variations in the 19th-century publishing industry, books from the same edition could be bound very differently, so many of the volumes on the Poison Book Project list that were in UVA’s collections were not bound in green cloth at all.

Cover of a book with gold floral and architectural decorations and bright red, green, and blue highlights.

This book, bound by the same publisher as that of the previous book, features similar decoration. Samuel Griswold Goodrich, The Wanderers by Sea and Land: With Other Tales. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1855. (PZ9.G625 W27 1855)

Once a book was visually identified by its vibrant green color, we tested it using an XRF (X-ray fluorescence) spectrometer, a tool that identifies the elements composing a material by analyzing the unique peaks each element gives off when excited by X-rays. For those books that contained any amount of arsenic, especially in combination with copper and iron, we enclosed them in inert plastic bags along with a Poison Book Project slip explaining the hazards of handling the book and replaced them on the shelf. Throughout this entire process, we took great care not to touch potentially arsenical objects with bare hands and designated one person to handle the books while the other wrote slips and recorded notes, in order to minimize potential contamination. Additionally, while we focused our analysis on those books already confirmed by the Winterthur study, we took note of those areas of the stacks that housed many books with the characteristic arsenical green color for later analysis.

Cover of a book with a light green paper cover entitled "Earthly Care, a Heavenly Discipline" by H. B. Stowe.

Despite its unassuming minty color and size, the paper covers of this book contained over 24 ppm (parts per million) of arsenic—the highest concentration of arsenic we encountered during the project! Harriet Beecher Stowe, Earthly Care: A Heavenly Discipline. Boston: Boston: John P. Jewett and Co.; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington, 1854. (PS2954.E3 1854)

Eventually, the goal of the Poison Book Project is to safely house arsenical books so that they can be studied without the dangers that come with handling arsenic. Fortunately, such limited handling of these books does not restrict the information within. Most of the arsenical books that we have identified have duplicates elsewhere in UVA’s collections, and the arsenical copies can still be handled in the Special Collections reading room with the necessary protective equipment. The information that we have collected about the arsenical books at UVA will be shared with Winterthur to be added to their compiled list of “emerald green” arsenical books. And, as we begin to analyze previously untested books, we hope to be able to add new information about these books to the Poison Book Project’s database.

Citations

Arsenic. (n.d.). World Health Organization. Retrieved December 16, 2024, from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/arsenic

IDing Arsenic Bookbindings. (n.d.). Poison Book Project. https://sites.udel.edu/poisonbookproject/arsenic-bookbindings/

Marcoon, A. (2021, December 29). Uncovering Undercover Toxins. Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library. https://www.winterthur.org/uncovering-undercover-toxins/

Staff Spotlight: Jacquelyn Kim, Exhibitions Coordinator

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A photo of Jacquelyn standing outdoors in front of a Christmas tree.

Jacquelyn Kim, Exhibitions Coordinator

Welcome back to our staff spotlight series! Over the next few weeks, we’ll catch up on featuring recent hires and new roles of staff in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library here at the University of Virginia.

As the exhibitions coordinator, Jacquelyn (she/they) helps to produce exhibitions that showcase the Library’s collections and assists with community engagement. She previously worked at Special Collections as the exhibitions assistant for two years and recently graduated from UVA with highest distinction in American studies and global development studies. Beyond the library, Jacquelyn enjoys cooking, foraging, and making pottery, and they plan to start an MLIS program in the near future.

What was your first ever job with books or libraries?

As a high school student, I volunteered at a local library branch to tutor kids in math and English. During my third year as an undergraduate student at UVA, I began working at Special Collections as a Wolfe Fellow, helping with social media and gaining hands-on experience working in an archive and with archival materials—and clearly I couldn’t get enough!

What was the first thing you collected as a child? What do you collect now? (oh, c’mon, admit it).

As a child, I had an impressive collection of Pokémon cards and erasers in odd shapes like animals, food, and flowers that I’ve since gifted and passed on to younger family members. Now, my apartment is full of books, CDs, and zines! A friend recently gifted me a beautiful zine about the history of mahjong, and that’s one of my new favorites.

Hopefully you’ve been roaming Grounds and Charlottesville a bit since your arrival. What’s your favorite new discovery other than Special Collections?

I’ve been in Charlottesville/at UVA for over 5 years now, but a couple of my favorite spots are The Beautiful Idea, a bookstore and community center on the Downtown Mall, and La Flor Michoacana, an ice cream shop! Around campus, the fruit trees in the gardens of the Academical Village are a hidden gem.

Tell us what excites you about your job?

I love how I get to do a deep dive into a new topic with every exhibition—I’m constantly learning something new! I’ve also been so grateful for opportunities to engage directly with community members who are assisting with curation and/or have contributed materials to our collections. Getting to hear firsthand the stories about objects included in our exhibitions and collections has been incredibly grounding.

If you could be locked in any library or museum for a weekend, with the freedom to roam, enjoy, and study to your heart’s content, which one would you choose?

I lived in Seoul for a bit and loved the many different collections at the National Museum of Korea, particularly of ceramics! I also recently learned about the Interference Archive based in New York, and I’d love to explore their collections of items related to social movements around the world.