I became particularly interested in conservation and preservation while studying INF210 Collections. Conservation of significant collections is something that I deem incredibly important for our cultural currency. Significant collections house items that are unique and have historical, cultural, evidential, bibliographic, aesthetic or monetary values and which are difficult or impossible to replace. (Russell & Winkworth, 2009). In the case of my current employer, Sunshine Coast Libraries it would include everything in the local heritage collection. The heritage collection contains photos, and documents relating to oral history, family history and indigenous history in our region and it would be impossible to replace.

I found an international accredited (estimated 35 hour/ 15 hours to complete) online course in Preservation of Books and Documents via Citaliarestauro. This professional development avenue appealed to immensely because not only am I passionate about conservation, but I do believe that collections and specifically heritage/special collections within libraries would be an area I would potentially like to pursue.

The Preservation of Books and Documents course consisted of five modules:

Concepts and levels of operation:

1. Concepts and levels of operation:

• Preventative conservation
• Interventional and curative conservation
• Restoration

2. Materials

• Writing materials
• Inks
• Adhesives
• Book binding

3. Agents of Deterioration

• Deterioration
• Damage
• Damage and Loss

4. Damage Minimisation and Techniques

• Cleaning
• Flattening
• Consolidation and repair of damage

5. Handling, Transportation and Storage

• Maintenance and cleaning
• Integrated pest management
• Temperature and Humidity
• Light and Invisible radiations
• Pollutants and contaminations

Conservation as a discipline encompasses several levels of intervention, each one with certain specificities, all of them aiming to preserve one or more objects. The training covered disciplines within three separate areas of ​​conservation: preventative conservation, remedial conservation and restoration.

The training has improved my knowledge and understanding of all three areas of conservation. However, the principles and techniques of preventative conservation were of particular interest to me.   Preventive conservation interventions main objective is to create conditions that help to prevent the occurrence of damages or losses and to slow down the aging process of materials. Although preventive conservation interventions generally do not produce visible results on the pieces, these preventive actions are absolutely essential to keep collections in good condition, avoiding damage, losses and unnecessary expenses.

The reason I enjoyed the preventative conservation aspects of the training more than the remedial conservation and restoration is because of the particularly useful techniques and information that I can practice immediately, including: the handling and packaging of books and documents, cleaning of books and documents and the spaces where they circulate and are stored and the monitoring environmental conditions, such as temperature and relative humidity levels.

It was incredibly interesting to learn about interventional conservation. Where in the event that damage has already occurred or there is damage in progress, interventional measures can be implemented that slow the degradation processes and stabilise the item, thereby reducing the risk of further damage. These interventions work as “first aid”. Some of the techniques covered in the course include: the consolidation of fragile areas of paper, repair of paper tears, the reintegration of detached sheets and bindings, deacidification. While all of this information is incredibly interesting most of the processes are not relevant to my current position in libraries and are not processes I could practice myself. Some of the techniques detailed were very advanced, like that of deacidifaction. However the processes outlined for repairing tears was useful and practical and I will be able to integrate these skills into my current library role. I appreciated that the course not only covered repair procedures for rare books but also repair techniques for general loan books and out of print books that aren’t suitable for weeding.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Preservation of Books and Documents course and it has further spurred on my intention to learn more within this specific field of collections. Conservation is very practical and requires advanced skills to carry out practices proficiently and while I do believe I gained lots of very useful information via the course nothing compares to hands on experience in this field. In my opinion intense training is almost compulsory for any individual that wishes to pursue further knowledge of preservation and conservation. This course however was a great introduction; I enjoyed it and would be happy to commit further professional development to preservation and conservation. However, I have concluded that if I wish to advance my conservation and preservation skills to a professional standard I would like to potentially undertake a professional placement or masters degree.

Russell, R.,Winkworth, K. (2009). Significance 2.0: a guide to assessing the significance of collections. Adelaide: Collections Council of Australia. https://www.arts.gov.au/sites/g/files/net1761/f/ significance-2.0.pdf