One very neglected area of the special collections storage has been the old wooden cases with glass sliding doors, where some of the more precious items are shelved.
The glass is very dusty and, along with the rest of the cabinets and shelves inside, has not been cleaned for decades. The NADFAS volunteers have been tackling these recently.
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| The dust makes the glass appear dull. |
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| The amount of dust is clearly visible here. It's on the inside and the outside of the cabinets. |
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| Inside, the books are also very dusty, and show signs of damage through incorrect handling when being removed from the shelves. |
The cabinet doors slide open and shut. There is a huge amount of detritis from books that has accumulated over the years.
The volunteers have been cleaning the glass by wiping with a very slightly damp microfibre cloth, then wiping it with a dry one, and leaving to dry completely. The same method is used for the shelves. Getting in between the sliding doors to clean the glass is still problematic though, despite Pam's magic feather duster (unfortunately I don't have a photo of that!). We cannot use special glass cleaner or indeed any liquid around the books and shelves either.
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| Diane vacuums the shelves and sliding mechanisms (after having checked that nothing significant from a book is there first of course!) using our amazingly quiet Nilfisk vacuum cleaner. |
The result? Well, lovely clean shelves, books and cabinets!
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| You can actually see what's behind the glass! |
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| Looking much smarter. |
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| The books themselves look much cleaner and neater, and have been repaired slightly with the black cotton tape, securing loose bindings. |
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| The books won't have to sit on dust or detritis anymore. |
Another problem is how many of the books have been shelved so that they lean over to one side. This is very damaging. After the books in these cabinets have been cleaned library staff will re-shelve all of them so that there are no gaps where books can lean over, or if there are, adding suitable book ends.
Now I have to decide what the volunteers should tackle next...
