Month 8 (February 2012)
This month I have been mostly... Considering conservation issues.
One of the Butler Project’s aims is to address the conservation needs of the collection, and I’ve been working through my list to identify which items should be initial priorities. It’s not just a case of identifying the items in the poorest condition, as there are many items that would benefit from conservation treatment but are not actually worth treating (whether because not many people will ever want to see them, or because, despite their relevance to Butler, they are not in themselves especially rare). But some items are of continued interest to scholars, and warrant inclusion in exhibitions – either because they’re unique, such as an annotated volume of printed music from Butler’s own library, or very rare irrespective of Butler’s ownership, such as a first edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species.
Butler's 'Odyssey' translation - II/3/4
The original manuscript of Butler’s Odyssey translation is a great example of a unique item we’ve selected for some ‘preventative conservation’ work. The manuscript’s pages are in good condition, but for decades it’s been stored in a tight-fitting cardboard box, which isn’t archival-friendly (ordinary cardboard is acidic and degrades paper over time) and which makes it difficult to access the manuscript without scraping its edges, damaging the thin paper covers. An acid-free, made-to-measure box will help protect the manuscript from future damage, and make it easier to use. Along with the manuscript to be boxed, we’ve identified an important volume of Butler’s printed music for rebinding, two original pencil and charcoal drawings for remounting, and the last of Butler’s five photograph albums for spine repair, internal restoration and interleaving. This is all complicated and time-consuming work, and will be carried out by professional conservators at the Cambridge Colleges’ Conservation Consortium. We’ll look forward to collecting our restored items in the coming months! [See Month 11 for an update.]
Inside the manuscript
Amid ongoing preparations for the Butler Day, we also hosted a visit for a group of London secondary school students and trialled our newest education activity, Curator for an Hour. Using thirty items from the Butler collection, the students had to identify interesting artefacts, piece together information using the surrounding exhibits, and then choose five items to show in their own mini-exhibition. The Butler Collection lends itself really well to this kind of exploratory activity, because it includes such a variety of media – paintings, photographs, books, papers and objects. The students got really involved, and managed to come up with some very imaginative titles for their own exhibitions, all less than one hour after hearing of Samuel Butler for the first time. Needless to say I was very impressed! We’ll definitely re-run this activity for future group visits.
Curators for an hour, in the Old Library