Conservator Kristen St. John interviewed by The Daily Bruin

Our conservator, Kristen St. John, was recently interviewed by UCLA's newspaper, The Daily Bruin, in a short spot called "Preserving History, One Book at a Time." Kristen talks about the work that goes on in the Library Conservation Center and the video includes some great images of our lab space and the UCLA Library collections. Some of the wonderful artifacts that make an appearance are a rare (and very extensive) set Kabuki theater programs, an early copy of Machiavelli's The Prince, children's literature and one of our beautiful books of botanical illustrations. In addition, you can see Kristen and several of our students doing real benchwork. Conservation photo shoots have a long history of being only vaguely realistic in an effort to create some visual interest. Real conservation work is often small, slow, repetitive and it's hard to get an activity like scraping off oxidized adhesives to make for a great photo composition or to play well on film. The Daily Bruin staff deserve credit for capturing this work so well.

As Kristen said in her interview, we don't want to lock anything away because it's too fragile or can't be handled. We want the collections to be available in good condition, to support the work of the faculty and students. The interview video last for only one minute and 38 seconds, while a treatment can take hours, but I hope that watching this interview gives you a little insight into what it takes to keep these artifacts ready for research.