Spawn Collection (Rachel Bartgis):



Rachel was given the task of studying a collection of disbound Maryland court records, primarily from the 18th century, that were in disorganized and neglected piles in an isolated corner of the stacks. The volumes had been disbound so that their contents could undergo the Barrow lamination process, and the over 300 leather, vellum, and cloth-bound bindings from the 1670s to the 1850s had been saved. Over the course of the summer she sorted, cataloged, photographed, described, boxed, and researched the volumes, placing the raw material of her research on the MSA website (Special Collection 5797). Rachel photographed volumes to show the evolution of 18th century book decoration techniques - particularly blind-tooling styles, the watermarks of those volumes, and the several dozen volumes she found with binder's tickets or other interesting features. She placed the photos online for the public, creating an entry for each volume in the special collections database. Each cataloged volume was wrapped in Tyvek, built a custom Coroplast, and once the volumes and boxes were both labeled they were reutnred to the stacks.

Maryland Historical Magazine Project (Allison Rein):




Almost 100 volumes, some 400 issues, of Maryland Historical Magazines were brought to the lab to be disbound for scanning. Allison processed this collection with the help of conservation staff and the librarian. The collection has been rehoused, with each issue in its own labeled, acid-free folder. As of Fall 2009 it is still in the process of being scanned.

Maryland Land Office Project (Allison Rein):



Allison and the librarian found a collection of black bound Maryland Land Office volumes in the library that had never been entered into the library catalog. Some of these volumes were found to contain rare pamphlets, from various organizations and publications, that had been bound together over time. Allison's job was to disbind the volumes, design an organizational system for storing them and then catalog them in both the library catalog and in the special collections database.
One pamphlet was of particular interest to Allison and the Archives' staff. It was The Life and Confession of George Swearingen, Who Was Executed, at Cumberland, Allegany County, MD on the 2d Day of October, 1829, for the Murder of His Wife.

Pamphleting Project (Allison Rein):

This project was continued from the Summer of 2008 and is still ongoing in the Fall of 2009.

Book and Paper Conservation (Allison Rein):

Allison participated in various small to medium sized conservation projects. One of the projects involved extensive tape removal and heat-set tissue mending on over-sized plats.

Website (Allison Rein):
Allison created this website.