http://library.brooklyn.cuny.edu/about_library/speccoll/slava/
In December 2002, the Library placed our part-time conservator Slava Polishchuk on a full-time line, one cost-shared between the Library and the College. The impact of this decision has been swift, substantial, and gratifying, as preservation activity increased dramatically. Slava is kept busy by the endless supply of items Library staff place on his workbench. From volumes supplied by the shelvers, to damaged reference books brought in by the Information Services staff, to an array of items that Special Collections staff identify daily, he repairs, rebinds and re-houses them all.
In the new building, Slava's workshop includes a 288 inch processing table. From his cutting and cleaning area, to the sewing space, and finally to the pressing and binding area, he has efficiently organized his space. One of Slava's main tasks is to repair the long neglected rare book collection. This is a time-consuming process, and while one volume is undergoing treatment he also repairs books from the general collection, mylars old clippings, and helps evaluate new materials that come into the archives. Slava has also created pamphlet binders for booklets in the Hess Collection that are too fragile to go on the shelves unprotected.
To assist Slava, Carlos Abdu, a student from the Brooklyn College Academy, comes into the Archives approximately 20 hours a week. Carlos' internship earns high school credits, and he is gaining valuable job skills that he can take with him after graduation. He has helped Slava repair fragile items in the Loretta Bender Collection, one of our most heavily used collections. (The poor quality paper Dr. Bender used to type her notes is beginning to show signs of aging.) This internship is a win-win situation for us: Carlos gets job experience, and we get an extra set of much-needed hands.
This summer Slava worked for many weeks restoring and re-housing scrapbooks from the Barbra Higginbotham Collection. Each page in the scrapbook was digitally photographed before undergoing treatment. All the items were carefully separated from the acidic scrapbook pages, cleaned, restored and mylared in their original order. Slava developed this successful technique while working with the Euclid scrapbooks earlier in the year.
Slava also assisted in mounting and designing our first exhibit in the new building. In October 2002 he also gave a talk on preservation techniques to a Pratt Library School class. Slava will continue to work on the rare book and other new collections such as the records from the President's Office and the Alan Dershowitz collection. We would like to have him host a METRO workshop on preservation, to share his skills with librarians in the metropolitan region. Slava saves the Library thousands of dollars each year by repairing books in the general collection that would otherwise have to be reordered, and also extends the lives of fragile and unique materials.