Preservation Week: 5 questions with Emilye Lewin
Each year libraries around the U.S. celebrate Preservation Week to promote preservation activities. You can find all kinds of resources from quick preservation tips to preservation guides by format to resources in multiple languages at the Preservation Week website.
Preserving and caring for our collections requires a dedicated team of experts across the Stanford Libraries. For Preservation Week 2023, the Preservation Department will be introducing some of our newer staff members through a series of Q&A blog posts. Up next is Collection Care Lead Emilye Lewin.
Tell us about your work.
I work with Collection Care staff on a variety of different projects: I assist our bindery prep staff on sending and receiving shipments to and from the bindery, triage materials from SUL branches for repair and enclosures, manage supply orders and invoices for the preservation dept, and provide enclosure and binding advice to branch libraries as needed.
What is your favorite book/item to come across your bench in the past year?
I’ve been enjoying vacuuming the materials in the Special Collections Library because we’ve seen many different binding styles and cover designs throughout history. The coolest thing we’ve seen so far is a copy of Moby Dick with an inscription to Nathaniel Hawthorne.
What is something about your job that people would be surprised to learn?
How many items come to Collection Care! Our staff processes thousands of books per week that are checked for correct labels, damage, etc.
Do you have a favorite tool/operation/piece of equipment?
Learning about the collection emergency response equipment has been interesting – making sure branches are equipped to deal with many types of emergencies requires a lot of different tools.
Can you recommend some books, websites, or articles about your field?
Library of Congress - Book Handling: https://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/books.html
CCAHA Glossary for different parts of a book: https://ccaha.org/sites/default/files/attachments/2018-05/Illustrated%20Guide%20to%20Book%20Terminology%20Part%20One.pdf
