For those of you who aren't at the BPL I'm sure you've heard us discuss the CAB room, which holds a portion of the print collection (and Nancy Webb's collection). Access has been restricted to this room because it's not particularly clean...anyway the clean up crew is finally on its way (knock on wood) and starting on Monday the collection will be coming out all shiny and clean!!
The Nancy Webb collection was gifted to the BPL May 2015 and we have an inventory of the collection that is "supposedly" what was gifted; however, we've been told that when it was packed up and taken to the BPL traces of water damage and mold were found so not everything was taken. The collection was placed in the CAB room and is made up of:
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| 2 extra large cardboard boxes with framed prints; 1 tube |
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| 2 Rubbermaid trashcans |
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| 2 large, 1 medium, and 3 smallish cardboard boxes |
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| 1 cart with framed prints |
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| 2 cardboard boxes with a sculpture in each |
Over the past few weeks we were able to get two boxes from Webb's collection out and unwrapped the contents and checked to see if they were on the inventory; some were and some weren't and we have kept a detailed spreadsheet of what has not been on the inventory.
For the most part, the first box we went through contained prints that were listed on the inventory, a large number of photocopies of some of her prints, and copies of some of Webb's books, also listed on the inventory. No mold was found! The box they came in is currently in good shape so we have temporarily left these prints wrapped in new interleaving in this box.
The second box we got out of the CAB room proved more of a challenge. Aaron and Chris at the BPL removed it for us and in order for it to be clean had to remove its contents from the box. We came into find a large stack of prints and loose sketches torn from sketchbooks, several sketchbooks, 1 solander box filled with matted prints, a mysterious box wrapped in bubble wrap, a large stack of exhibition matted photographs by Caroline Crocker, and 2 binders filled with 35 mm slides of Webb's work. Some of the prints, loose sketches, and sketch books were on the inventory, but not all and the rest of the items from the second box were not listed. We placed each loose print/sketch in an interleave folder and grabbed a solander box to keep them in. Everything that was not on the inventory was added to our spreadsheet. We are not really sure why there are the photographs by Caroline Crocket who was a photographer from Mass and died a few years ago but the photographs document the building of the Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge.
The worst part was the mysterious box wrapped in bubble wrap because I unwrapped it to find a red box that rattled when you shook it and that had been badly damaged by water. The lid had traces of inactive mold, which was decided to be inactive after Chris from rare books came to check the contents for mold. (and Martha you can tell me to get over it until your face turns blue but its still the grossest thing I've ever touched and haunts me in my sleep!)
Inside the box were an assortment of rocks, geodes, and pieces of broken pottery, travel documents from Webb's 1984 trip to Morocco, postcards, and a small sketchbook. Also included in the box were mice droppings.
Luckily there was no active mold on any of the contents. The box was disposed of, I put the items in a new box after placing them in folders and envelopes, and proceeded to wash my hands about a million times.
The other nasty part of the second box are the binders of sleeved 35 mm slides which were clearly submerged in water and now have a thick layer of dirt and grim covering the sleeves. We're going to have to go through and count the slides and place them in new sleeves.
Hopefully, that was the worst box and we will find out soon when the rest of the collection comes out of the CAB room this week!!
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