Washing a Water-Damaged Book: Conservation Treatment of a 1622 Copy of John Smith’s 'New England's Trials' 

"Washing" paper artifacts is a relatively common set of techniques within paper conservation. During the washing process, an object is exposed to water, sometimes in combination with other solvents and chemicals. This process can have several benefits. It can remove soluble deterioration products, soiling, and other impurities from the paper structure that might not be removable through other methods. Washing can improve the strength and flexibility of embrittled paper. Also, washing in alkalized water can raise the overall pH of the paper, which can in turn slow the deterioration of paper.

While washing paper is a common technique, I, alongside my supervisor Ursula Mitra, used a somewhat unusual version of it for a treatment we conducted during my internship at NYPL’s Barbara Goldsmith Conservation Lab this summer. Normally, when books are washed in immersive water baths they are first disbound and separated into sheets to be washed individually, before being rebound after the washing and drying steps are complete. However, in the case of this treatment, we decided to wash the text block of the book as a single, intact object. 1

The book, New England's Trials, by John Smith, belongs within NYPL’s Rare Book Division. It is a 1622 printing of a pamphlet by Smith describing early English colonization efforts in North America. Although the original text block dates from the seventeenth century, this copy is currently housed in a nineteenth-century fine binding (Figure 1). Additionally, a section of blank leaves had been added to the end of the original leaves in order to create a sufficiently thick text block for the binding. While not original, the binding is still historic, and we sought to preserve as much of it as possible during treatment.

New England's Trials was part of a group of books that came to the conservation lab for treatment after being damaged by a water leak. The leaves of the book had been disfigured by water stains and tidelines that affected the entire text block, and it was this staining that our treatment was meant to address (Figure 3).

Besides the detached front board, the sewing structure of the book was relatively intact. Although the book’s current binding is a later, nineteenth-century binding, we still wanted to re-use the binding as much as possible. This would have been very difficult had we disbound the book completely. It would have destroyed the historic sewing structure and the sewn endbands and most likely required mending the spine folds of the outer bifolia of each section. This in turn might have made it impossible to re-use the finely and elaborately gold-tooled spine of the cover, as the text block would have been much thicker at the spine after repairs. Aligning the gilt edges after complete disbinding and repair would have been difficult if not impossible as well.

Because of these considerations, and the nature of the damage—primarily affecting the leaves but not the binding, we decided to wash the book intact—which would allow us to treat the staining of the leaves while still preserving as much of the sewing structure, endbands and gilt edges as possible.

Paper washing is a technique that has been widely used in the history of paper and book conservation. However heightened concern over ethical considerations have motivated more selective use of the method in recent years. Before embarking on the treatment, we therefore had to carefully weigh the pros and cons of making such an intervention. 

For one, immersive washing irreversibly alters the character of a paper object. Every part of the piece is affected—not just the paper itself, but any inks, attachments, or other components. Washing can also cause undesirable changes to the paper texture, printing impressions, and paper tone. It is also a somewhat unpredictable process. Although spot testing to see how the paper and ink react is an essential part of the preparatory process, we would not be able to predict how the book as a whole would react to washing. Moreover, during the washing process, the paper becomes extremely delicate, and is even more vulnerable to damage from handling than usual. 2

Before the book could be washed, several preparatory steps had to be taken. First, to prevent them from being damaged, the boards, spine and endsheets were carefully removed and set aside for later (Figure 4). Then, the paper, ink, blue NYPL stamps and silk endbands were spot tested for their solubility and wetting properties. (Figure 6) Having determined that neither the original printing ink, the colors of the silk endbands or the ink from the NYPL stamps were soluble in deionized water or a 50/50 water and ethanol solution, we felt confident in moving on to the actual washing process.

Before immersing the book in water, we lightly sprayed each leaf with a 50/50 water ethanol solution (Figure 8). This step ensured that the leaves were uniformly wet, so the book would not be washed unevenly in the bath.

We then immersed the book in a bath of deionized water, suspended by a plastic ruler inserted in its middle (Figure 9). To encourage the removal of soiling and deterioration products, we gently agitated the leaves every so often (Figure 10).

Once no more colored liquid was being squeezed out when the book was agitated, we removed the book from the bath and gently squeezed out excess water with a Plexiglas cylinder (Figure 11). We then added enough drops of saturated calcium hydroxide solution to the bath to raise the pH of the water to 9. Once the water was sufficiently alkaline, we re-immersed the book in the bath for another 15 minutes. This last step allowed the calcium hydroxide to enter the paper structure of the leaves and act as a "buffer" later in the form of crystalline calcium carbonate, neutralizing any acids that may form in the paper in the future and thus slowing down its deterioration.

After we removed the book from the bath for the final time, it underwent a several-day-long drying process. This process was perhaps the most important step of the treatment, as it ensured that the leaves dried slowly and evenly, with minimal cockling and creasing. 

First, we interleaved every few leaves with sheets of TEK-WIPE—a thin but highly absorbent non-woven fabric. The sheets of TEK-WIPE extended beyond the edges of the text block by at least 2 inches on all sides to allow for the moisture to be wicked out and evaporated. We then placed the book in a mostly open fume hood to provide gentle airflow. The TEK-WIPE sheets were exchanged for dry ones frequently—first every 15 minutes and then every 30 minutes for the first day of drying. To prevent the book from drying too quickly along the edges overnight, we covered it in thick felts and reduced the airflow of the fume hood (Figure 12).

Paper tends to expand when wet, sometimes alarmingly. In the case of New England's Trials, the newer, blank leaves expanded to become visibly larger than the text’s leaves (Figure 13). Coming in the next morning, it was concerning to see such an uneven text block, even knowing the leaves would likely shrink back to the same size.

After another half day of switching out the interleavings, the book was dry enough to continue drying under felts and a light weight to flatten any waviness that had appeared in the gutters.

Once the paper had completely dried, all pages were back to the same size and we were ready to continue the treatment. These final steps included reattaching the marbled endpapers, boards, and leather spine covering, and mending the joints between the boards and spine (Figures 17 & 18).

The decision to treat a book block intact by washing should be made carefully, considering the type of sewing supports and endbands that were used, and whether the sewing threads are in good condition. Therefore, this particular method is not suitable for every book that needs to be washed. However, in this case—where the leaves of the book were severely disfigured by water damage, but the sewing structure and endbands were still quite sound—washing the text block intact allowed us to achieve the desired results while preserving the sewing structure, endbands, and gilt edge. It was also a much less time-consuming treatment compared to disbinding, washing, mending spine folds, and re-sewing. Although it is definitely not a treatment method that I will be using every day, in this instance, it allowed us to complete the treatment more efficiently while also preserving historic elements that otherwise might have had to be preserved off the book.

Notes:

1. Bill Minter describes a very similar methodology in his article “Water Damaged Books: Washing Intact and Air Drying—A Novel (?) Approach” outlining his treatment of a similar group of water-damaged books.
2. Further discussion of different approaches to paper washing can be found on the American Institute for Conservation wiki.

Celia Cooper is a second year dual master’s degree candidate (MS/MA) at the Conservation Center, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, and an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow in Library and Archive Conservation. 

Ursula Mitra is senior book conservator at the NYPL Conservation Lab. She graduated from the School of Library Service at Columbia University in 1992 with a Master of Science in Library Service and an Advanced Certificate in Library & Archives Conservation. During the degree program she interned at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, and at the Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland. Subsequently she worked as a conservator at the Frick Art Reference Library from 1992–97, followed by two years as Conservator at NYU’s Bobst Library in New York City. In 1999 she began serving the greater New York City area in her private practice in Library Conservation and joined NYPL in September 2020.