Hesburgh Libraries Preservation, University of Notre Dame

05/13/2026

Celebrating our delightful crew of graduating student workers that we will miss dearly. Oh, the places you’ll go!

04/29/2026

We’re celebrating Preservation Week! Here are examples of treatments used to physically stabilize Hesburgh Libraries’ collections that support teaching, learning and research at Notre Dame. For more information on Preservation Week, check out preservationweek.org

04/27/2026

Happy Preservation Week! Here are some of the ‘continuum of care’ approaches we use to preserve Hesburgh Libraries’ collections that support teaching, learning and research at Notre Dame. For more information on Preservation Week, check out preservationweek.org

03/03/2026

Notre Dame senior Rocío Colón Cotto is pursuing a new Art Conservation track for undergraduate Art History majors. Her interest in archival research and book conservation led her to pursue student assistantships in both Preservation and Rare Books and Special Collections, where part of her work involves performing materials research and analysis on a 16th-century Spanish patent of nobility from the Hesburgh Libraries’ Latin American and Iberian studies collections. This centuries-old manuscript includes several pages of beautiful illuminations and an important legal text detailing the owner’s noble status.

Alongside Dr. Khachatur Manukyan and Armenuhi Yeghisyan from the Physics Department, Rocío has conducted preliminary material analysis on the manuscript using a handheld X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) device. XRF is a popular non-invasive analytical technique that provides information about the elemental composition of an object. By identifying elements in particular samples, Rocío is able to make educated guesses about the pigments the artist used to create the illuminations. She is currently investigating the possibility that the manuscript painter used cochineal dye, an organic material originating from the Americas, in some of the illustrations.

Rocío hopes to incorporate this scientific research into her senior capstone project in art conservation. Her project will provide insight into the Spanish manuscript’s history, as well as information about its makeup that could inform potential future conservation treatments.

Photos by Dr. Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Latin American and Iberian Studies Librarian and Curator, Rare Books and Special Collections

02/17/2026

Come work with us!

Our preservation department is growing and we’re excited to add a second special collections conservator to the mix. Work with great people and great collections in this library faculty role that offers many opportunities for collaboration and growth. For more information and to apply visit: https://apply.interfolio.com/181007

11/19/2025

Our very own special collections conservator Jen Hunt was September’s featured “Seen@ND” employee. In the interview-style article Jen describes her work to stabilize and preserve the Hesburgh Libraries’ vulnerable and actively used special collections. Kudos, Jen! Check out the full article here:

News, information and events for University of Notre Dame faculty, staff and their families. This is your Notre Dame.

11/03/2025

These two brightly illustrated Soviet children’s books from the 1930s have seen a lot of use. Many of the pages are torn along the center fold where rusted staples once held them together, and some have prominent brown stains from a previous well-meaning pressure-sensitive tape repair. While we can’t erase all signs of damage, a few simple stabilization repairs made these books usable again. The books were mended using kozo paper toned with acrylic paint to blend in with the colorful pages. The kozo paper was adhered with wheat starch paste to mend the tears, and to replace a large missing area from one of the pages . The mended pages were then sewn back together using linen thread in place of the deteriorated metal staples.

10/20/2025

We love our new workbenches! While our old stationary benches with their butcher block tops may have had their charm, our new benches are much more ergonomic, durable, and enjoyable to work with. The new benches are height adjustable to accommodate different working heights, they have casters that allow them to be easily moved to accommodate larger projects, and they have a smooth and impermeable working surface. These features make the new tables much more comfortable and adaptable for different individuals, working styles, and types of work.

09/08/2025

In the Hesburgh Libraries Conservation Lab, you’ll find that many of the tools we use were originally designed for very different purposes and lines of work altogether. A couple of examples are the surgical scalpels we use to cut paper and light board, and the sheet metal bending brake (shown here) that we use to bend the sturdy yet pliant PETG (polyethylene terephthalate glycol) plastic that we use to make cradles that support and display rare books, manuscripts, and other archival and special collection items while on exhibit.

08/19/2025

In this treatment of Jack Lewis’ Pacific Odyssey, the beautiful full-color image reproductions of Lewis’ original paintings that had become loose were reattached by “tipping” them back into the book using wheat starch paste.

The rubber-based adhesive that originally attached these separately-printed images had become brittle and failed over time. To reinsert the images I chose a more stable wheat starch paste adhesive, while opting to retain the original “tipped” approach to attach them. This method allows the separately printed image plates to move a bit more freely from the text pages, minimizing the tensions and distortions that can result when different papers are adhered overall and then subjected to movement.

In this book, published in 1945, artist John I. “Jack” Lewis (1912-2012) documents his experiences while serving in the Pacific with the U.S. Army during World War II.