Croquet and Klucel G

The last couple of days have been relatively uneventful but good.

I mentioned in my last post that we'd received our first books to treat on Tuesday and that was exciting for sure! All of our books are leather-bound with detached cover boards, so the first treatment we are learning is that of board reattachment. Of course, there are lots of other things we have to do to get them ready to return home. Yesterday we spent most of the day assessing the condition of our books (much like the condition survey I completed during my time as an intern for Preservation Research and Testing at the Library of Congress last year) and proposing treatment for them, with photographs to round out our condition and treatment report forms.

Today, in contrast, we began working on the treatments. In addition to our main tutor, David Dorning, the program also has an assistant tutor named Sonja Scholl, who is originally from Germany and worked at one time in the States with Don Etherington (a conservation bigwig). She's really sweet and she took the lead in consulting with us today on our treatment proposals and also helped us carry out the initial steps in treating the books. We all began by dry or surface cleaning our books with a chemical eraser--it looks like a sponge and it acts like one as well, sucking up dirt etc. from the surface without any water or soap. Then we did paper repairs as needed, which was a trying experience. I've done plenty of paper repair but we're using a much more delicate repair tissue than I've used in the past which was also surprisingly difficult to tear into usable strips or pieces. I eventually worked out a method and my repairs turned out alright. More to work on! The exciting part, consolidating the rotten leather with a chemical called Klucel G, was a good time as well. It's a gel-like substance that is applied with a soft brush to decaying leather and it adheres the flaky parts to the original, preventing further decay from occurring.

Pretty sweet, eh? It's got two keys and needs
a dude to open it. Normally.

One thing I forgot to mention--when we're not working on our books, we lock them up in the VAULT. Yes, we have a vault. I know, awesome.

We've also been getting a lot of health and safety-type training, and this morning we also had a meeting about student representation. I've volunteered to work on the Academic Quality Committee, which means I get to be a student rep to the administration and tell them what's going well and what's not so hot. I believe I will also therefore have contact with the external examiners from the University of Sussex who validate our degrees. That should be interesting for sure.

Something else intriguing--we have Wednesday afternoons free to a certain extent. No lectures are scheduled and students can use the time as they see fit to further their education. Things like the student welfare officer's yoga classes meet Wednesday afternoons, they offer tours of the estate, and some students go into town. We did that yesterday (some friends, including one with a vehicle, and I) and did a bit of shopping for school needs etc. at the local grocery store. It was nice to get out and see a bit more of Chichester, which is a really cute place with a nice pedestrianized downtown area.

Alex and Johnny figuring out the rules.

After that, some other friends and I got together to play croquet on the school croquet lawn! It took us a while to get started as no one really knew the rules, but with the seven of us together and the help of the booklet from the croquet set, we got it sorted and had a ball. Despite the fact that only four people are supposed to play at one time. He he. We even ended up shortening the game since you apparently have to go through all the hoops TWICE before you can end the game, so we did it just the one time. I ended us as unofficial referee since I was the only one willing to read the rules out and take people to task for breaking them. Did you know there's a roquet that occurs before croquet? Neither did I until yesterday. Anyhow, there was a lot of sabotage toward the end to prevent one guy in particular from winning, to no avail. Ah well.

And today before dinner but after workshop hours, I climbed the Trundle from the bottom up with some more friends. It was a nice hike, not too exhausting but a good heart-pumper. The views are incredibly gorgeous and the weather is still nice. Hopefully this weekend's apple fair (put on by West Dean) will have a good turnout!

Where to begin?

The view from my room (Stables 32), overlooking the court-
yard which three of the four residences give on to.

It's hard to believe that I've only been here two days--and at the same time, it's hard to believe that it's already been two days! After an easy trip to London from DC via Atlanta, I caught a train to Chichester and hired a taxi to get to West Dean. The first few days so far have been a lot of administrative things and getting my bearings, like becoming accustomed to the meals schedule and attempting to find time to get registered with the local doctor and obtain a library card and a mobile phone. I've also been, understandably, getting to know my fellow students and the staff at West Dean. The other students on my program are great and I've enjoyed learning about them and spending (quite a lot of) time with them.

The weather has been amazing. Blue skies and sun.

I'll skip a detailed overview of yesterday--a lot of orientation-type meetings and how-tos. Today, though, we started out in the library getting to know the librarian and learning a bit about the collections. The college library is housed in the old billiards room; the original library is now a gathering place for various functions. Unfortunately, no photos are allowed in the house, so you'll have to visit West Dean's website if you want to see anything! After that we took group photos (I have no idea when we'll see those) and had an IT information session, where we received access to the school networks and a West Dean email address.

So this is a view from the Trundle. It's hard to see in the
photo but spread out before us is the town of Chichester;
if you look really carefully you might be able to see the spire
of the cathedral.

Following lunch we took a sort of field trip with our tutor, David Dorning, to a nearby town called Yapton, about 14 miles away from West Dean. There we patronized a local tool shop which carries secondhand equipment of all types, and in particular a carpentry tool called a spoke shave that we adapt to use for working with leather. It was absolutely gorgeous weather today, was yesterday, and is supposed to be the rest of the week, so on the way back, David suggested we stop off at the Trundle.

The Trundle is the ruin of an Iron Age hill-fort and has amazing views of the whole Chichester area. From the top we could see all the way to Portsmouth and Southampton, and from there to the sea. It was breathtaking. The countryside looks almost completely unspoiled and about as natural as it can get.

Afterward we came back to the workshop and, after a brief orientation on the structure of the academic year, we received our first books to work on! It's quite exciting. Since all the work we do is commission work from various clients, we have quite a lot of paperwork that gets filled out for each item, detailing condition of the object and the proposed treatment--which must then be approved by the client before we begin work on it. Tomorrow we will evaluate our books and propose treatments with David's assistance. It looks to be a good time!