Carrabba Conservation

While a student at the School of Information, I worked part time with a paper conservator based in Austin. Carrabba Conservation specializes in paper media, both artwork and archival material. While working at Carrabba Conservation I cleaned and mended over one thousand civil war manuscripts, diaries and printed documents, as well as worked on other projects as needed.

Mending a Diary

Diaries receive dry-cleaning and mending as needed so that they are stable enough to be read by a researcher. This includes mending individual pages and stabilizing the binding.

Document Fill

Occasionally a document will be missing an area of paper, in which case Japanese tissue is used to fill in the space. This particular document had a previous fill which had been poorly done with improper paper. I removed the previous fill and replaced it with an improved one.

Mending Tears

All documents are cleaned prior to being mended. Tears and splits are mended with a lightweight Japanese tissue and wheat paste. Weights are then placed on top of the mended area while it dries so that the document remains flat.