This week's blog comes from Conservation Intern Sarah...

I am now over half way through my Conservation internship and the recent couple of weeks have been extremely full and very rewarding. 

Over the past two weeks I have had the amazing opportunity to work with two exhibitions that LHSA are involved with.  On Friday 15 November the ‘200 years, 200 Objects’ exhibition opens at the Talbot Rice Gallery and on 5 December ‘Collect.ed’ exhibition opens at the Main Library Exhibition Gallery, Edinburgh University.  As part of these two exhibitions, LHSA has lent an extensive amount of items to go on display. It has been my job to make sure that all of them have been condition checked, packed, transported and then installed. This was all done alongside LHSA Manager Ruth, and in conjunction with the curators, artists and exhibition installation teams from each exhibition.

I have also been busy running a conservation training day. This training day was designed for people who are thinking about conservation as a career, and want to get a better idea of the kinds of treatments that a conservator may do on a day to day basis. And for people who already work in the heritage sector, such as an Archivist who may require a better understanding of basic conservation problems and solutions. The day went really well and all 4 students seemed to have an enjoyable day and hopefully learnt a few interesting facts about conservation.

The rest of my time has been spent making folders for the re-housing of flattened parchment title deeds with pendant seals. I have designed a version of a 4-flap folder using acid free card that will encase the parchment. 

4-flap folder, with parchment on acid-free base

The parchment itself will then be attached to an acid-free card base using archival linen tape; this is used to reduce any movement of the parchment within the 4-flap folder. Some of the pendant seals are rather fragile and desiccated; so these seals will have an extra support of a Tyvek pouch/bag that will encase the wax/resin seal.

Parchment and seal in new 4-flap folder