Regular readers of the blog may be thinking that conservation activity has been very quiet for a long while and wondered what was happening behind the scenes. Through this perceived quietness it has been busier than ever and over the past couple of years, I have been working on several exciting projects, one of which I am finally ready to share with you.
For a number of years Archives & Collections have been working in collaboration with the British Library and Birmingham City University to digitise our copies of Aris’s Birmingham Gazette newspapers. Aris’s Birmingham Gazette was first printed in 1741 until 1888. This newspaper would become Birmingham’s only newspaper during these years and is widely regarded as one of the most important provincial 18th century papers.
Aris’s Birmingham Gazette was in a poor condition. Editions of the newspapers were bound into the appropriate years in date order but unfortunately the bindings were falling apart, the paper was torn and fragile, and the newspapers were covered in surface dirt (See Fig 1). Unfortunately, when people had tried to repair the newspapers in the past, these repairs were failing due to the use of inappropriate materials such as pressure sensitive tapes. For many years the newspapers would have been stored in unsuitable conditions in bright lights and a damp environment which certainly would have contributed to the newspaper’s deterioration as well as the damage already mentioned. As you can imagine, the newspapers were inaccessible and we sadly could not serve them. They have been on the shelves in storage waiting to be discovered again.
Due to the newspaper’s importance to Birmingham, the problems with making it accessible in the searchroom and its lack of availability online, money was generously donated to finally make this resource accessible and digital. Due to the sheer amount of material that was to be digitised (every issue from the years 1741 – 1825), we needed to be able to send the newspapers safely off-site to the British library who have the resources to be able to digitise our copies. Before this could happen, I had to undertake a survey (see Fig 2.) which assessed the following:
- Newspaper issue number
- Missing pages and missing issues
- Number of pages
- Condition notes which included any creases on the page, tears, holes, broken bindings, tight bindings and old repairs
- Printer issues such as being unable to read text due to light ink, heavy ink, ink blotching or show through from other side of the page
As you can imagine, going through each individual page was time-consuming (more than 20,000 pages which would include multiples of the same issues!) but this was a necessary process to see if we didn’t have copies of certain issues, if a better copy could be sourced elsewhere and what conservation issues were present which may have impeded digitisation.
Once the newspapers had been surveyed and assessed, the copies of Aris’s Birmingham Gazette sent were the ones that were the best quality for digitisation purposes. Due to the poor condition of some of the newspapers, the potential risks of transportation could make this damage worse. Once it had been decided which volumes were going to be sent to the British Library, bespoke archival housing was made to ensure that the newspapers would not get damaged en-route (see Fig 3). Once boxed, volumes were put into plastic crates and padded out with bubble wrap so they could not move whilst being transported in the van. Crates were then labelled up and loaded onto the van to travel to the British Library’s Boston Spa site (See Fig 4).
Once the newspapers arrived at the British Library, they got straight to work sorting through the crates that we had sent and determining if any of the individual issues would benefit from conservation treatment to get the best image possible during the digitisation process. Just to give an idea of how much work was involved, here are some statistics below indicating the scale of the work required:
- The final count of images scanned was 19,539, from 71 volumes, including rescans and duplicate images (to get the best image)
- Except for missing issues / pages / text, the scans encompass the entirety of the period from the first issue on 16 November 1741 until the end of 1825. This is an 85-year period, although only seven issues for 1741.
- Some of the material was in fragile condition and the British Library Conservator spent 13 full days completing stabilisation work for digitisation plus 2 days of conservation support to undertake unpacking, contamination assessment and triage of each batch. This is to be expected with 260-year-old content which was designed to be thrown away!
- If the material was in a condition that was beyond use, an alternative copy was found in most cases. There were 8 issues (32 images) missing from the material that we provided, as well as a further three issues that were incomplete (6 pages missing in total).
- Whilst most of the text was captured, there is some loss of text on quite a few pages, primarily due to deteriorated page edges, or where the page was trimmed / printed in such a way that text was missing from around the edges. Other issues included marking; holes and tears; articles having been previously cut out (thankfully not very common); poor quality print; and tight bindings.
Once the digitisation process was completed, the digital images of Aris’s Birmingham Gazette were sent to Find My Past for final processing so they can become available online. The final count of images delivered to Find My Past was 17,591. Shortly these will become available online on The British Newspaper Archive so keep a look out for this!
You can find out more about this project at the event ‘The Boulton Family Baskerville Bible’ on Tuesday 26th of July at the University of Birmingham, where I’ll be speaking.
With thanks to Peter Allen, without whom this project would not have been possible.
Lucy Angus, Conservator
The Iron Room 