Preservation of Delawareana Housed in the Delaware Room of the Lewes Public Library

FAIN: PG-50728-10

Lewes Public Library, Inc. (Lewes, DE 19958-1401)
Chrys Dudbridge (Project Director: May 2009 to June 2010)

Funding supports the purchase of preservation supplies for a collection of local history materials, as recommended by a preservation assessment. The Delaware Room houses books (both reference and rare), photographs, manuscripts, scrapbooks, maps, and works of art. The focus of the collection is Delaware history with an emphasis on the town of Lewes and Sussex County.

This project will implement some of the recommendations made in a 2008 Preservation Survey regarding the library's collection of Delawareana housed in its Delaware Room. The very attractive room has cabinetry made of cherry wood harvested in the state. The Delaware Collection consists of over 400 books of which about 200 are rare. This project will line the wooden shelves and drawers with conservation grade acrylic and museum board to protect the collection from gases that may be released from the wood. As the collection is reshelved, oversize items will be placed spine down, bookends will be put in place, fragile items will be boxed, rare books will be properly tabbed, and titles will be evaluated for suitability for the collection. This grant request is for funds for purchase of the acrylic and museum board needed. We have preservation quality boxes on hand for materials that need to be boxed.