Field Book Project

Trick or Treat Rafinesque Style Part 2

By Sonoe Nakasone, Field Book Project

Today, Halloween 2011, we pay tribute to one of natural sciences most enigmatic and haunting figures. 

     
Left: Constantine Samueul Rafineque.  Image published before 1923,and in the US public domain. 
Right: You may recognize this image from the banner of our blog.  This is an image of a fish from Rafinesque's 1818 field notes taken in Kentucky, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and perhaps other eastern states.  All images in this article are from the same field book.

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1788-1840) was the quintessential Renaissance Man. He instructed himself in the various disciplines of the natural sciences—especially Ichthyology, Botany, and Malacology—as well as cultural Anthropology and Linguistics. Many of his forward thinking ideas branded him an eccentric during his lifetime. One of these ideas, his patented Divitial Invention, allowed divided portions of a bank stock of deposit certificates to circulate as currency. He was also an advocate for the use of fireproof materials to build homes. Rafinesque is even attributed with discovering a botanical cure for tuberculosis, although this cannot be verified as there is now no known documentation on the exact ingredients of his remedy.  Medical Flora of the United States (1828), which contained botanical medical cures, was one of Rafinesque’s most successful publications.

     
Rafinesque offended many of his contemporaries in the American natural science community with his unconventional and forward thinking ideas.  Yet, a look at Rafinesque’s collection of notebooks from 1815-1834 reveals meticulous work that should not go unrecognized.  Informative and mesmerizing, Rafinesque’s notes transport readers and researchers to the rich 19th Century, east coast landscape in which he collected many zoological and botanical specimen. 

Perhaps a reflection of his eccentricity, Rafinesque’s field notes do not seem to lie static on the page, but rather jump up to greet the reader’s curiosity of the natural world. Beautiful sketches of ichthyologic, botanical, and other specimens are found throughout the collection. Spectacular details portray the scales of a fish, folds on the underside of a mushroom, and the ridges on a shell. Thorough descriptions and often measurements are included with each sketch.

Rafinesque spent most of his life traveling, according to his autobiography, “A Life of Travels”, and he greatly enjoyed being outdoors. Fittingly, his collection of field books also incorporates a number of bucolic landscape sketches and hand drawn maps. These additional sketches will hopefully guide researchers through the locations in which he collected and allow them to see through his eyes.

Although some of Rafinesque’s inventive schemes were profitable enough to finance his extensive traveling and field research for some time, he fell badly into debt by the time of his death in 1840. Recognized by some as brilliant, he nevertheless died a largely unappreciated man. In the more than one and a half centuries since his death, however, scholars and researchers have come to recognize Rafinesque’s contributions to science. Today, he is credited for having identified a number of new species. Additionally, he has two genre, Rafinesquia (family Asteraceae) and Rafinesquina (family Rafinesquinidae), named after him.  In fact, I was pleased to see one of his namesakes listed as a specimen collected in one of the paleontologist G. Arthur Cooper’s field books.  I am also pleased to think that if Rafinesque had lived to see today, he would find many of his “crazy” ideas validated.

Over 150 years after his death, much about Rafinesque’s life and work remains puzzling.  For one, there’s his successful hoax (see last week’s article)—but was it really a hoax?  It is generally accepted as such but others still subscribe to the validity of his claims.  Add to that his many ideas spanning a variety of disciplines, which were so far ahead of his time that it seems as if he possessed a crystal ball.  Finally, there is his ghost.  Rafinesque died practically penniless and in debt.  His landlord planned to sell his corpse to science but, as the story goes, Rafinesque’s friends stole his body from the window of his apartment and gave it a proper burial.  Years later, his body was exhumed and transported to Transyvlania Univsersity, where he had been a respected professor for seven years.  Today, he is supposedly interred under the steps of Old Morrison, a Transylvania University building that Rafinesque is said to haunt to this day. 

References
1. Flannery, Michael A. The Medicine and Medicinal Plants of C. S. Rafinesque. Economic Botany, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1998), pp. 27-43.

2. Biography.youdictionary.com. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque Biography. Accessed in 2011 from http://biography.yourdictionary.com/constantine-samuel-rafinesque.

3. Endersby, J. ‘The vagaries of a Rafinesque’: imagining and classifying American nature.  Studies of History and Philosophy of Biology and Biomedical Science, Vol. 40, No. 3 (September 2009), pp. 167-178. http://www.jimendersby.com/PDF/Endersby_Vagaries_2009.pdf

4. Taylor, Raymond L. Reviewed work(s): A Life of Travels, by C. S. Rafinesque: Being a Verbatim and Literatim Reprint of the Original and Only Edition by C. S. Rafinesque; Francis W. Pennell. The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Apr., 1945), pp. 213-221.

5. Waymarking.com. Rafinesque, The Man and The Myth.  Accessed in 2011 from http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM21F2_Old_Morrison_Transylvania_University_Lexington_KY.

6.Wikipedia.org.  Constantine Samuel Rafinesque.  Accessed from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_Samuel_Rafinesque, October 2011.

[Shelf] Space: the Final Frontier

By Anna R. Friedman, Book Conservator, Field Book Project

Record Unit 007318 Box 32 G. Arthur Cooper Papers before treatment

Like most archives, space and staff time are both precious resources here at the Smithsonian Archives. Whenever possible, I try to achieve preservation and conservation best-practices, but I also endeavor to not make extra work for my coworkers. For example, this box of records came through the lab last week.

There are several piles of papers, tied together with twill tape in the back of this box. Each twill-tied packet is labeled a “folder” for ease of cataloging terminology. Twill tape is a convenient way to keep loose stuff together. It is cheap, durable and fairly stable. However, it can rub against fragile or brittle materials and cause tears or other damage over time.

RU007318 Box 32 Folder 4 G. Arthur Cooper Papers before treatment with 100% cotton rag blotter flags marking the places needing mending

If I were to remove the twill tape, and reorient each packet into its own folder so that it rested on its long side and backed up to the following one, this box of records would easily become two or more boxes of records. Since adding extra boxes between box 32 and box 33 involves adding even more work to one of my cataloging coworkers, and adds extra boxes to our shrinking shelf space, I needed a solution for these packets of records that would allow the records to remain in the space currently allotted to them.

 RU007318 Box 32 Folder 4 G. Arthur Cooper Papers before treatment

RU007318 Box 32 Folder 4 G. Arthur Cooper Papers in a four flap wrapper

I knew I would choose between four flap wrappers or corrugated clam shell boxes, since both are options that add minimal extra thickness to the original and are fairly easy for patrons to use. In this case, with all the loose papers, I was afraid the clamshell would be bulkier in the box, and have more potential for damage to the pages when patrons go to access the notes. The four flap wrapper fit nicely in the same amount of space that the tied up package used, and now it’s better labeled.

 

Before I put the folder’s worth of field notes back in its box, I mended the edge tears on the few pages that needed help using remoistenable tissue. I made the tissue in lab by brushing out a conservation adhesive called Methylcellulose A4M on a piece of inert polyester film and laying tissue down on the adhesive layer. For this treatment I used a very thin pre-toned Japanese tissue that is close to the off-white color of the paper. I applied the mend by tearing off a piece of tissue the size and shape appropriate to the mend I wanted to make and then brushed over it lightly with a brush that was dampened with deionized water. The mends were then sandwiched between non-woven polyester and blotter and weighted until dry.

RU007318 Box 32 Folder 4 G. Arthur Cooper Papers during treatment; local humidification, flattening and mending.

RU007318 Box 32 G. Arthur Cooper Papers after Folder 4 treatment

There are several more folders in this box that will get this same treatment, and similar packets of records in other boxes in this collection will also be mended and rehoused in four flap wrappers to maximize their longevity. We are planning to host interns on the Field Book Project like we did last summer, and this would be an ideal project for them to complete.

Trick or Treat Rafinesque Style, Part One

The Field Book Project has reserved Halloween for a Collection Highlight on Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, a man whose field notes, life and death are full of treats and quite possibly even a few tricks.  A man such as Rafinesque, however, really can’t be summed up in one article, so here is a sneak peak at the man and his collection.  Be sure to read Part Two on Halloween Day!

 

Published before 1923 and public domain in the US.  Retrieved October 25, 2011 from Wikimedia Commons.

The Hoax that Spanned Two Centuries

It was not until 1995 that Constantine Samuel Rafinesque’s translation of a Lenape or Delaware Indian text called “Walum Olum” (published in The American Nations (1836)) was generally accepted by scholars as a hoax.  Walum Olum, the original of which Rafinesque claimed was lost, supposedly recorded the history of the Lenape crossing the Bering Strait to enter the Americas.  Although subsequent research disproved many of the claims made in Walum Olum, the text was still thought to be legitimate for the rest of the 19^th Century and most of the 20^th Century.  To confuse matters further, there are resources (for example this webpage) that claim some Lenape believe Rafinesque’s translations are based on authentic Lenape mythology.

Rafinesque was a self-taught naturalist who was widely regarded by the established American scientific community as an eccentric and by some as a charlatan.  This rejection must have been frustrating for Rafinesque; as next week’s article will discuss, he was a brilliant man who more contemporary scientists have come to recognize for his field work and avant-garde thinking.  It is ironic that one of his few successes during his lifetime should turn out to be fraudulent.

Why would Rafinesque attempt such a hoax?  According to this article in Archeology: A Publication of the Archeological Institute of America, Rafinesque may have had several motivations: 1) profit from the book’s success (he was often in debt), 2) in response to the popularity of the Book of Mormon, which Rafinesque viewed as a hoax, 3) promotion of his own theories that Native Americans originated from Asia, and 4) in response to what Rafinesque viewed as ridiculous claims in Josiah Priest’s “American Antiquities (1833)”.   

 

Comparitive word lists of an "Eskimo" (Inuit) language and Greenlandic.  SIA RU007250.  Click to see more detail.

To his credit Rafinesque was a talented linguist, and during his tenure as a professor at Transylvania University, taught languages as well as natural history.  There is evidence in Rafinesque’s natural history field notes, too, of his propensity toward linguistics.  One of Rafinesque’s field books includes notes on Native American languages.  It appears his intention was to compare languages or dialects of Native Americans throughout North America by identifying similarities across word lists.  The language table he outlined in his field book is mostly incomplete, but word list comparisons of a few languages were recorded. For example, on the first page of the table there is a list of words in an Eskimo language and in Greenlandic. As far as I know, Walum Olum is the only known Rafinesque hoax.  Although I hold Rafinesque in high regard, I recognize that it can be wise to take anything related to him with a grain of salt.  As you will see on October 31^st, it’s difficult at times to separate the man from the myth.

 

According to Archeology: A Publication of the Archeological Institute of America

Collecting in 3-D

by Lesley Parilla

Collecting in 3-D Smithsonian Institution Archives, 87-2132 (OPPS Neg. No.), The Underwood Travel System, Catalog No. 28 [p. 4 illustration: Man holding stereoscope, pointing to Egypt on a large globe: line drawing, ca. 1907.]

Over the course of cataloging the Waldo Schmitt collection [SIA RU007231], I have been amazed by the array of material formats. Waldo was a prodigious documenter of his work using movies, diaries, notebooks, photographs, and slides. The color slides even reach back to his earlier field work. From what I can gather, Waldo appreciated using innovative methods of recording. For instance, in the 1960’s Waldo worked with a marine photographer Harry Pederson using new methods of photography to document behaviors of marine life of the Bahamas. Knowing this, I was still amazed to come across an unfamiliar format from the Smithsonian-Bredin Expedition to the Belgian Congo, 1955—stereographic slides.


Smithsonian Institution Archives. #SIA2012-0404. Elephants under trees at Gangala-Na-Bodio elephant training station in Congo, 1955

Smithsonian Institution Archives. #SIA2012-0403. Dancers at Paulis-Mangbetu, during Smithsonian-Bredin Belgian Congo Expedition, 1955

Smithsonian Institution Archives. #SIA2012-0405. Egyptian Ruins at Luxor, 1955

Stereographic slides create 3-dimensional images, by projecting two images taken at slightly differently angles. This is achieved by a camera that is capable of taking two pictures simultaneously. The Schmitt collection has several boxes of these, documenting locations and events during the 1955 expedition across Africa. My only experience with this format was with commercially available slides showing tourist sites like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park.

Having never seen stereographic images outside the souvenir realm, I did some research, and was surprised to find that these images are not uncommon in archival collections. Additionally, I learned that stereographic photography still occurs. There are clubs across the country; some still using traditional film cameras, though digital is becoming more common. There are online instructions for turning these images in to 3-dimensional digital anaglyphs. When I went to Smithsonian’s online catalog SIRIS, I found several stereographic images were digitized. Unfortunately, they require a special viewer to see in their 3-dimensional glory. As 3-D has proven increasingly applicable and popular, I thought I would try combining the images shown above into anaglyphs, so that readers could see a new side to Africa in the 1950’s. If you have 3-D glasses lying around, now is the time to pull them out.

Viewer simulation of stereographic image #SIA2012-0404

Viewer simulation of stereographic image #SIA2012-0403

Viewer simulation of stereographic image #SIA2012-0405

Flickr Statistics for Two Recent Flickr Sets

 

        

Social media has become a large part of the Field Book Project’s efforts to promote and increase awareness of our project.  Following the lead of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, the Field Book Project began posting photo sets to Flickr’s The Commons in March 2011 as part of the Smithsonian Institution's Flickr sets.  Currently, we have uploaded three Flickr sets and plan to continue uploading sets quarterly. 

Shortly after our first Flickr set, Albert Spear Hitchcock Field Books, was launched, the Field Book Project Blog featured an article summarizing the success of those Flickr images.  Since then, two more Flickr sets were launched, Field Book Lantern Slides and Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program.  Both sets have received much attention, and one, Field Book Lantern Slides, was highlighted in a Wired.com article.

In just two months, these two most recently Flickr sets have been viewed a total of 21,294 times.  Additionally, these images have been “favorited” 287 times, and received a total of 29 comments.  One commenter even added one of our images to a relevant Wikipedia article:

“Nice photo for scale of the beast. Added to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephas_imperator  Thanks for posting these!”

In total, all three Flickr sets have been viewed 43,257 times.  Thanks to all who have been making our Flickr sets a success.  Continue viewing, “favoriting”, and commenting on our images on Flickr’s The Commons.  Also be sure to check out other fun and educational Flickr sets from the Smithsonian Institution. 

Field Book Project at TDWG 2011

Rusty Russell, Principal Investigator on the Field Book Project, is serving as Program Chair for the TDWG 2011 conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. TDWG, which stands for Biodiversity Information Standards, also known as the Taxonomic Databases Working Group, focuses on international collaboration amoung biological database projects.

This year's conference theme is "Digitization Methods, Technologies, and Standards for Biodiversity Collections" and there will be many great ideas on how to make collections, like the field books, more accessible in digital environments. We're especially excited that Mark Leggott, President and CEO of Discovery Garden, will demo the Islandora repository along with the Field Book Registry implementation in Islandora.

Carolyn Sheffield will be presenting a poster on the Field Book Project. Rusty Russell will be delivering a lightning talk on the Connecting Content project based at the California Academy of Sciences.

Challenges and Solutions for Digitizing Field Books

By Kira Cherrix, Digital Imaging Specialist, Smithsonian Institution Archives

 

Cover of J. H. Sandburg’s Field Book from Idaho 1892.

As the digital imaging specialist at the Smithsonian Institution Archives I recently became involved with the Field Book Project to help develop the process of digitizing whole field books.  Since the Field Book Project is not currently funded for digitization, SIA has decided to include field books in the digitization queue as resources are available.  From the beginning the goal was to scan individual pages and then combine them together in a PDF.  With that in mind, I faced choices with the first field books that set the standard for the rest of the project.  The field books chosen for digitization first went through a conservation process where their stability for digitization was determined.

 

The greatest challenge about scanning whole field books was determining what would be meaningful for researchers to see.  We wanted to give readers a sense of how the book looks, without generating large files full of blank pages.  To achieve this, we opted to scan the front and back covers and any spine labels to provide readers with the context for the pages contained within the PDF.   This method makes the PDF look similar to the original object, simulating the sensation of actually holding the book. 

 

Many of the field books contain pieces of paper inserted between pages of writing, creating an additional scanning challenge.  To offer the most realistic experience for readers, we decided any page containing an insert would first be scanned with the insert included, then scanned without it to reveal the writing on the page. The insert itself would then be scanned if its contents were not visible in the first image.

Example of the pages scanned when an insert is present. L. Stejneger, South Dakota, 1894, Page 12-13.

The last important choice dealt with blank pages.  A lot of field books have several pages of notes at the front of the book, while the rest are blank, with the occasional note or item inserted throughout.  The decision we faced was whether or not it would be important for researchers to see scans of blank pages, or if a single blank page accompanied by a note would suffice.  Ultimately, we decided to scan the first blank page after the final page of text, as well as any following pages that contained markings or inserts. We also scanned the last inside page, regardless of whether or not it was blank.  We determined that showing the first blank page ensures researchers nothing was left out, and reduces the strains on bound volumes caused by scanning.  For every non-blank page scanned after the text, we added notes in our scanning database, as well as in the metadata embedded in the image, indicating that the images directly before and after the image were separated by blank pages that were not scanned.  In choosing to omit the blank pages, it was important to examine every page to establish if it was blank or if it contained something significant.  Often, a piece of paper inserted between the interspersed pages made it easy to identify them, but occasionally, the pages contained hard to find dried specimens or prints that warranted scanning.  

This page has imprints from a pressed flower that is no longer in the field book. L. Stejneger, South Dakota, 1894, Page 130-131. SIA2011-2703.

Since the standards set with the first digitized field books ultimately determined the method for rest of the project, all of the determinations were made with input from members of each portion of the project. In cases where the blank pages are relevant to the overall feel of the field book, or where the conservation team feels that digitization is the only means of preservation, the field books are scanned in entirety, regardless of the number of blank pages. We also made sure the digitized pages would be useful to catalogers, would not harm the objects, and met digitization standards. To date, we successfully digitized nine entire field books, with plenty more on their way.

Capturing Nature at the Ripley Center

Smithsonian Resident Associate Program
Tuesday, October 18, 6PM-8:30PM

Tickets: $15 members
                $13 senior members
                $25 general admission

 

Please join Harvard University lecturer Michael Canfield as he discusses concepts from his book, Field Notes on Science and Nature (Harvard Univserity Press).  Canfield's book contains examples from the field notes of twelve different researchers, illustrating various themes and techniques to field note-taking. 

Two members of the Field Book Project team--cataloging coordinator Sonoe Nakasone, National Museum of Natural History, and supervisory archivist Tammy Peters, Smithsonian Institution Archives--will discuss the field book project and share examples of field books.

We hope to see you there!

For tickets, please visit:

 http://residentassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/reserve.aspx?performanceNumber=223047&utm_source=RAad&utm_content=FEauto&utm_campaign=featevent

 

Specimen Collecting with Franklin D. Roosevelt

By Lesley Parilla, Field Book Project 

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt aboard the USS Houston, during the Presidential Cruise, 1938

Field notes come in interesting forms – one of the more curious collecting documentation I have found comes from Expeditions with US Navy participation. Naval vessels have daily bulletins or “plans of the day” issued. They include a wide variety of information: uniform of the day, ship-wide schedules, and information about VIP’s or important events. When at sea, they additionally include information about life beyond the ship – current events, sports scores, stock reports. One can imagine that before the internet, this might be the only information sailors received about home beyond letters from family and friends. These bulletins also provided levity for the crew, including stories or jokes. The materials I cataloged from the Tanager Expedition (1923) discussed in the blog “The Dangers of Bunny Rabbits” includes this type of document.

 
 
 
 

A Plan of the Day during the Presidential Cruise, 1938.

 

 
USS Houston, taken during the Presidential Cruise [USS Houston (CA-30) sunk by gunfire and torpedoes of Japanese warships in Sunda Strait, Netherlands East Indies, 1 March 1942]

The most recent expedition to include these was the Presidential Cruise of 1938 aboard USS Houston. This highly unusual “expedition” was a fishing cruise taken by Franklin D. Roosevelt to the waters off the coast of Central and South America. Roosevelt extended an invitation to the Smithsonian to send scientific staff along with the cruise to collect a variety of specimens, and ended up including fish, crustaceans, sponges, and botanical specimens. Several new species were discovered, including a new type of palm tree from the island pictured below, the palm tree (Siriella roosevelti) named for the President. Some of the specimen cards can be found on SIRIS for several departments of National Museum of Natural History.

        
Participants collecting specimens on Coco Island, Costa Rica, 1938

This cruise is a fascinating mixture of social and scientific efforts. Schmitt saved the ship bulletins as well as the attending press releases given out during the voyage. One can determine not just what time of day and where the president and guests were fishing, but also current political events, and naval social traditions practiced by the crew and guests. While on the cruise, they honored a longtime tradition of the Shellback ceremony, commemorating the crossing of the Equator. This ceremony still goes on in various forms, and provides humor and comradery in ship life that is often highly regimented and routine.

 
The Shellback Ceremony commemorating crew members’ first-time crossing of the Equator, during the Presidential Cruise, 1938

References

Department of the Navy -- Naval History and Heritage Command. (2004). “Casualties: U.S. Navy And Coast Guard Vessels, Sunk Or Damaged Beyond Repair During World War Iist, 7 December 1941-1 October 1945” Accessed on Http://Www.History.Navy.Mil/Faqs/Faq82-1.Htm

What Physical Evidence Can Show Us About Original Use

By Anna Friedman, Book Conservator, Smithsonian Institution Archives

William Dunlop Brackenridge field notebooks in SIA RU7186 Box 1 folder 4

So far on this blog, we have shown you some amazing images from the field notes here at the Smithsonian Archives and National Museum of Natural History. However, those images sometimes feel disembodied to me, since they are digitized out of their physical context, and my job as the project’s conservator is to protect, repair and rehouse the field books in their current physical form. The digital images are perfect, crystal clear surrogates for the written information, but do not necessarily convey the size or format of the notebook they’ve come from. One of the best parts of being a conservator is the ability to look at the physical evidence in an object and using the size, shape, orientation and construction of an object to inform a researcher on how it was used by its creator.

SIA RU7186 Box 1 folder 4 Pamphlet 3, Peru Expedition has a standard pamphlet binding sewn through the center fold

Take William Dunlop Brackenridge’s notebooks from his expedition to Peru or, more specifically, 16 quarto-size pamphlets. Normally, pamphlets are a single stack of papers, folded once and secured through that fold with staples or sewing, exactly the way magazines are secured together. The fourth pamphlet of the set, with notes from Obrajillo, Baños and Alpamarca, didn’t follow that pattern. Instead of being a pamphlet sewn through the folds like the others, this one had some pages that connected through the fold, some that didn’t and the whole thing was oversewn to keep all the pages together. Oversewing is a very inflexible binding. It creates fairly even perforations along the binding from the sewing, and adds extra stress in the paper along that same sewing line. Since paper gets brittle as it ages, oversewn pages frequently fracture along the sewing line and fall out of the binding. Oversewing also restricts the volume’s ability to open completely and therefore makes it harder to digitize because digitization equipment can damage the object.

After treatment image of oversewing holes; SIA RU7186, Box 1, folder 4, Pamphlet 4, Peru Expedition.

Elizabeth Childs and I spent some time looking at the odd pamphlet closely in order to figure out why it was sewn differently than the others, when it had exactly the same number of pages, was the same size and was made with the same materials. Inside the oversewing, the pages were in a strange order. The other pamphlets had 12 folios of paper sewn through the fold to create 24 leaves. In this pamphlet, the first six leaves of paper had been cut with a knife and were no longer connected through the fold, the following four leaves of paper were connected through the fold, followed by another six disconnected leaves, followed by another two complete folios. It became clear that someone, probably Brackenridge himself, had cut some pages out of the pamphlet and reorganized them, then secured them again in their new order.

After treatment image of the spine of an abnormal pamphlet whose sewing is not evenly dividing the pages; SIA RU7186, Box 1, folder 4, Pamphlet 4, Peru Expedition

Since the oversewing was problematic for the long-term stability of the pamphlet, we decided to remove the sewing and rebind the pamphlet by sewing through the fold, since that is so much less stressful on the paper. The problem: What to do about the pages that had no folds, because they had been sliced out?

The answer: loose guards. Since these pages did not have folds to sew through, we could repair some of the damage from the oversewing holes and add extra paper to sew through in one step. We adhered lightweight Japanese tissue strips to the cut-edge of the pages, taking care not to overlap any information if possible. Japanese tissue is a favorite of paper conservators because it is very thin, flexible and strong.  These Japanese paper strips extended the spine-side of the pages far enough to allow for a pamphlet sewing.

Loose guards extend the pages to allow for sewing and then are cut back so as to not interfere with original text. SIA RU7186, Box 1, folder 4, Pamphlet 4, Peru Expedition

The pamphlet now opens easily, the potentially damaging oversewing is gone, replaced by a binding that is considerably more flexible, and the stresses of folding will be borne by the new Japanese tissue guards, instead of the original material. With its new stable and flexible binding, this object is now ready for its digital debut!