The British Library : Conservation and Digitization

On the right, is a large (accessible by staff) tower in the middle of the library containing the original "founding collections"

The "founding collections" of the British Library (BL) were donated and/or acquired from Sir Robert Cotton, Sir Hans Sloane, Robert Harley, King George II, and King George III.

When we arrived, we were given our swanky little badges, split into two groups, and were on our way to get a behind-the-scenes look at the conservation and digitization work being conducted. In my group, we learned the Qatar Foundation Partnership Programme and the processing of items like scientific manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings, maps, and more from the Gulf Coast.

In their work the goal is to be as minimally invasive as possible and in the event that anything is done to the material, it must be something reversible and all actions taken must be well documented.

Scientific manuscript from the 17th century with owners' annotations in margins
Image Source: Megan Doyle "A Librarian's Adventures in London"

One 17th century manuscript that we viewed is in Persian but using Arabic characters. This item is deemed important due to its subject and content and also due to the annotations in the margins added by previous owners over time. One action that had to be taken by the conservation team was the removal of adhesive which was added by previous conservators in an attempt to preserve the illustrations but in-turn, threatened their longevity.

To learn more about the Qatar Digital Library, please watch the video below.