As you might imagine remote work for a preservation lab is…complicated. Not all items awaiting treatment are good candidates for repair in the home studios of staff – the repair might require specialized equipment that is only available in the lab (e.g. suction table), the item may be too valuable to transport to a private home without engaging UC risk management and CHPL administration (i.e. all our special collections!), or the object may be too large to safely be worked on in our diminutive setups (e.g. many books with the folio designation).
But, that doesn’t mean that work from home isn’t happening! The image below is a batch of completed treatments awaiting return to our partners. These treatments are general circulating items that have been repaired, as well as items receiving custom enclosures created without the object, using just the objects measurements. The materials have been treated from home and now, on our new abbreviated lab schedule, are being end processed and returned to their originating institutions.
Though we all deeply miss the day-to-day work in the Preservation Lab, remotely we maintain our ethos of preservation stewardship keeping us connected to the lab’s preservation mission and the missions of our parent institutions. In this, we remain unchanged.
University of Cincinnati Libraries (UCL) and Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library (CHPL) materials awaiting packing for delivery.
As you might know, the Lab generally employs anywhere from 4 to 6 student staff members at a given time. Our student staff are invaluable to the Lab, helping us keep up with our general circulating repairs, custom enclosures, Colibri covers, and commercial binding. Seven weeks ago, when both our parent institutions closed due to the pandemic, the Preservation Lab staff moved to working remotely. Two of our student staff members, Lexie Febel and Christine Shi, joined us in this adventure of remote work during COVID-19. Christine and Lexie are both conservation student staff members and our two most senior student employees.
Due to the nature of working remotely, general collections repair at home was unfortunately thrown out the window for our student staff, mainly due to a lack of time to prepare materials and projects before vacating the library. Fortunately for me, my fellow student staff supervisor in the Lab, Sidney Gao, was willing to collaborate to create thoughtful, virtual work-from-home assignments for Lexie and Christine. Sidney and I wanted to create assignments that would allow our student staff members to research and provide feedback on a topic that was important to both of them personally and professionally, while simultaneously helping us create a better work environment for student staff members. We also hoped that this opportunity would allow us to strengthen our skills as student staff supervisors.
Sidney and I decided to focus our assignments on mental health in the workplace, knowing that Lexie, as a Secondary Education major, and Christine, as a Psychology degree graduate starting her PhD in Psychology, would be passionate about this topic. The project includes three parts: research, synthesis of research and self-reflection, and recommendations for the Lab. Throughout the project we have been using Microsoft Teams to assign projects, communicate, share files, and offer feedback. And it is of no surprise to us that Christine and Lexie are doing a phenomenal job of their projects so far!
Part one of the Mental Health in the Workplace assignment. We’ve been using the Teacher Dashboard app within Teams to assign the various parts of the project and provide feedback when assignments are completed.
Since our student staff members and their work, both under normal circumstances and now, are so valuable to the Lab, it seemed only fitting for Christine and Lexie to share a little bit about their experiences working in the Lab:
Lexie:
(a 2020 Library Quality Service Award recipient)
Getting the opportunity to work at the Preservation Lab has been one of my favorite parts about college. This past March marked the 2nd anniversary of me working at the Lab, and I hope to stay there until I graduate in 2021. Working from home and completing assignments revolving around mental health has really enlightened me on certain topics and has encouraged me to reflect on my own mental health practices. On a normal day when I am actually at work in the Lab, I enjoy completing spine repairs, but one of my favorite things that Christine and I have gotten the chance to do was to make our own books, using marbled paper for the covers.
The case bindings Lexie and Christine (respectively) created in June of 2019 – not a fault among either binding, they were perfect!
Christine:
Working at the Preservation Lab has been an opportunity unlike any I have ever had. I’ve always had a passion for craftsmanship and the creative arts as well as a love and reverence for libraries, scholarship, and conservation. But after switching out of a design degree, I didn’t ever think I could have a job at the intersection of so many of my creative interests! The culture, work, and people at the Preservation Lab created a space for me to escape from a stressful campus and dive into a place of meditative craft and supportive learning. I loved being able to learn and practice new skills in bookmaking and repairs but also the opportunity to be a part of such an important mission.
Sidney and I wanted to reflect on our roles as student supervisors and have an opportunity to thank Christine and Lexie for their dedication and hardwork:
Sidney:
Working from home has allowed me the time to reflect on my position as a student supervisor, and on the value of student labor within libraries. I’ve gotten the chance to consider how my work-related philosophies influence those I supervise, and I realized that we truly cannot overlook the amount of mental and emotional labor that our student staff put into making libraries the wonderful places that they are.
The research I’ve done over this period of working from home has helped me understand the value of creating safe spaces and strong relationships with those I supervise. I feel so lucky to have gotten the chance to work with Christine and Lexie on this assignment. They’ve used their personal experience and academic expertise to help me better understand the ways in which I can support those around me. For that, I am truly grateful.
Jessica:
My role as student supervisor has never been something that has come easily to me. In fact, when I took on this responsibility several years ago, it was something that made me anxious, and, I’ll be honest, that I dreaded. My fear and anxiety was twofold. First, I am a very introverted person and I struggled to see how I could be an effective student supervisor. Second, I feared that I would mess up, that I wouldn’t be good at it and the impact that would have on the students. These are two fears that I continue to struggle with today, but I am conscious of them and I like to think that I am continuing to grow and evolve as I continue this role. As I often tell my student employees and our volunteers when they make a mistake or the repair didn’t turn out quite the way they wanted, “You are not a robot! You are human!” We all make mistakes, the most important thing is that we learn from them and use that knowledge as we go forward. We are flawed, and that is okay.
When I reflect on Christine and Lexie, I am so proud of them. I am grateful for their commitment to the Lab and to their work. But beyond that, I am truly thankful that they came to work in the Lab and that I have had the honor to work with them, both in the Lab and remotely. I could go on and on about their amazing hand-skills, their dedication and focus, their intelligence, and their thoughtfulness. I am hopeful that the work they have done remotely will not only allow Sidney and I to create a happier and healthier workplace for student staff, but that it will impact me and my ability to continuously improve as a supervisor. I have no doubt that I will gain new understandings and grow; and that will directly impact future Preservation Lab student staff for the better.So, thank you both!
A huge thank you, on behalf of the entire Lab, to Christine and Lexie (who have been working with us remotely this past month) and Emily Wagner and Charles Harte (who will hopefully return back to the Lab once the pandemic ends and our “new normal” begins) for being valuable members of our team!
*While student employees are generally referred to as “student workers”, Sidney and I have decided to make a conscious shift in the language we use. We prefer the term “student staff”, as it more accurately portrays their role as members of our team and the great contributions they make to the Lab and to the libraries.
