A significant contribution to Special Collections is made by nine National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies (NADFAS) Heritage Volunteers, who give some time each week to help with cleaning, documenting and assisting with cataloguing rare books and archives.

Two teams of volunteers are systematically working through the Special Collections printed book collection. They inspect and document the condition of books before carrying out cleaning and basic conservation repairs to the volumes. All the volunteers are trained in identifying different binding materials and types of damage as well as how to do simple repairs using current conservation methods.

A NADFAS Heritage Volunteer applying a leather dressing
to a leather-bound book. [view larger image]

Other recent projects involving volunteers include boxing the Mingana manuscript collection, storing photographs from the Neville Chamberlain Collection in archival standard folders and boxes, and listing and cleaning drawings and photographs from the collection of the 19th Century artist Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema.

A NADFAS Heritage Volunteer working on a photograph collection in the conservation studio. [view larger image]

Volunteers from NADFAS also work with our archivists on our archival and manuscript collections and enable us to complete projects which would otherwise be impossible.

If you would like more information about Special Collections conservation, please contact Sarah Kilroy: s.r.kilroy@bham.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0) 121 414 5800.