Our new 4,000 square-foot Conservation Center opened in April 2016. This new conservation facility dramatically increases the Libraries capacity to care for rare books, manuscripts, maps, and drawings.
Each year, Conservation staff repair, bind or make enclosures for 10,000-12,000 items in the UW Libraries.
Read more about some of our work like the conservation of Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World.
In October 2012, the Libraries received a $1.25 million challenge grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to fund a new senior conservator position in Preservation Services. With strong support from the Friends of the Libraries and many generous individuals, the Libraries will meet the challenge by the end of September 2017.
Your continued support of UW Libraries Conservation through the Senior Conservator Endowed Matching Fund will ensure a strong program and allow us to foster and guide new talent in book and paper conservation.
Justin Johnson, formerly a Book Conservator at the Huntington Library in California, was appointed the Libraries Senior Conservator in Preservation Services in September 2013. He received graduate certification in the Conservation of Library and Archive Materials from West Dean College (Chichester, U.K.) and the University of Sussex (Portsmouth, U.K.).
The Senior Conservator provides extensive knowledge of book and paper conservation practices, conservation science, and the history of bookbinding and papermaking as well as exceptional manual skills to ethically treat items of great intellectual, artifactual and monetary value.
Watch a short video preview of our new space.
The Senior Conservator and Conservation Center have also expanded the Libraries education and outreach efforts as a regional resource for conservation in the Pacific Northwest. Learn more about the next generation of conservators.