Flood damage in the Czech Republic

I would like to add to Stuart Welch's message: I am one of the group
travelling to Prague on September 18 with 3 vacuum packing machines.
I am very concerned about the situation after the floods because I
am Czech myself, although, settled in UK.

I spoke to Jiri Vnoucek the Head of Conservation Department in the
National Library in Prague this morning and the situation with the
archive and library collections is as following:

    Affected items have been frozen and now is the time to decide
    what is the next step. Vacuum packing machines will help in
    treating some of the damaged collections. However, the amount of
    material is wast and not everything needs to be handled
    individually.

    A site is available to install a frieze-drying unit but there
    is, of course, a financial problem, because it is not only
    archives and libraries which have been affected.

    Conservation will come later when and that will be the time when
    material and possibly more hands will be needed. IPC and other
    organizations have set up funds for that.

Katerina Powell
book conservator
Oxford Conservation Consortium


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 16:17
                Distributed: Tuesday, September 3, 2002
                       Message Id: cdl-16-17-002
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