The Most Hilarious Conservation Paper Ever Written

When was the last time you busted a gut with hilarity while reading a conservation paper?

Mine was the other week.

Jeff Peachey, book conservator, has written a delightful little tongue-in-cheek paper on a conservation treatment of the Journal of the American Institute for Conservation. I haven't laughed this hard in a while.

Here's an excerpt:

"The preservation and conservation of the Journal of the American Institute for Conservation (JAIC) is perhaps one of the most vexing and complex problems in all of conservation. Three times a year, these journals arrive with bent corners, torn covers, water damage and, in one case, fire damage. Today's successful conservator in private practice must be image conscious - after all, what respectable lawyer has his shelves adorned with tattered paper covers? Gold-stamped leather spines mean something. They mean power and money and wealth and fame, all the things conservators secretly crave... I felt I might not be alone in dealing with this problem, therefore humbly decided to publish the results of this survey and some of the treatments I performed in an attempt to deal with this important, difficult problem."

Here it is: http://jeffpeachey.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/setbacks-in-conservation.pdf

Enjoy.