Preservation Services

Preservation Services is a division of Special Collections and University Archives in the University Libraries. It is located in the Walter Clinton Jackson Library building. We provide care and conservation for the University Libraries holdings, including more than 2.19 million printed books, archives and federal and state documents. Our collections are found at various locations around campus:


As conservators, our goal is to preserve, repair and protect our libraries' resources, making the best decisions suitable to an item when arriving at our division, enabling our patrons to benefit from the use of our materials for many years to come.

The University Libraries serves our community of students, patrons, researchers and friends of the library. The Preservation Services works together with the UNCG student’s community employing them as bookbinding and conservation apprentices, as well as offering volunteer opportunities.

Our conservation procedures include measures to preserve our books and materials that are a part of our unique collections:

  • mending
  • infilling
  • sewing and repair of text blocks
  • consolidating spines and book covers
  • restoring, rebacking and rebinding in cloth or full leather
  • protective enclosures ( e.g. phase box, four flap or clamshell) to provide stability for fragile or uniquely formatted items

Please visit our Preservation Services LibGuide. There are helpful tutorials, online resources for bookbinding and book conservation, and sources for buying tools and supplies for book repair.

Educating our patrons is our responsibility. We exhibit informative displays in Jackson Library and maintain a blog entitled Speaking Volumes which provides individuals with helpful information regarding the care and treatment of books and other materials as well as illustrating samples of our restoration projects.

No Boundaries in Preservation Project. The main objective of No Boundaries in Preservation is to share our work. Its purpose is educational and intends to exchange relevant information to the practice of basic preservation and conservation of books and documents in libraries and archives. To ensure this knowledge can cover a greater number of communities, all files will be translated into three languages: English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Useful links:

Audrey Sage – Preservation Manager alsage@uncg.edu

Preservation Services, Jackson Library, Room 61. Phone: 336.334.5145

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