Restoration of old books from the Cologne catastrophe - Dr. Erna Pilch-Karrer, Restorer, Austrian State Archives (Austria)
The so called “cologne model“ for archive buildings was commendable for building projects. On the 10th of March 2010 the collapse of the house in Cologne was the headline of thenewspapers. As a consequence of not sufficiently safeguarded working on the underground enormous amounts of historical books and papers were damaged. The resulted harm was comparable to that of the burning in Weimar 2004 or the flood in Prag 2002 and the first aid was a very big challenge . Especially in the first stage aid is essential in such cases. In the course of „Restaurierungshilfe Historisches Archiv der Stadt Wien“ the director general of the Austrian State Archive, Prof. Dr. Lorenz Mikoletzky, called the smaller archives for help to bundle free capacities.
In our workshop of the Austrian State Archive six bindings arrived and within a year my colleague Adrienne Weissinger restored them additional to her normal daily work. The operations and considerations shall be discussed.