photo by: Mike Yoder

Noah Smutz, a 2012 KU graduate who is this year's Ringle Conservation summer intern for KU Libraries is spending his summer preparing condition reports, treating and creating housings for early to mid 20th-century scrapbooks kept by former students at KU. Here he shows some of the books, housed at the Spencer Research Library.

The 100-year-old cracker, glued inside a World War I-era Kansas University student’s scrapbook, poses one of the more puzzling conservation challenges Noah Smutz is dealing with this summer.

Smutz figures his first step will involve at least cleaning away the squished bug remnants from the page housing the square of slightly snacked-on hardtack.

“Things like these take so much special handling,” he said.

photo by: Mike Yoder

A 100-year-old piece of hardtack is attached to a page from a KU student's scrapbook at the Spencer Research Library. The library has 41 scrapbooks in the group, some from the 1800s but most from the early to mid 20th-century, which are undergoing some conservation work this summer.

Smutz is KU Libraries’ 2016 Ringle conservation intern, and his task for the two-month internship is to inventory, treat, stabilize and conserve the Spencer Research Library’s collection of early KU student scrapbooks.

There are 41 books in all, the oldest being compiled by a student who attended KU from 1889 to 1892, he said. Most of the others are from the 1910s and 1920s, with some from the 1940s.

They’re packed with old photographs, newspaper clippings and mementos.

The cracker is labeled “Hard Tack from Eagle Pass, Tex.” with the date Oct. 30, 1916.

There are dance cards and dance books, some with miniature pencils still dangling from them. One student’s draft card for World War I. A melted-looking birthday candle. Event invitations and programs. Pressed flowers. A trolley schedule. A few cigarettes. Tickets to sporting events. A trail of firecrackers stuck to a page and labeled in cursive “We ‘shot-up’ the house” — no specifics about what house that might be.

photo by: Mike Yoder

A page from one of the early KU student scrapbooks at the Spencer Research Library. The library has 41 scrapbooks in the group, some from the 1800s but most from the early to mid 20th-century, which are undergoing some conservation work this summer.

In addition to providing a window into KU’s history from students’ perspectives, the books also paint a picture of the times.

Smutz said one thing that strikes him is how much more formal things seemed back then. But as always, sports clearly were a big draw.

Some of the photographs could have come from any era at KU, such as one in one of the old books picturing eight smiling women hanging out in what looks like a bedroom. That one’s labeled “Slumber Party.”

Smutz said he’s also come across a photo of a group of guys posing in a bedroom with a stolen street sign.

“I’ve seen those pictures on Facebook, so there are a lot of differences, but at the same time there are a lot of similarities,” he said.

The fact that most of the scrapbooks are overstuffed has no doubt contributed to some of them falling apart, Smutz said. Part of his work so far has included creating custom compartments inside one of the Spencer Research Library’s archival storage boxes to accommodate a scrapbook that had lost all its binding and also had a few of the 3-D objects affixed inside come loose.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Noah Smutz, a 2012 KU graduate who is this year's Ringle Conservation summer intern for KU Libraries is spending his summer preparing condition reports, treating and creating housings for early to mid 20th-century scrapbooks kept by former students at KU.

Some books will get additional work such as repairing tears to the edges of pages, but for the most part Smutz is there to preserve them as-is, not to restore them with work like re-gluing or re-binding.

Letha Johnson, assistant archivist for KU’s University Archives, said the scrapbooks are used for some classes at KU, so it’s important they’re organized and kept in stable storage.

“We pull out things from the archives to show them what life was like,” Johnson said.

Smutz graduated from KU in 2012 and received a master’s degree last fall in book conservation from West Dean College in the United Kingdom.

KU Libraries’ annual Ringle internship projects are funded by an estate gift from Stata and David Ringle. Stata Ringle was emerita professor of pharmacology, toxicology and therapeutics at KU Medical Center, among other titles throughout her years with KU.

Whitney Baker, head of conservation for KU Libraries, said the internship has been “fantastic,” not only for helping up and coming conservators in their careers but also for enabling specific library projects.

Angela Andres, special collections conservator for the Spencer Research Library, said the scrapbooks were an especially fascinating but tricky project.

“They’re just so much fun to look through,” Andres said. “But it also appeals to that problem-solving that we like to do as conservators.”

Added Baker, “each one’s a little different.”