Feb. 6, 2025
Canmore Limited Mining Company logbooks made accessible through conservation
The way an object is used is always reflected in the way it falls apart.
Most old books have similar patterns of damage – torn pages, or broken spines – physical damage related to people directly handling the materials. UCalgary’s Archives and Special Collections is very accustomed to seeing, recording and mending damage to books. In many ways, they’ve “seen it all” when it comes to book damage.
Until they came across the logbooks from the Canmore Mines Limited company.
The company started life as the “Canadian Anthracite Coal Company (Limited)” in 1886 (19 years before Alberta was officially a province). Formed to take advantage of the Canadian Pacific Railway clearing land throughout Alberta’s coal country, they quickly leased the land that had the most potential for coal near the railway tracks. Between 1890 and 1938, the company cycled through splits and mergers until eventually settling into one major organization, called the Canmore Mines Limited company.
The fond chronicling this business history contains just over 29 meters of textual records (or, about 140 boxes). The contents include all the nitty gritty documentation that you might expect, from statements and reports to operational records, letters, and ledgers. The company donated the records to the Glenbow Archives collection sometime between 1962 and 1996.
It also contains several boxes of books completely covered in coal dust.
These books were used on-site at the mines, and contain handwritten notations, calculations, maps, and tracking information regarding each individual company mine. So, it makes perfect sense that the books are not pristine.
On the one hand, coal dust on books is an interesting thing. The specific dust’s physical/chemical structure can be studied to learn more about the coal’s exact parent seam. This information, combined with the books themselves, could offer a new dimension to the historical context of the fond.
On the other hand, this type of dirt can be a nightmare for book preservation. Coal dust contains a sizable mixture of different materials, including carbon, calcite, and kaolinite. This means these books will fall apart in a different way from their undusted contemporaries, and this type of decline will carry with it specific risks and considerations. For instance:
- While water and books should never mix, coal dust, water and books really shouldn’t mix. Interaction with water can cause the carbon in the coal dust to stain the paper substrate, rendering information on the page unreadable (bad for the book, bad for the researcher).
- Similarly, fire and books should never mix. Fire, books and coal dust can make for a mildly explosive combination that is extremely frowned upon in libraries and archives.
- Coal dust particles are small, which means that when they’re thrown up in the air (via miner or intrepid researcher paging through these particular tomes) it’s very easy for them to enter the lungs, eyes, and nasal cavities. Historically, this has had devastating effects on the human body given enough time.
As tempting as it might be to leave the books as-is, that doesn’t make sense given what these books are being used for now. They are intended for research and public access. Covered in coal dust, the books’ accessibility is limited.
With all that in mind, the conservation team made a treatment decision that respects the history of the object and lessens the potential risks: remove the most volatile bits of the coal dust.
The books are cleaned using a HEPA vacuum at the university’s Clean Air Workstation (a terrarium of airborne particle safety). Since paper does not respond well to the full-blown suction power of the industrial revolution, very low vacuum suction is used, with brushes to delicately sweep the dust into the vacuum nozzle and extra delicate bits treated through a mesh screen. The attending conservator also wears appropriate personal protective equipment.
Once the airborne prone components are taken care of, smoke sponges are used on the covers to lift even more of the coal dust caked onto the surface.
The results are promising, subtle, and “clean” but not “too clean”. The physical history remains, but it’s now more accessible.
If you’re interested in accessing these books, or in learning more about Alberta’s coal mining history, please explore the following links: