Return from ruin: Flood-damaged records restored for C.R. museum

IOWA CITY - To save flood-damaged phonograph records from the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, University of Iowa preservationists had to keep them wet during months of repair.

That may seem counterintuitive, but because the damaged records often were inside layers of paper, cardboard or plastic sheaths, letting them dry out would have meant ruin.

“They would have caked together like a brick, and we wouldn't have been able to salvage them,” Nancy Kraft, head of the UI Libraries Preservation Department, said. “We had to keep them in the water. It was really smelly.”

But the technique worked, and UI preservationists on Friday presented about 1,500 restored records to David Muhlena, library director of the Czech Museum in Cedar Rapids.

Those are the 33 rpm and 45 rpm records UI specialists have repaired in the months since the June 2008 flood. About 3,500 records from the Czech Museum collection remain to be restored. Final restoration on the older, 78 rpm records will begin in January.

Each record took several hours of work, technician Caitlin Moore said.

“They all reacted differently to the water,” depending on what material the cover was coated with or the record was made from, Moore said.

The collection documents 80 years of recorded Czech and Slovak music, spanning folk, polka, brass bands, jazz and contemporary, Muhlena said.

“That's real surprising to see how good the label looks,” Muhlena said as he handled one of the restored records Friday.

Each record was covered with mold, bacteria and river debris. The labor-intensive restoration process included washing each record with distilled water, air drying it and inserting it into new archival plastic sleeves. Sometimes the original covers were so damaged the image peeled away from the cardboard.

In a few cases, technicians made copies of the covers, though most of them were saved and restored, Kraft said. Not only was saving the music important, but they wanted to save the information and artwork contained on the covers and labels, she said.

“I was astounded at how many we saved,” she said. “I think the majority of this collection will be returned.”