From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore, the

Folgers director. The Folger's rare book vaults have become famous over the years for their vast

array of treasures. George Eliot's hand-annotated Shakespeare. The map Jonathan Swift used when he was

conceiving the island of Lilliput for Gulliver's travels. Henry VIII's schoolboy copy of

Cicero. And of course, the world's largest collection of first folios, the first printed edition

of Shakespeare's plays. But four or five floors above the vaults, there's a room in the

Folger that, for some, holds even more fascination, and that's where

we're going in this podcast, the Werner Gundesheimer Conservation Lab on the Folger's third floor.

The place where 400 years worth of books, prints, manuscripts, paintings, and other Shakespeareana

go when they need a little TLC. Whether it's to repair and

strengthen them when they're too fragile for readers or to prepare them for exhibition. The lab is

presided over by our J. Franklin Maori head of conservation, Renata Mesmer, and for the past year,

Renata and her team have had a special task.

2016 is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, and as a gift to America, the Folger is sending out 18 copies of the first folio to museums and libraries in all 50 states in Puerto Rico.

The lab on the third floor is where the books go to be cleaned up,

short up, and packed up for their trip. We thought this was a great opportunity to give you a peek

at the vital work that Renata and the conservators do every day to keep the Folger Collection

in good condition. We call this podcast, To repair should be thy chief desire. Renata gave

this tour of the lab to Neva Grant.

This is the main lab here where we have usually four or five conservators work at their

benches. And we got this lab in 2006.

We used to be in the basement.

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