Facilities

The Kelly Library Conservation Studio is a state-of-the-art facility to ensure the long-term accessibility of our archival and rare book collections. This is where the library’s more delicate materials are actively maintained to support scholarship and research. It is also a teaching space where our conservator offers experiential learning opportunities for students in our undergraduate programs—particularly Mediaeval Studies and Book and Media Studies.

Using highly specialized tools and equipment, our conservator cares for and repairs items such as rare papers of illustrious figures, archival letters, diaries, photos and rare books in our special collections. They protect these items from damage and decay while ensuring scholars can use them. Damaged items can be repaired with specialized equipment, but our main approach is to prevent damage in the first place by controlling humidity, temperature and light levels, and training staff to handle objects and gauge risks to our collections.

Please contact us if you wish to learn more about the Conservation Studio.

The Kelly Library Print Studio is a working letterpress print shop and experiential learning space that supports the Book and Media Studies program at St. Mike’s. Located on the second floor of the library, the Studio provides students with hands-on opportunities to explore the history and practice of print production using 19th- and 20th-century presses and equipment. 

In this space, students learn to set type, choose inks and papers, operate hand presses, and bind their work—gaining direct experience with the physical processes behind print culture. These practices are taught in context, revealing the complexity, creativity, and historical significance of what might otherwise seem a simple technology. 

The Print Studio connects meaningfully to the Kelly Library’s special collections, allowing students not only to view early printed materials, but to understand and replicate the methods by which they were made. Through this, students discover the tactile and intellectual dimensions of moveable type and the hand press, deepening their engagement with the cultural history of the book. 

The Studio has produced several student-led projects, including the publication of three original chapbooks. 

The Kelly Library Digital Preservation Studio is a staff workspace that provides sustainable access and preservation for born-digital and digitized materials across our Special Collections: Archives and Rare Books collections. The Digital Preservation Studio ensures that content on legacy storage hardware and obsolete formats from floppy disks to VHS cassettes survive for the future use of scholars through conversion to digital formats. Simultaneously, born-digital materials such as emails, websites, MP4s, PDFs, and TIFs are stored, described, and preserved. This work ensures materials and formats survive, and ensures their accessibility, both locally and globally, so scholars anywhere can access these treasures for generations to come. 

The Digital Preservation Studio was created with thanks to the Friends of the Kelly Library for funding a significant portion of the original equipment.