Conservation Lab at the National Archives

The Conservation Lab at the National Archives is one of the world's premier document preservation laboratories. In this Inside the Vaults video short, paper conservator Annie Wilker repairs an 18th-century illustrated family document, called a fraktur, while demonstrating various techniques used to preserve damaged documents and prepare them for exhibit at the National Archives.

The document records the marriage of John Tomlin and Jane Chamblin of Virginia and the births of their five children — George, Elizabeth, William, Reuben and Mary. It is one of more than a hundred such documents in the collection at the National Archives.

Inside the Vaults includes highlights from the National Archives in the Washington, DC, area and from the Presidential libraries and regional archives nationwide. These shorts present behind-the-scenes exclusives and offer surprising stories about the National Archives treasures. See more from Inside the Vaults at http://bit.ly/LzQNae.