Pieces of Charleston’s history lay in tatters of fading linen pages and worn leather books. After surviving a fire, technological innovations, the mastery of Scotch tape and pervasive mold, Charleston’s city archives are ready for a makeover.

City Clerk Deborah Muller has taken responsibility for the renovation of restoring Charleston’s history.

“We have come to a crossroads with most of these books where if we do not decide to do something we could lose parts of our history,” Muller said. “Some of these pages are hanging by a literal thread, and I’m afraid there are parts of Charleston that could be disappearing – history vanishing.”

Muller made her argument for restoration to the city council during its fall retreat on Nov. 16.

Muller believes archives that date back to 1836 show a record of Charleston’s past. The documents show Charleston’s evolution into a city that now files 84 resolutions and 42 ordinances in one year, as opposed to numbers that ranged in the teens for one year in 1923. The real issue, Muller said, is with the pages.

The books did not have removable pages, so the typed pages were inserted into books by artificially fastening them to the binding. Over time, the books’ girth would build until the spines split under the pressure of added pages.

Problems with the leather on the bound volumes are also of concern as it begins to wear from years of handling and element exposure.The introduction of a timesaving adhesive also allowed the pages of the books to deteriorate.

“In the past, someone got lazy and began Scotch-taping the extraneous pages to pages in the books,” Muller said. “Now, we have books that have removable rods, which allow us to take the pages out, type directly on them and replace them when we are done.”

Muller said the council “gave her the nod” to proceed in finding companies that would provide not only binding services but full restorations of the texts. Muller added the books should maintain the original look and feel, with fine script and tea-stained pages.

Finebinding.com in New York, Felton Book Binding in Canada and Craft Book Binding in Tennessee are the three front-runners to repair the archives. Each company estimates repairs to cost from $250 to $850 per volume.The main conflict is how to ship 12 volumes of archives that the city is already afraid of losing.

Mayor John Inyart said Muller needs to do more research on the transportation of the archives.

Muller said all companies have never lost an item and recommend FedEx for shipment.

“Certainly, there is a bit of nervousness in boxing them up and sending them so far,” she said. “But regardless of whether I have to drive all of these books out there, I want this for our city.”

Muller said simply reviewing shows that past issues concerning Charleston are presently the same, although more primitive.

“I was looking in one volume and found a meeting’s minutes that talked about a wood-plank street that was the height of technology for the time,” Muller said. “But, the ‘new technology’ couldn’t withstand the wet Charleston springs and resulted in a need for massive street repair.”

In addition to the restoration project, Muller would like to be able to have the records available to everyone who comes into Charleston.

“I would really like to be able to scan the pages, so that they were available to the masses without the danger of handling the actual texts,” she said. “I think the people of Charleston deserve to have complete access to these records and to be able to look up the family names that have lasted so long in this small but formidable town.”

The timeline is yet to be determined for the task of the restoration.

“Time is ticking,” Muller said about the tattered pages and fading words. “But this can’t be done lickety-split. Like history, it’s going to take some time.”

Krystal Moya can be reached at 581-7945 or at [email protected].