In the paper conservation laboratory, students work on fine art prints and drawings, historic posters and maps, and many other diverse paper artifacts. Also treated in this laboratory are photographs and books.

At any given time, students are assigned or select projects from the more than 80 framed and unframed paper objects awaiting treatment in the laboratory each year. Recent projects have included a large-scale chalk drawing by Keith Haring, prints by Käthe Kollwitz and other 20th-century artists, a 19th-century traveler's guide booklet with attached map, movie posters from the 1950's and 1960's, a large, heavily-damaged, varnished wall map, a series of Chinese pith paintings, a mold-damaged 17th-century book with a vellum cover, and 19th-century Japanese color wood block prints.