We like to think (and hope) that our blog, Guardians of Memory, acts as an informative resource from which to learn and engage in conversations of preservation work. We hope that it exposes you to interesting projects and people working to make sure the collections here at the Library are preserved and usable, and that it also allows our amazing staff to deep-dive on certain projects, treatments or research activities.
The blog is not the only venue where our staff share in-depth information about preservation projects or complex treatments. We share information, in many ways, with our respective communities of practitioners, in-person or virtually, depending on the venue. One of these communities – The American Institute of Conservation (AIC) – hosts an annual gathering of conservators that offers an excellent opportunity to share practices, network, and have face-to-face working group meetings.
AIC is just one of the many professional associations our staff are active in, and the Preservation Directorate has been recognized in the past for its contributions to the conservation field. In 2017 the Library of Congress received the AIC Distinguished Award for Advancement of the Field of Conservation – an honor given to institutions that provide “vital and long-standing support of professional development activities of conservators.” For over 40 years, the Library’s Preservation Directorate has worked to promote conservation and the professional development of conservators around the world, through internships, fellowships, and training and education programs. We are really proud of the number of conservators who have trained in our lab and are now contributing to the profession all over the world.
In May, the annual AIC meeting will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, and many Preservation staff, conservators, and scientists will be attending to learn from others in the community and to present their work. If you’re attending, check out these sessions where our staff will presenting:
- The Conundrum of Accepted Assumptions from Thousands of Tested Book Papers, Thursday May 23, 5:00 pm. Dr. Fenella France and Dr. Andrew Davis will speak about the various assumptions and broader learnings from the Mellon-funded “Assessing the Condition of the National Collection” project. As part of the project, the Preservation staff at the Library of Congress compared 500 of the same paper-based volumes of the same title from five different research libraries in distinct environmental regions of the United States through photo-documentation, visual assessment, and physical, chemical, and optical test methods.
- Alteration of Materials and of Meaning in an Early 16th C. Upper Rhenish Devotional Manuscript, Friday, May 24, 10:30 am. In this session, Preservation Science Specialist Cindy Connelly Ryan will share how using non-invasive, micro-scale analysis can bring scholarly understanding to the texts and images of medieval manuscripts, unlocking new information about their current condition, original making, and meaning. A dramatic example of this was recently found in a diminutive devotional miscellany manuscript written circa 1518 in the Upper Rhine region, currently part of the Library of Congress’s Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection.
- Assessing Collections At The Library of Congress: The Human Aspects For Sustainability, May 24, 2pm. Beatriz Haspo, former Collections Officer in Preservation, will provide an overview of the design and implementation of the first Library of Congress general collections conditions, which represents nearly 22 million books, pamphlets and other printed materials.
- A Macro-Miniature: Conservation of a Large Paul Rudolph Architectural Model, Friday, May 24, 2:30 pm. Objects Conservator Elizabeth Peirce will share the complex treatment of a 1967 wooden architectural presentation model by the noted New York City architect Paul Rudolph. The model represents one of Rudolph’s signature projects and is slated to go on loan for a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC this summer.
If you don’t get a chance to connect with us in Salt Lake City, you can always find us online for questions at Ask A Librarian or for resources on our website.