It was one for the books as Preservation Week and Live! at the Library collided to create Preservation Live! at the Library at the end of April. Staff from throughout the Preservation Directorate joined our friends on the Web Archiving Team to teach the public about preservation at the Library and taking care of your own personal collections.
Organized by Preservation Education Specialist Amelia Parks, the event kicked off the Library’s participation in the annual Preservation Week festivities. While the rest of our events were focused on webinars, this was the most public-facing event, and on the grandest of stage, the Great Hall of the Library of Congress.
Live! at the Library started in May 2022 as the Library took steps to completely reopen to the public after the COVID Pandemic. Since then, events have featured concerts, exhibitions, trivia nights, celebrity guests, and more. Just as with those previous events, visitors were “invited to enjoy happy hour drinks and food available for purchase in the Great Hall overlooking the Capitol and the Thomas Jefferson Building’s beautiful architecture while immersing themselves in the Library’s exhibits, collections and programs.”
The real action, though, was on the Gallery level above.
Guests ascending the grand staircase to the northwest corner were greeted first by the Web Archiving Section.
Though part of the Preservation festivities, Web Archiving was the odd one out as it is part of the Digital Services Directorate, in the Digital Collections Management & Services Division. Representing the section were Supervisor Abbie Grotke and Digital Collection Specialists Tracee Fugate, Lauren Baker, and Amanda Lehman
“We had an interactive activity that asked visitors to share their earliest memory of the internet on a post-it, which you may have already seen,” Fugate said afterwards. “It’s an activity that we did once before for the [American Library Association] Open House, and we find that it is a good icebreaker. It is a fun way to get people to reflect on how the internet has a history—so much about it has changed, and a lot of what people remember isn’t there anymore. That naturally leads to a conversation about why it’s important to preserve websites and other content you find on the internet.”
For more about Web Archiving and their discussion of earliest memories of the internet, check out the Digital Services Blog, The Signal.
Next to Web Archiving, the Preservation Scientists of the Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD) were on display:
PRTD was represented by Specialist Kelli Stoneburner, Chemist Gwen Depolo, and Dr. Eric Monroe, head of the Scientific Library Section and star of the recent Preservation panel at AwesomeCon.
The team showed of some off their work including some of the traveling lab equipment that they regularly take on talks and exhibitions. They had many visitors throughout the night that enjoyed seeing the fruits of their labor.
“For me, it was a really awesome learning opportunity because it was my first outreach event as a Library employee,” Depolo said afterwards. “I really enjoyed being able to share PRTD’s work with the public and figuring out how to be able to pivot between the various questions quickly. I especially enjoyed when people would become super engaged with something we had on our display table.”
Guests were then beckoned past the exhibitions and Thomas Jefferson’s Library for Preservation Trivia!
Preservation Education Specialist Amelia Parks ran the show, hosting a new round each half hour using an online platform. She was assisted by Erin Engle, assistant to the Preservation Director, and Bobbi Hinton, administrative officer for the Preservation Services Division. Participants were encouraged to use their cell phones to take part and awards were given out for each round.
Here are some of the questions that were asked (Answers at the bottom):
- In what year, did a devastating fire destroy the entire collection of the Library of Congress except for one ledger?
- What online hoax documented in the Library’s web archives is commonly used in Internet literacy classes in schools
- What are some of the non-invasive scientific analyses that we can do on collection objects in Reading Rooms?
- When should you wear white cotton gloves?
At the end of each round, participants were asked “What word do you think of when someone says “preservation?” and a word cloud was displayed with new entries added throughout the evening.
Turning along the front of the building, if you could pull away from the beautiful view of Capitol Hill and the National Mall beyond, you found the Conservation Division holding court, starting first with the General Collections Conservation Section (GCCS):
Preservation Librarian Jon Sweitzer-Lamme and Conservation Technician Lily Tyndall spoke to visitors about preserving your personal collections. They had examples of different materials with cost-conscious ways for you to care for them at home. Both have extensive experience repairing items in GCCS as well as part of the Preservation Emergency Response Team.
Next to them were representatives from the Book Conservation Section and the Photo Conservation Section:
Conservation Technician Linnea Vegh from the Book Conservation Section and Supervisor Andrew Robb from the Photo Conservation Section used items from their own training to show how the Library preserves its 178 million items. This work includes repairs but also boxing and creating other unique storage structures.
When asked about their time at the event, Vegh said, “We were both wrapped up in conversation with patrons,” throughout the evening.
Looping back to the back corner past the Waldseemuler Map, we have the Processing and Preparation Section (PPS):
Library Technician Ronlicia Gordon-Falls joined me with a pair of book trucks and a selection of about 30 books. The plan had been to have a timed game, but we soon found that the visitors were more interested in just looking at the books.
While PPS regularly works through a process of sorting, preparing, and reviewing, the display focused on just the beginning of the process: sorting incoming items. Thirty items of differing size, binding style, and topic, were offered up as part of a speed game for event attendees. They were charged with organizing them after Gordon-Falls or myself explained the different classifications on the neighboring blue book truck. While this idea came together fine in theory, in practice we found that the visitors were more interested in the books themselves. We were able to promote our work, but not in a way that was as fun or family-focused as we intended.
“Amongst the public who tried our game was Cathy Martyniak (Chief of Collections Management) and Jacob Nadal (Director of Preservation) joining in on the fun,” Gordon-Falls noted. “While presenting, we showed a display of PSD pre-bound book material and post-bound surplus books and compared them. I walked the public through our presentation slides that provided a panoramic view of our office, with insight to the workflows of our office routines and special projects.”
Also part of our display included the Pathways to Preservation. This poster included the bios of various Preservation Staff, including those that have appeared in this Blog such as Cathy Martyniak, Kate Morrison-Danzis, Elizabeth Peirce, Gwen Depolo, and Regina Young.
“This was a great conversation starter since our employees were inquired about employment opportunities here,” Gordon-Falls added. “Our very own Regina Young was a part of the profiles. Pamphlets were given out and our newest employee, Alek Redenbo is featured sorting a bin of books. As a department and section, we worked together collectively, and Preservation Live! was a success.”
All in all, the staff had a great time, too bad you missed it. See you next year, or you can visit us everyday on Capitol Hill! Better yet, see you at the National Book Festival on Saturday, August 24th at the Washington Convention Center!
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Answers: 1814; Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus; X Ray Fluorescence, IR Spectroscopy, Microscopy; Never.