The following is a guest post by Meghan Hill, a preservation specialist in the Preservation Research and Testing Division of the Library of Congress. Conference season is upon us; a time to learn about exciting new initiatives in the preservation field and in turn to showcase our own work, to reconnect with colleagues from other …
Preservation staff will be presenting several papers at the American Institute of Conservation annual meeting starting May 20th. Come say hello and hear about topics such as scientific analysis of books from libraries around the country, non-invasive analysis of texts and images of medieval manuscripts, collection surveys, and conservation of an architectural model.
On Friday, March 8th, staff from each division of the Preservation Directorate were invited onstage at Washington, D.C.’s comic convention, Awesome Con, to speak about their work at the Library as part of the convention’s Science Fair. This is their story.
The following is a guest post by Lauren Quackenbush, Librarian-in-Residence, Preservation Division. The Librarian-in-Residence (LIR) program was created in 2018 for newly graduated librarian students to gain invaluable experience at the Library of Congress. LIRs are assigned throughout the Library, this year’s 2023 cohort consisted of 5 recent graduates. As the LIR in Preservation, I …
The Manuscript Map of the Dagua River Region, created in 1764, depicts a remote gold mining frontier in today’s Colombia. Art historian Juliet Wiersema and preservation scientist Meghan Hill will share results from their collaborative analysis which unearthed stories about African resilience, resistance, adaptation, entrepreneurship, and survival within the Spanish empire. A scientific examination of this map further draws back the curtain on how this large watercolor map was assembled using pigments and paper from across the empire.
Read along to see how four members of the Conservation Division at the Library of Congress deployed to Vermont attached to a FEMA response to the massive summer flooding in the state. These four subject matter experts received and conducted on-the-ground training with FEMA and performed outreach and demonstrations to the people of Vermont.
Following the Jikji Colloquium which took place at the Library of Congress in early 2023, Conservation staff member Chloe Genter sits down with Dr. Banda, the UNESCO Chief of Documentary Heritage, to discuss UNESCO’s role in raising awareness of the impact of the Buljo jikji simche yojeol.
The Inks and Skins collaboration studies material aspects of medieval Gaelic manuscripts, fusing scientific analysis with codicology and linguistic study. These manuscripts contain a wealth of tales and poetry, historical, legal, and scientific writing from medieval Ireland. The manuscripts themselves, their creation, and their survival each have their own tales to tell.
