American Chemical Society SEED intern David Kim waded into unknown terrain during his summer internship in the Preservation Research and Testing Division with the research question - would it be possible to identify traditional Meso-American organic yellow colors, using only non-invasive analytical methods?
Micherlange Francois-Hemsley, a 2024 intern working on Identifying At-Risk Underrepresented Community Collections Learning from Our Collection: Assessing and Preserving At-Risk Materials, discusses her summer spent with the Preservation Research and Testing Division.
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 …
Clays, gemstones, corrosion products, poisons, plants, and more – green pigments used in books and manuscripts over the centuries have some surprising origins!
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 …
Get to know Preservation’s new Preservation Science Specialist, Franky Moore and read about how he developed a passion for chemistry into a burgeoning career in science humanities.
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.