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Posted by: Bobbi Hinton
A staff member spotlight detailing Gwen dePolo's journey from a Junior Fellow, to becoming a full time staff member several years later.
Posted in: Heritage Science, Internships, Music, Pigments, Preservation
Posted by: Bobbi Hinton
Clays, gemstones, corrosion products, poisons, plants, and more – green pigments used in books and manuscripts over the centuries have some surprising origins!
Posted in: Collections Care, Heritage Science, Music, Pigments, Preservation, Rare Books and Special Collections
Posted by: Bobbi Hinton
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 …
Posted in: Care and Handling, Collections Care, Collections Management, Conservation, Events & Outreach, Heritage Science, Internships, Preservation, Rare Books and Special Collections, Reformatting, Tangible Media
Posted by: Amelia Parks
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.
Posted in: Heritage Science
Posted by: Amelia Parks
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.
Posted in: Events & Outreach, Heritage Science, Preservation
Posted by: Bobbi Hinton
Preservation Science Intern Jessica McKenzie breaks down some applications of analytical chemistry in the Library of Congress, where she uses Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy to expand the Preservation Research and Testing Division’s database for pigment analysis. She then demonstrates how she has assisted in applying her work to collection items.
Posted in: Collections Care, Heritage Science, Internships, Pigments, Preservation
Posted by: Bobbi Hinton
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.
Posted in: Collections Care, Conservation, Events & Outreach, Fragments, Heritage Science, Preservation, Rare Books and Special Collections
Posted by: Bobbi Hinton
Scientific research meets the allure of the past as Tineta Nkoronye, an intern at the PRTD at the LOC, delves into the world of preservation chemistry as she explores predictions made by William J. Barrow. Learn about the analytical methods used to carry out this experiment and discover whether Barrow's predictions were accurate or not.
Posted in: Collections Care, Heritage Science, Internships, Preservation
Posted by: Bobbi Hinton
Register to join us at the Library of Congress on September 13th from 10 am - 4 pm. Speakers will address the history of the Irish manuscripts, complementary research projects in which they are involved, and the results of the analytical techniques involved in the research. As Inks&Skins is a collaboration between heritage science and humanities, the importance of a visualization platform to share the results with humanities scholars will also be discussed.
Posted in: Fragments, Heritage Science, Pigments, Preservation, Tools of the Trade