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Category: Preservation

Close-up view of two hands carefully at work on an aged, yellowing manuscript with handwriting

Farewell!

Posted by: Amelia Parks

Jacob Nadal has been the Director for Preservation for the last seven years. As his time at the Library comes to a close, he sets down his thoughts about preservation and leadership and says a warm farewell.

Making FETCH Happen

Posted by: Amelia Parks

In 2022, a software company operating a library inventory management system went out of business, leaving several large libraries in the lurch. Over the last couple years, the Library of Congress, along with other libraries in the ReCAP Consortium got together to create FETCH, a new inventory management system.

Preservation Staff Presenting at the Annual American Institute of Conservation Meeting

Posted by: Amelia Parks

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.

Although the front row was near empty, the room was packed

For Library Preservation Staff, Everything is Awesome

Posted by: Amelia Parks

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.

Upcoming: Charting New Discoveries of the Manuscript Map of the Dagua River Region

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.

Commercial Binding Industry: Standard Materials for Custom Binding

Posted by: Amelia Parks

In 2017, Jeanne Drewes, began an independent oral history project as part of the Occupational Folklife Project to document the occupational trade and work-related experiences of professional bookbinders. Now available, the interviews document the histories of individual binderies, trace intertwined firm histories, and encourage interviewees to discuss how the binders’ occupation and the preservation of books have changed over the years.