Smudges on pages aren't always a bad thing. Cultural Historian Bénédicte Miyamoto and preservation scientists at The Library of Congress analyze dirty books to learn more about their prior owners.
Preservation Research and Testing Division hosted colleagues from Nottingham Trent University’s ISAAC Research Lab (Imaging & Sensing for Archaeology, Art History, and Conservation) as they explored the Library of Congress’ collection of pith paintings. Their international research project “From Lima to Canton and Beyond: an AI-aided Heritage Materials Research Platform for Studying Globalisation through Art” exemplifies collaboration on a multitude of different levels: between the cultures who produced the art, between institutions researching them in present day, between collections in multiple divisions within the Library, and even between different instruments for analysis.
Library of Congress Fellows share their role conducting comparative analysis on copies of the “same” book and carrying out chemical testing for the Assessing the National Collection (ANC) project funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Read along to find out about the atlas binding workshop held in the Preservation Directorate, where participants learned how to conserve, fold, and bind various types of atlases and book foldouts.
Curators, conservators, and preservation scientists collaborate to conduct pre-exhibit testing on 18th Century thangka, Buddha Shakyamuni which will be displayed in Collecting Memories: Treasures from the Library of Congress, in late 2023.
On April 13th and 14th, the Library hosted From Jikji to Gutenberg, the Scholarly Colloquium, a meeting of scholars, historians, conservators, and librarians from seven countries. The colloquium is part of a scholarly effort to promote understanding and awareness in the West about early printing with moveable type in Korea that pre-dates Gutenberg’s famous Bible. Jikji is the abbreviated title of the world’s oldest extant book made with moveable type, printed in Cheongju, Korea in 1377, preceding the Gutenberg Bible by 77 years.
This is a joint post by Aaron Chaletzky and Julie Pramis. This past January, the Preservation Services Division (PSD) took on a new Preservation Intern: Julie Pramis. Julie is currently enrolled in the Masters of Science in Library and Information Science program (MLIS) at the Catholic University of America (CUA). She comes to PSD with …