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Category: Preservation

A girl with long dark braids stands at a counter slicing strips of paper.

A Blast to the Past: Testing Decades Old Predictions

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.

A faded page of text with a dark dirty spot at left, with a bright color image of the same page at right.

Register Now: Inks & Skins

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.

Girl with dark hair and dark eyes smiles broadly, wearing a white t-shirt and black sweater with a small golden necklace.

Tracking Colors: Building a Pigment Reference Database

Posted by: Bobbi Hinton

My summer at the Library was spent capturing data from colored pigments in order to build a reference database. Using a high-tech portable FTIR instrument, I prepared samples and collected infrared readings from 50 pigments in the Library’s collection using three of the portable instrument’s attachments. I compiled 150 measurements in order to create the database’s foundation.

Katie Mullen and Katie Senn take a selfie in the Main Reading Room, Library of Congress

Collecting the world’s languages: A Junior Fellow’s Report from the Preservation Services Division

Posted by: K.F. Shovlin

How exactly does the coolest stuff in the world make its way from hundreds of countries all over the world into the hands of patrons of the largest library in the world? 2023 Junior Fellow Kathleen Senn describes her experience working in the Preservation Services Division on Inventory Review Protocols for International Collection Materials.

A rolling cart with three shelves full of books.

Register Now: Assessing the Physical Condition of the National Collection

Posted by: Bobbi Hinton

Join us, at The Library of Congress or virtually, as we discuss “Assessing the Physical Condition of the National Collection (ANC)”. This Andrew W. Mellon funded project has collected data from over 2500 volumes to compare the physical, chemical and optical characteristics of 500 “identical” books from five large research libraries in distinct regions of …