Category Archives: Preservation Week

Preservation Week, Uncategorized

Preservation Week 2022 Is Here!

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There is so much great programming this week as we celebrate Preservation Week 2022. We are rounding up some of the notices we have seen, if you have an event you would like to share, please add it in the comments.

ALA Preservation Week has two scheduled webinars this week that are free to attend:
  • “How to Implement Sustainability in your Facility” on April 26th at 1-2pm Central Time. “In a time when sustainability and saving energy is imperative to slowing down climate change, institutions and organizations must become more aggressive when it comes to saving energy. There are a number of sustainable energy saving strategies that collecting institutions can implement, however, these strategies require knowledge of the facility that houses the collection as well as a strong data monitoring program. “
  • “Digital Preservation’s Impact on the Environment” on April 28th at 1-2pm Central Time. “Digital content is created and collected by everyone, not just libraries and archives. Keeping digital content viable requires not only energy use, but also refreshing the digital storage media and technologies. This webinar will explore the energy consumption and e-waste generated in current preservation infrastructures and actions, and review the environmental impact embodied in the full lifecycle of these infrastructures. It will include recommendations for actions and policies to mitigate digital preservation’s impact on the environment.”
  • Follow ALA Preservation Week on Instagram and tag your posts  #PreservationWeek22
  • Check out ALA’s Preservation Week resource page. 
The Library of Congress has an awesome lineup of free webinars this week.
  • Fragments, Discovery and Creating Knowledge Using state-of-the-art, non-invasive examination techniques, Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD) staff are collaborating with other library staff to learn more from the material/physical aspects of the Library’s collections. PRTD has been taking non-invasive portable instruments to special collection reading rooms to work with curators and to add value to our collections by answering curatorial and researcher questions. Working with Marianna Stell in Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC) we have been exploring 12th to 16th century parchment “fragments” to expand our understanding of historic parchment and inks. Additionally, we are also looking at contemporary paper and inks as we work to better understand “at-risk” components of modern collections.
    Monday April 25, 11am. Speaker: Dr. Fenella France, Chief, Preservation Research and Testing Division
    Register Here!
  • Preserving the Legacy of Robert Cornelius and Other Daguerreotypes in the Prints & Photographs Division Daguerreotypes are amongst the earliest photographic records and the Library holds over 800 of these images, including the iconic daguerreotype self-portrait of Robert Cornelius made in October or November of 1839. Ms. Wetzel will provide a brief history of the development of the daguerreotype, an introduction to the work of Robert Cornelius, and explain how her research project on this subject has led to a recent acquisition and generated the current focused effort to preserve the daguerreotypes at the Library.
    Tuesday April 26, 11am. Speaker: Rachel Wetzel, Senior Photograph Conservator
    Register Here!
  • Preservation Digitization Program OverviewThe Preservation Services Division performs a wide variety of reformatting including brittle books, foreign newspaper digitization, as well as tangible media capture and forensics. This presentation will include a brief discussion of each reformatting, plus a sample of online collections.
    Wednesday April 27, 11am. Speaker: Aaron Chaletzky, Head, Reformatting Projects Section
    Register Here!
  • Moving Collections to an Off-Site Facility: Key Things to Keep In Mind This presentation will provide a top level overview of the issues to keep in mind if a library decides to move a portion of their collections to an offsite facility. Key topics include selection of materials for transfer, identification of the offsite facility, shelving schemas, transportation of materials, retrievals and governance policies.
    Thursday April 28, 11am. Speaker: Cathy Martyniak, Chief, Collection Management Division
    Register Here!
  • Fiscal and Organizational Sustainability for Preservation Programs Hear how the Library of Congress Preservation Directorate plans for and maintains its preservation programs. These include a series of reorganizations, completed in 2017 and 2021, and an ongoing series of cost studies. These studies examine total costs of major service areas and support scenario planning around pay and non-pay activities. These combined efforts help to make sure the Preservation Directorate will be able to respond to changes: in immediate requirements and across strategic planning cycles, while making progress on long-term and large-scale preservation needs.
    Friday April 29, 11am. Speaker: Jacob Nadal, Director for Preservation
    Register Here!
Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts
  • “You Don’t Have to be Special to Use Special Collections” is on April 26th at 2pm Eastern Daylight Time.  What can archives and special collections offer an “unaffiliated” and curious public? Join us for a webinar with Independent Historian and Writer Lucie Levine, for a discussion on how any interested person might make use of collections.
Newburyport Public Library 
  • The Library put together two online videos discussing preserving personal collections. These are “Archival Supplies and Storage” and “Archival Storage and Handling Tips.”
Yale University Libraries Preservation Department
  • Need a LibGuide for Preservation Week. Here it is. The “Stressed about pests” looks really good.
Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission (RIHPHC) and the Rhode Island Advisory Commission on Historical Cemeteries
  • RI Historical Cemeteries Awareness and Preservation Weeks programming is free but filling fast. Learn about historic cemeteries or volunteer for a cleanup. There are plenty events to sign up for, check out their calendar.
Preservation Week

Duke Libraries Preservation Week 2021 Events

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We are participating in two events for Preservation Week 2021. There is so much happening this year. Make sure you follow #preswk to find other events across the country.

FFV1: The Gains of Lossless (Duke University Libraries)

Monday, April 26, 2021, 2-3 pm Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Registration: https://duke.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0sde2pqDwtE9zuOPITn7TZm2SSpxeNBc-1

One of the greatest challenges to digitizing moving-image sources such as videotape and film reels is the enormous file sizes that result, and the high costs associated with storing and maintaining those files for long-term preservation. To help offset this challenge, Duke University Libraries has recently implemented the FFV1 video codec as its primary format for moving image preservation.

FFV1 enables lossless compression of moving image content, and produces a file that is, on average, 1/3 the size of its uncompressed counterpart. Alex Marsh, Digitization Specialist—Video and Craig Braeden, Audiovisual Archivist will give a brief overview of FFV1, and their experience utilizing it to digitize the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library’s moving-image assets.

Careers in Preservation: A Panel Discussion (University of Illinois)

Thursday, April 29, 1:00-2:00pm Central

Registration: https://illinois.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_a1XaZHI1St6E7DKHgQsY0Q

Join five preservation professionals as they discuss their education and career paths. The final half of the session will be reserved for questions from the audience.

Panelists:

  • Jacob Nadal, Director for Preservation, Library of Congress
  • Miriam Centeno, Preservation and Digitization Strategist, The Ohio State University Libraries
  • Henry Hébert, Conservator for Special Collections, Duke University Libraries
  • Daniel Johnson, Digital Preservation Librarian, University of Iowa Libraries
  • Sarah Mainville, Media Preservation Librarian, Michigan State University Libraries
Covid-19, Disaster planning, Preservation Week

Disaster Response When Campus is Closed

Preservation Week and May Day both happen this week. It is a good time to update your disaster plan or do one other thing to better prepare your organization for disasters. This year disaster recovery includes trying to figure out disaster response when campus is largely vacant, and how you can maintain physical distancing if you need to respond to a collections emergency.

Last week a hot water pipe burst on the third floor of the History Department’s building sending water down to the first floor. Two faculty members reported having wet library books. We sent them information on caring for their personal collections, then went to campus to retrieve a handful of books from the building. We also met one faculty who drove his library books over to the library.

Our Response to a Small Collections Disaster

There are several apps that are useful in these situations. I used one to scan and send a list of barcodes to Circulation for the books that needed to be checked back in.

bar code scanning app screen shot
Bar codes ready for email.

I then set up the damp books in the fume hood to dry.

books drying in fume hood
Books drying in fume hood.

I prepared two wet books for freezing by wrapping them with butcher paper,  sandwiching them between buffered corrugated boards, and securing them with cotton tying tape. Writing the barcode and date on the package will help us easily identify them in the freezer.

Books prepped for the freezer
Ready for the freezer.
A Silver Lining

A silver lining in all of this is we discovered that our freezer is acting up again. Readers might recall  that we had a problem with the drain in this freezer almost a year ago. We are waiting for the parts to come in so a repair technician can be scheduled.

Freezer malfunction
The Iceman Floweth, again.
After the Initial Response

The books in the fume hood dried within a couple days. I went back to campus and put them into presses to flatten. We will evaluate these for repair or replacement once we are back on campus.

Books in the press
A good pressing should get these fairly flat.

This disaster was very small but it did raise questions about large numbers of library books housed in faculty offices, and what that means in terms of recovery efforts.

 

Preservation Week

Preservation Week: Digitization Prep

It’s Preservation Week! Each day we are showing examples of how the conservation department supports the library and its mission. We’ve seen Mary getting items back into circulation, Beth in an important meeting, Rachel showing off a Nobel prize, and Erin undoing some worm’s evil work. In our final post for the week, we will talk about how Conservation supports training and the digitization of collections .

Helen Lee mends manuscript material ahead of digitization.
Undergraduate student Helen Lee applies heat-activated repair material to mend some manuscripts.

Collection materials are constantly being imaged over at the Digital Production Center to provide greater access to scholars around the world. All those materials undergo careful review by our staff before going under the camera, and some items need stabilizing repairs in order to be handled and imaged safely. The sheer quantity of requested material can easily overwhelm our full-time staff, so sometimes our part-time student employees can help with the quicker repairs. Helen Lee (pictured above) has been working in the lab for the past three years and has been trained in several kinds of paper repairs ideal for digitization prep.  Today, she is using strips of pre-coated Japanese paper, which we make in the lab, to mend tears on archival material. She uses a small heated tacking iron through a barrier of silicone-coated paper to apply the repair strips.

Helen is graduating this semester and we are so sad to see her go! But it is rewarding to see students head off on new adventures and hopefully some of the preservation training she received here will come in handy along the way.

Happy Preservation Week!

Preservation Week

Preservation Week: Going Down a Wormhole

It’s Preservation Week! Each day this week we are telling a short story about how the conservation department supports the library and its mission. We’ve seen Mary repairing circulating collection materials, Beth representing in the board rooms, and Rachel working on custom mounts. Today we will take a peek at something a little more… chewed.

book pages with worm holes

Erin Hammeke, Senior Conservator for Special Collections, is currently working on an 18th century Spanish history of North America from the Rubenstein collection, which was badly eaten by insects at some point before it was acquired by the library.

insect damage creating handling challenges for book pages.The insect damage is so extensive in places that the book is very difficult to handle without causing further damage. In order to make this item accessible to researchers, Erin is applying strong, but reversible, mends of Japanese paper to infill each one of the losses. The color of the repair blends nicely with the original paper, so that it does not distract so much from the text.

page after treatment

The conservation treatment of this item will take a considerable amount of time, but it will ensure that a valuable resource is made available to patrons for many years to come. With all the requests for special collections items, either by scholars in the reading room, for our exhibitions, or for digitization, we work closely with our colleagues in Special Collections to prioritize treatment and make treatment decisions.

Preservation Week

Preservation Week: A Nobel Experiment

It’s Preservation Week!  This week, we are looking at the daily life of a conservation department and the work we each do in  support of the library and its mission. On Monday, Mary was repairing a book with very cool end papers. On Tuesday, Beth was in a meeting (surprise!).

Sometimes you need to bring in expertise when faced with a particular challenge. Rachel is working with Brad Johnson and Patrick Krivacka from the Nasher Museum of Art to build a custom mount for Kenneth Arrow’s Nobel Prize medal. Today was the medal’s first fitting. They also discussed the finish for the stand and came to agreement on the height of the frame.

Fitting the medal in the stand
(L to R) Rachel Penniman, Brad Johnson, and Patrick Krivacka discuss the fit of the display stand.

 

Kenneth Arrow was an economist, professor, and Nobel laureate. Arrow’s career is especially distinguished by his contributions to the theory of social choice, including his book Social Choice and Individual Values, published in 1951, and his contributions to general equilibrium theory. For these achievements, Professor Arrow has been awarded the Johns Bates Clark Medal (1957) and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics (1972), which he shared with Professor Sir John Hicks.

We are very excited that we will have a custom-fit stand so that the Nobel medal can be displayed in classes, show and tells, and exhibits. Thanks Patrick and Brad!

Preservation Week

Preservation Week: Sometimes You Get Doughnuts

It’s Preservation Week!  This week, we are looking at the daily life of a conservation department and the work we each do in  support of the library and its mission. Yesterday we saw Mary in repairing a book with very cool end papers.

As a department head my job is to make sure  we have the budgetary and human resources that we need to do our work, advocate for my staff and department, and make sure our priorities fit into the strategic direction of the library. To that end, I attend a lot of meetings.

Technical Services department head meeting
Technical Services department head meeting.

Duke Libraries has a culture of collaboration,  so we do a lot of talking with each other.  My standing meetings include departmental and individual staff meetings; Technical Services Department Head meetings; meetings with my supervisor; the monthly all-library staff meeting; the Multi-spectral Imaging team meeting; quarterly division meetings; and meetings with other department heads outside of Technical Services  usually over lunch or coffee. Then there are special meetings that are called around projects or initiatives, budget setting, and other administrative duties. Then there are the meetings that happen on the fly at the bus stop, in the hallway, or in the cafe line.

By attending these meetings I am gathering the information I need for the department to be successful, I’m building relationships across the library, and  I am also finding out what is happening in other departments that might impact our workflow. I know for some people all these meetings sounds like torture, but I rather enjoy getting together with colleagues to think about our collaborative future. And sometimes you get doughnuts.

Preservation Week

Preservation Week: Maintaining the Circulating Collection

It’s Preservation Week! In an effort to raise awareness of the need for preservation of all kinds, every day this week we will highlight one of the many ways our staff support collections at Duke University Libraries. Our first stop is the circulating collection.

Today Senior Conservation Technician Mary Yordy is working on a mesmerizing book in need of some help.
Mary Yordy displays a damaged case binding, ready for repair.

This visual album about Barneys New York shows a common problem with modern art books: the flimsy case construction of the binding just doesn’t stand up to the weight of the textblock. While it is down here in the lab, Mary will repair the rear hinge of the book, rejoining the text to the binding and allowing it to function again for many more circulations.

The publisher of this item really went all out with the endpapers and “chameleon” metallic edge treatment!

colorful edge decoration

Conservation, Preservation Week

Preservation Week: The Lab Is Hopping!

For Preservation Week we are sharing a “Day In The Lab” montage. Today the lab is full of activity and fun projects. Who would suspect that all of this goes on under your feet as you walk into the library? Hope you had a great Preservation Week.

Photo 1(3)
Jennifer is boxing up “Mr. Money” aka “The Man” from the Human Rights Archives. This is a very large puppet with a paper mache head and a PVC-pipe body.
Photo 3
Meg is washing a giant book, page by page.
Photo 5
Tedd just finished a fabulous box for our Cigarette Rolling Machine Patent Model. All of the wheels actually spin!
Photo 4
And Beth is outside vacuuming mouse poop droppings from a manuscript collection. This is how we get to see the outdoors during the day. Don’t be jealous.
Announcements, Events, Preservation, Preservation Week

Event: Digital Forensics, Emulation, and the Art of Restoration

By Winston Atkins, Preservation Officer

Ben Fino-Radin

Digital Forensics, Emulation, and the
Art of Restoration

 

Who: Ben Fino-Radin
When: Wednesday, April 24, 4:00 p.m.
Where: Perkins Library, Room 217 (Click for map)
Contact: Winston Atkins (winston.atkins@duke.edu)
This event is free and open to the public.

In 1991, from a basement in lower Manhattan, contemporary artist Wolfgang Staehle founded The Thing, an electronic Bulletin Board System (BBS) that served as a cyber-utopian hub for NYC-based artists integrating computers and into their creative practice.

The Thing emerged at a moment when contemporary artists were coming to grips with personal computers and the role they played in visual art. The BBS, which began as a temporary experiment, grew to become an international network of artists and ideas. Then the World Wide Web emerged and in 1995 Staehle abandoned the BBS for a web-based iteration of The Thing. The cultural record of these crucial early years, inscribed on the platters of the hard drive that hosted the BBS, was left to sit in a dusty basement.

Fast forward to 2013. Digital conservator Ben Fino-Radin reached out to Staehle to investigate the state of the BBS. Did the machine that hosted The Thing still exist? Could the board be restored to working order?

For scholars interested in the intersection of art and technology, the ability to investigate the contents of the BBS and observe its original look and feel would help flesh out the history of the emergence of personal computers and visual art. Unhappily, it was discovered that the computer that hosted The Thing BBS was at some point discarded.

Join Ben Fino-Radin on Wednesday, April 24th, to discuss the process of digital forensics, investigation, and anthropology involved in the process of restoring The Thing BBS from the scattered bits and pieces of evidence that managed to survive, and how this story serves as a case-study in the need for a new model of digital preservation in archives.

About the Speaker

Ben Fino-Radin is a New York-based media archaeologist and conservator of born-digital and computer-based works of contemporary art. At Rhizome at the New Museum, he leads the preservation and curation of the ArtBase, one of the oldest and most comprehensive collections of born-digital works of art. He is also in practice in the Conservation Department of the Museum of Modern Art, managing the Museum’s repository for digital assets in the collection, as well as contributing to media conservation projects. He is near completion of an MFA in digital arts and MS in Library and Information Science at Pratt Institute. He holds a BFA in New Media from Alfred University.

Find Out More

Ben Fino-Radin:

The Thing:

Rhizome:

  • “Rhizome is dedicated to the creation, presentation, preservation, and critique of emerging artistic practices that engage technology.” (from the Rhizome mission statement)