Archives

Pre-conference workshop led by William P. Lull 31 May 2011 Notes by participant Priscilla Anderson  In a solid day of information-packed lectures, Bill Lull explained the basic elements of the systems that control air temperature, humidity, and quality in typical collections storage buildings, and then talked about many ways that we can decrease energy use by …

Read the full July 20, 2011 press release about the  conservation treatment, re-encasement and public display of Magna Carta conducted by National Archives senior conservators Terry Boone and Morgan Zinsmeister. The project manager is supervisory conservator Catherine Nicholson. A short documentary video produced by the National Archives chronicles the document’s conservation treatment during which ultra-violet photography …

Artifex Equipment, Inc is conducting a survey of humidification methods and the applicability of Zorbix in those projects.  Zorbix sheets are thin, reusable sheets that absorb up to 50 times their weight in water. Once water is absorbed into a sheet of Zorbix, the water can only be released as vapor–even under pressure.  Zorbix can be …

If only conservation treatments actually happened so quickly!  Watch this time short lapse video of the National Park Service’s conservation treatment of Colonel William Prescott at Boston’s Bunker Hill Monument in June 2011. Over the course of 4 days, National Park Service conservators cleaned the bronze statue with water and an anionic detergent (Step 1); …

According to the July 7, 2011 issue of The New York Times, because in January 2011 Zahi Hawass, head of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities accused New York City of allowing Cleopatra’s Needle– a gift from Egypt which has stood in Central Park for 120 years– to erode from acid rain and threatened to …

This talk was in interesting treatment case study of an 18th c suit, including some detective work about what has happened to it throughout its history.   Ms. Mina also attempts to draw parallels between treatment decisions made throughout the history of the piece, or conservation decisions in general, and the “observer effect” from quantum mechanics. …

This talk discussed the re-housing and development of a database for a collection of design sketches by Bonnie Cashin within the FIT Archives and Special Collections (SC) at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT).  Bonnie Cashin was a 20th Century fashion designer that designed clothing and accessories with this collection of sketches representing her work …

This was a very interesting and informative talk about the development of the Fiber Reference Image Library (FRIL) and web site (https://fril.osu.edu/) at Ohio State University and some of the ways it is being used. The concept was originally conceived to be an interdisciplinary and internationally developed library of fiber images but lack of funding …

The summer exhibit at the Derek Eller Gallery (605 West 27th Street, NYC) is a show entitled “Perfectly Damaged” which features works of art “born from the collision of creation and decreation”. To quote further from the gallery’s press release, they have been “stretched, stained, torn, kicked, dragged, cut, burnt, metled, sprayed, shot, and tossed …

The increase in conservation project and archaeological excavation blogs has been a wonderful tool for promoting and informing the public and other professionals about our field.  Do you want to promote your involvement in an archaeological project, but don’t want to set up a blog? A Day of Archaeology on July 26, 2011 is an excellent …

Caroline Roberts, a graduate fellow at the Winterthur/UDel Program in Art Conservation, was lucky enough to spend a summer working at English Heritage with David Thickett, a pillar in the specialty of preventive conservation. Cary shared her involvement with various projects from her internship. For an overwhelming 400+ properties, Thickett’s work emphasizes practicality, resource-sharing, and …

Jerry Shiner’s clear and informative talk adeptly answered the questions: how does that little box work and how did it get here? In other words, everything you ever wanted to know about active microclimate systems (aka microclimate generators, MCGs), but were afraid to ask. Starting from MCGs’ humble beginnings in 1938, Jerry reviewed and illustrated …

AIC RATS – Microclimates June 1, 2011 Museum environmental guidelines and the implementations of change Charlie Costain – Conservation and Scientific Services, Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) Follow up to “plus/minus” dilemma we’ve been having otherwise known as: “Should we loosen up the environmental restrictions on museum loans to other institutions?” At CCI – 2,500 museums …