Archives

When faced with a budget dilemma for oversize mining maps storage, Amy Williams, project conservator at the University of Pittsburgh, asked herself “the $13,500 question:” Is there a benefit to using an archival 12” diameter storage tube core versus a non-archival 12” core wrapped with an isolating layer? It would be easy to assume that …

Conserving Modernity: The Articulation of Innovation The 9th Biennial North American Textile Conservation Conference (NATCC) November 12-15, 2013 San Francisco, California Registration for the conference, workshops, and tours is now open! Go to http://natcconference.com for a glimpse of the papers and posters to be presented and to register. Keep in mind that space is limited for workshops …

Anne Battram presented a shortened version of a talk given at the “first International Conference in Europe focused on upholstery history,” held in Vadstena, Sweden.  Proceedings of the Sweden conference, “The Forgotten History- Upholstery Conservation” ed. Karin Lohm are available from Linköping University.  Several people noted that this publication can be difficult to obtain- check …

The CIPP strikes again with a well-attended and informative seminar to assist all of us in Private Practice. This year the topics covered business structures, service agreements aka the contract and insurance with an overarching theme of Risk Management. We then had an interactive roll-play so we could see an example of how the pieces …

  I was looking forward to hearing this talk by Christopher Maines, Conservation Scientist from the National Gallery of Art, on artist materials used by Andy Warhol in his earlier artworks, especially since it mentioned the possibility of traditional materials. Maines began his talk with a brief summary on Warhol’s early techniques as a commercial …

A slight communications glitch caused the group from the Indiana State Museum Tour to start without the group that was only doing the Indiana Historical Society tour; we knew that they were supposed to rendesvous with us, but they didn’t know that we existed. We finally caught up with the other half of our tour …

I’m am extremely excited that I signed up to write a blog post for this Paintings Group Session at the  41st Annual Meeting for AIC: The Contemporary in Conservation this week in Indianapolis. As an emerging conservator specializing in the conservation of paintings, I found this discussion very important for our field and I was …

If you ask me if I’m connected, I might at first think, well, I have a smartphone where I can access my Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts, my family and I share a Google calendar, so sure, I guess I’m connected. But what does it really mean to be connected? With all of these devices, …

At the 2012 AIC Annual Meeting we hosted the first ever AIC Great Debate. By all accounts, it was a rousing success. While last year’s debate was good, this year we’re hoping to make it better. The 2013 Great Debate will take place on Saturday, June 1 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm as the final session in the …

“The Next Chapter:  Rare Books in Modern Times” conference had an ambitious goal, to offer talks of benefit to anyone with a professional interest in rare books. The conference was presented by the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts, and hosted by the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. One of the aspects I most …

The Campbell Center for Historic Preservation Studies offers valuable opportunities for conservators to update their skills, and to increase their productivity and scope of practice through its excellent series of conservation refresher courses. Last summer I attended the new course, “Book Repair Techniques for Special Collections,” at the Campbell Center in Mount Carroll, Illinois. The …

July 14-20, 2013 Maine’s Hancock and Sullivan Counties, with their rocky shorelines and inland hills, are rich with lichen species and biofilms.  Buildings and structures made with granite from local quarries host lichens and biofilms.  Imported grave markers of granite, marble, slate, and sandstone from other New England states and foreign countries are found in …

Hot Trends in Response and Recovery: 40 Years After the Fire Date: Thursday, June 27, 2013 http://www.archives.gov/preservation/conferences/2013/ A program schedule will be posted when speakers have been confirmed. Cost: TBA Location: National Archives at St. Louis One Archives Drive St. Louis, MO 63138 About the Conference The National Archives will commemorate the 1973 fire that …

In a typical year, one or two sessions at the annual meeting of the College Art Association focus on conservation or the material aspects of works of art. The 2013 meeting which took place in New York City on February 13-16 included seven sessions on these subjects– “The Proof is in the Print: Avant-Garde Approaches …

Sheraton Baltimore City Center Hotel Baltimore, MD November 20-23, 2013 The American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) is a non-profit 501 (c)3 organization that supports and encourages the study of the peoples and cultures of the Near East, from the earliest times to the present. The 2013 ASOR Annual Meeting will be held in Baltimore, MD, …