Beth Heller Conservation
Fixing paper so it lives longerThe Tape of Love
Love is like a roll of tape
It’s real good for making two things one
But just like that roll of tape
Love sometimes breaks off before you were done
Another way that love is similar to tape
That I’ve noticed
Is sometimes it’s hard to see the end
You search on the roll
Brown paper, white paper
Stick it together with the tape
The tape of love
The sticky stuff
Two Cool Opportunities
I have some interesting friends. Here are two opportunities presented by four of them:
Tish Brewer and Shannon Driscoll teach a series of classes in Dallas under the name Paper Nerds. The next one is this sunday, august 2nd from 1 to 4ish. Here is their description:
“this workshop will explore fold and envelope book structures. the variations are endless and the opportunity for creativity is boundless. these handmade books are a great way to organize all of your small odds and ends. each envelope page or pocket can hold something different such as ephemera, mementos, photographs, and other keep sakes. learn to make a business card holder with decorative papers. “
Next up, we have Jan Elftmann and Kelly Lyles, who are taking people to China:
“Get connected to China’s thriving Contemporary Art Scene, September 18-29th. Kelly Lyles will be taking 24 artists (or arts appreciators) to Beijing, Shanghai, Zhouzhuang, and Hangzhou, on a VIP networking trip to meet our Chinese Peers (artists and curators). We’ll visit galleries, Museum, art academies and residencies, and of course all the spectacular historical sights of the world’s largest country, Forbidden City, Great Wall, etc, w/ VIP treatment entire time, since we’re actually guests of the Chinese Government. No waiting in lines, we’re guests of honour at Banquets. This is through ‘World Trade Exchange’, by invitation of the Chinese government, so it’s a resume builder as well as educational (& of course FUN!). Everyone who’s come with WTE (including Arts commission & Archie Bray Foundation) has said “life-changing”. There’s many testimonials on their website…“
partial deposit ASAP, in order to procure Visas in time
or go to the WTE Phone: (425) 890-3184 http://www.wte-usa.com/
Call to Action: UT’s Conservation Program Needs Your Help
The following is a letter written by my friend and colleague Holly Robertson regarding the potential loss of a unique and valuable graduate program in Library and Archives Conservation, of which we are both alumni. Please take the time to read it, and to respond to the addresses given at the end. If you are a graduate of the program, if you know a graduate of the program, or if you know of work done by a graduate, please support the continuation of funding for instructors.
On a personal note, Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa, Karen Pavelka and Chela Metzger, the core faculty of the Kilgarlin Center for the Preservation of the Cultural Record have been relentless champions of education in this field, and have been, and continue to be mentors of the highest degree – always available despite huge courseloads and extracurricular endeavors, generous with their advice, energy and resources, knowledgeable, and simply a pleasure to know.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have. If I don’t know, I will try to find out. This is a program worth saving.
***************************************
As many of you know, the Conservation Certificate of Advanced Study program of the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin is in jeopardy. Since 1992, the program has been successful in obtaining external funding to support a range of program activities, including key full-time and adjunct faculty positions, conservation lab supplies and equipment, student internships, doctoral fellowships, visiting lecturers, and conferences. Unfortunately, the program’s support from NEH, which has long funded the two conservation instructor positions (the backbone of the conservation program’s curriculum), will end August 31, 2010. Without these positions, the Kilgarlin Center for Preservation of the Cultural Record will not be able to offer the Conservation Certificate program.
No conservator students were accepted for this upcoming academic year so that an in-depth program review could take place. That review is in its final stages and has mapped a transformative future for the program. Grant, foundation, and private funding are beckoning but will require the University of Texas at Austin to demonstrate evidence of institutional support. The School of Information has constructed wonderful new conservation labs in its new facility (http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/about/move.php), but they won’t have a single conservator student to put in them if they don’t have funding in place by October 2009 for the coming years. Funding for the two instructor positions must be stabilized immediately.
Your assistance is requested in the form of letters to Vice President and Provost Stephen W. Leslie that request University support of these two conservation instruction positions and that document the program’s importance to the field. University funding for even one of these positions will enhance the Kilgarlin Center’s ability to attract external foundation or private funding for the other position. Many of you are alums, many others employ Kilgarlin Center grads, and nearly all of you are familiar with the Center’s singular role as a library and archives conservation education program. Thank you for your support.
Hard copy letters can be mailed to:
Steven W. Leslie
Executive Vice President and Provost
University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station, G1000
Austin, Texas 78712
sleslie@mail.utexas.edu
Please email copies of these letters to Dean Dillon and Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa:
Andrew P., Dillon
Dean, School of Information
adillon@ischool.utexas.edu
Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa
Director, Kilgarlin Center for Preservation of the Cultural Record
e.cunnk@mail.utexas.edu
Get Out Your Umbrellas
It’s going to be raining loose pages. The Espresso Book Machine, available for lease for a mere $1500/month to bookstores everywhere (according this Boston Globe article) prints, trims and perfect binds books on demand all in a machine about the size of an old-style copy machine. No fanning of pages, just milling on one pass and rollering glue on another.
I, for one, will be working on my dfa rebind skills. I predict a repeat of the early days of binding – people will buy an unbound book and bring it to US for fancifying for their shelves.
Or not. My library is about to embark on a book digitization project for which we do not have to pay, and I’m pretty sure the resulting POD books will be created in a manner similar to this. Do I have the ability to influence the way in which they are bound? Probably not. Will I reject the project? Nope.
Here is an interesting blog post from IF on the topic, the most intriguing aspect of which, to me, is the possibility of personal customization of book covers.
And here is what Gary Frost has to say.
Some Days I Do Stupid Things
Today I unfolded a jacket that was worn by a dead man for 40 years on the side of K2. I needed to see the label inside to make sure it was the jacket listed in the accession record and identified in a photograph.
It is battered and torn. And stained. Handling it was a very eerie feeling, as if there was something of his presence still attached to it. This feeling was especially emotional given the fact that the bodies of 2 climbers have just been discovered this week, and 1 is still missing. I have had conversations with 2 of those guys. I know other climbers who have lost partners in the mountains. It’s hard not to imagine their last experiences when holding the shredded remnants of the things they last touched.
That is something that cannot be communicated in a digital image. It is visceral.
And, it occured to me later, I should probably have used gloves. For my benefit, and for the good of the object. As it was, I’ve been compulsively washing my hands today.
So Far Off Topic It Should Be On Another Blog
Probably – but my parents own an amazing beach house in Prince Edward Island, and they’ve still got a couple rental weeks available this summer, so I thought – why not give them a shameless plug. Even if you can’t go, visit the site and listen to the seagulls and surf and have a mini vacation!
The Miracle of the Storage Room
Need more space between fences? Use bigger balls.
Originally uploaded by tapescraper
We couldn’t afford manufactured compact art storage, so we designed and built it ourselves…I like to call it the Miracle of the Storage Room.
Check out the flickr set to see the transformation from unbelievably disorganized and out of control to nicely sheet-rocked, climate-controlled, and deeply satisfying to my geekly heart.
The library staff, the operations director and the facilities staff conspired to construct what turned out to be a very functional way to hang 200 framed items in a small space. We used very inexpensive materials: dog kennel fencing, zip ties, tennis balls…and got it done for under $5,000! (Not including installation of dataloggers, climate notebook, repaired HVAC system, and the hours spent shifting archives to create order elsewhere)
Next up….how to organize a staff of 2 FTE and 5 volunteers to put 30,000 books (5,000 at a time) on newly-installed compact rolling storage in the recently completed rare books room!
Persistence of Vision Toys
Someday, when my bindery is set up, I want to experiment with these art/book/film forms. In the meantime, here is food for dreaming. Also, don’t forget Diorama-O-Rama in Dallas, May 23rd!
Above is a case containing a selection of our "persistence of vision" toys. In left of the front row is a Mechanical Cinema toy that spins to show movement by combining the images on two sides of the card. Next is a 19th century Phenakistoscope with a selection of reels. On the right in that row is a Praxinoscope, a drum with a center of mirror facets. Back left is an early 20th century variation of the Phenakistoscope, the Motion Picture Show or Ludoscope. Back right is a large Zoetrope (wheel of life) on a base. (from website http://brightbytes.com/collection/per_vis.html)
A Visit To CinemaLab
A few weeks ago I went over to CinemaLab to visit with Robert David, motion picture film preservationist extraordinaire, about our pending NFPF Basic Film Preservation grant. I took along a box full of 16mm reels, 1926-1936, depicting first ascents in the Canadian Rockies, which film preservation specialist Snowden Becker had wound on new cores and placed in new canisters way back in August.
Robert was gracious enough to show me around their enormous space, and I fell in love with all the machines. I do not know film production, but I certainly enjoyed looking at all the gears and reels and lights and gadgets. You can enjoy them in a small slideshow, if you like.
No. Just say no to magnetic duct tape. No no no.
The text actually tells people to stick it on their photographs. Just imagine the magnet shaped dents when they are all stuck together at the bottom of a shoebox 50 years from now. I don’t even want to talk about the adhesive.
Shudder.
I thought we were making progress. I thought the message was out and that the evils of tape were fully known.
I feel vanquished. I need my tape avenger cape.
