“My goal as a preservation administrator is not to fix all the broken things, but to make sure that the library becomes the kind of place that can and does fix things.”  And ” If the specific collections or items of concern never get tended to, that’s not great preservation, but if they get tended to while the roof starts to leak and the library starts to collect beyond its means, that’s not great preservation, either.” And “… by spending time to develop processes first and holding projects off, I think we’ll be able to do better work for a long time into the future.”

April 26th I’ll be with the Society of Rocky Mountain Archivists (SRMA) at the Denver Public Library from 10:30-12:30.

UPDATE: EVENT CANCELED: May 1, 12-4  is the DUArt! Conservation Roadshow.  This is a fundraiser for DUArt!, an organization that provides scholarships to art students at the University of Denver.

Join a group of art professionals:
conservators specializing in paper, paintings, and objects, an appraiser, a frame specialist, a gemologist, and a collections management professional, to learn about the preservation of your collections and heirlooms!
Consultations with the specialists will help you to assess:

 Condition
 Options for Treatment
 Value Characteristics
 Archival Framing Options
 Preventive Measures
 Optimum Environment
 Management of a Collection
Participants are invited to bring an object from their own collection for examination. Concurrent sessions will culminate in a discussion of interesting objects and preservation issues.
RSVP early; space is limited.  Registration Form
Admission: $50.00 ($65 non-members) for all participants bringing objects
or for those only observing: $25.00 DU ART! members
$35.00 for non-members

***********************

Following the recent events in Egypt, the Blue Shield expresses its great concern about the safeguarding of the country’s invaluable cultural heritage amid the existing turmoil.

Starting last Friday evening, a number of important museums and sites in Egypt have fallen prey to looters. Thankfully, in certain cases, it has been reported that members of civil society stood to protect museums and heritage sites all over the country. This demonstrates not only the attachment of the local population for their cultural heritage and their determination to protect it, but also the vulnerability of cultural institutions, sites and monuments during times of great conflict.

It is universally recognised that Egypt has an incomparable history and heritage which has had a profound and lasting influence on peoples throughout the world. Any loss of Egyptian cultural property would seriously impoverish the collective memory of mankind. Egypt has an exceptionally rich cultural heritage and it is imperative that every precaution necessary be taken by all sides involved in this strife to avoid destruction or damage to archives, libraries, monuments and sites, and museums.

Blue Shield urges all sectors of Egyptian society to do everything in their power to curb or prevent all actions that could result in the damage or destruction of their cultural heritage. The Blue Shield also praises the courageous citizens of Cairo and the rest of Egypt who spontaneously mobilized to protect the Egyptian Museum and other cultural institutions. We call on all Egyptians to continue giving the fullest support to all efforts to prevent damage to heritage sites and institutions throughout the country.

The Blue Shield Mission is “to work to protect the world’s cultural heritage threatened by armed conflict, natural and man‐made disasters”. For this reason, it places the expertise and network of its member organisations at the disposal of their Egyptian colleagues to support their work in protecting the country’s heritage, in assessing the damage that has occurred, and for subsequent recovery, restoration and repair measures.

The member organisations of the Blue Shield are currently liaising with Egyptian colleagues to obtain further information on both the situation and on the possible needs and types of help required so as to mobilise their networks accordingly.

A more complete report on damages, needs and actions will be published subsequently, in order to facilitate coordination.

The Blue Shield

The Blue Shield is the protective emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention which is the basic international treaty formulating rules to protect cultural heritage during armed conflicts. The Blue Shield network consists of organisations dealing with museums, archives, audiovisual supports, libraries, monuments and sites.

The International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS), founded in 1996, comprises representatives of the five Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working in this field:

• The International Council on Archives
• The International Council of Museums
• The International Council on Monuments and Sites
• The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
• The Co-ordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives Associations

National Blue Shield Committees have been founded in a number of countries (18 established and 18 under construction). The Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS), founded in December 2008, will coordinate and strengthen international efforts to protect cultural property at risk of destruction in armed conflicts or natural disasters. The ANCBS has its headquarters in The Hague.

Contact Information: secretariat.paris@blueshield‐international.org

The actions of the Blue Shield can also be followed on

• our Website
• Facebook: Egypt 2011 Blue Shield Solidarity
• Twitter thread # blueshieldcoop

List all IFLA news

First woman jury, Los Angeles (LOC)

Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

As the lone full-time staffer of a tiny library with big ambitions and significant collections, I wear a large number of hats. Sometimes they war with each other. It’s hard to tell which hat is the Top.

Take this week, for instance. In the archives is a tattered Alaskan flag which was brought to the summit of Mt. Vinson, Antarctic for the first ascent in 1966. The flag was subsequently lost, and then retrieved by another expedition, and by a circuitous route involving much research and several countries returned to a member of the original summit party, who then donated it to the institution for which I work. Another mountaineer asked to bring the flag back with him on a reunion mission to the same peak this week. I carefully packed it up and wrote “fragile” all over it and handed it over, never thinking he meant to actually carry it back to the summit and unfurl it. Yesterday I read that that was the plan. The hats immediately started hopping about as if there were rabbits under each.

My conservator hat anxiously says the flag should never leave its foam bed in the archives so that it can last several hundred more years. My curator hat says that it’s a great story and an interesting kind of living history exhibit, vastly improved by its new associations.

My pragmatist hat says it’s an interesting thing, but only a thing and if the human carrying it is safe then it will be safe, and if neither is safe then we’ve got bigger problems. My flat out curmudgeon hat says “mine mine mine do what I say!” My library marketeer hat (similar to a mouseketeer hat?) says that we can get a lot of publicity mileage of it and none of that is bad.

My teacher hat says do what I say not what I do, because if everybody sent their archives into space or to high altitude, our cultural heritage would be in shreds. My renegade hat (or maybe beret?) says screw it, it’s really cool and things are made to be used not hidden. My preservationist hat says I’m entrusted with these things and need to keep them home and safe no matter how compelling the argument. My registrar hat says it’s just a very unusual type of temporary exhibit loan.

That’s a lot of hats talking. And the fact of the matter is that the flag went to the Ice and will come back no worse for the wear from its big adventure, enriched by a greater history – and if not, well, I made a mistake. I’m curious – what would you do, those of you who are not curtailed by traditional collection management policies? Next time someone wants to carry a one-of-a-kind item on a meaningful quest, should I send it?

UPDATE (1/13/11): I just read this post on Dan Cull’s blog that illuminates, I think, some of the rabbits under my hats.  These two thoughtful people are always worth reading, and I am very glad to see that Kevin Drieger is blogging again!

Click on the image to see more photos

Peeling an acidic window mat away from the front of a very fragile watercolor may not sound like a fun way to spend a few hours to most people. To me, once I get beyond the fear of doing damage, it is extremely satisfying meditation.

At first, I pry about with different tools, feeling my way to find which scalpel, which knife will work the best with the very particular nature of the paper to be removed. Some move down to the artwork’s surface too quickly for safety. Others are not sharp enough, or are too sharp, or have to be held at the wrong angle. As I work, though, I find the combination and sequence of tools, the right angle, the best direction. I begin to feel as though I understand the way the fibers lay and how to move the tools to lift them with less effort. I enter a bit of a trance, a zone. There is trial and error and a narrowing of attention to the minute level of micron-thick layers of paper that become my world.

I have to remind myself not to get too comfortable – there is always a fragment of something stuck in the paper to block the way, a clump of glue that trips the knife and brings it close to piercing the soft paper of the artwork below, but a sense of right movement develops. It is akin to any other kind of sustained focus, like writing well, or the kind of running that is fast and light and free. I want to go forever. I become mind-less in the best zen sense.

My hand starts to cramp and my neck strained from keeping it at such an odd tilt, but I want to keep going, unwilling to let the learning go, knowing I’ll have to relearn the paper and the flow of the knife the next time I sit down to work on this project. I stop, clean up, and realize I am much calmer than when I first sat down – the reward of silent focus and one of the best parts of this job.

At any rate, our conversation led me to reflect on the ways, past, present and possibly future, that I have used objects that way.  Once upon a time, I was an art therapist, and I used looking at art and making art as a way to help people talk about their situations and the ways they’d like to change.  I particularly remember a kid who built and smashed ceramic cars as a way to deal with his brother’s death in a car accident.  He didn’t talk about it, he just did it.  Eventually, he started talking about the accident to others, and he got better.

Around that same time, I ran an adult art play group in a coffee house called Downtown Grounds.  It was the early 90s and coffee houses were dark, warehouse-y places, and I provided the supplies for people to contribute art to a group theme or for their own private art-making off in a candle-lit corner.  As a shy person, it was great to be able to have a reason to be there, to be the facilitator.  One of our group members yesterday talked about liking that role of attracting others by doing rather than by approaching them, and that lead to a conversation about the different ways people engage in unfamiliar territories, as voyeur, as participant, as facilitator.

I realized that I am in the position to engage strangers around objects in several different ways in my work today.  In my private conservation work, strangers bring their valued objects to me to fix, and we generally have some sort of conversation about why they are valuable and interesting.  That is a very rewarding part of my job, and it gives me some joy to know the reason behind the work I am doing.

In my work as preservation librarian, I get to talk to people about the objects they love when they donate them to the archive, and I get to talk to people about their responses to objects in the collection when they see them for the first time, or even when they come back to visit them again, or to show them to someone else.  There is so much pleasure in that kind of connection, because these strangers have a passion about things that allows them to interact with me in a deeper level than in most casual encounters, and it allows me to learn about the items and the culture of the collection/collectors, which in turns deepens my passion for preserving them and for providing access.

The future? Well, in moving the museum and library closer together, there will be more opportunities to engage visitors with physical objects and their on-line representations.  I’m at the Museums and the Web 2010 conference, which is all about finding ways to tell the stories of objects.  I am full of ideas, inspired by strangers from all over the world attending this conference.  I am really looking forward to getting started!

ADDED 3/17/10: I can’t believe I forgot to add my largest object-mediated interaction: