Within the last few months, being in quarantine has become something we feel all too familiar with; and, perhaps, this is the first time a majority of us have added the term and concept to our daily lives and experience. For those of us in preventive preservation, however, quarantine is actually a facet of our duties, as we quarantine library and archive materials as a means to safeguard collections.
Sarah Newton, Conservation Technician, Preservation Department (and Trudy)
What has your experience been like working remotely?
This year for Preservation Week we are sharing resources on collection care and conservation that we hope enrich your understanding of our preservation program. In our previous post we covered the foundations of preservation practices. Now we would like to recommend a few webinars and resources to take a deeper dive into special issues in conservation and preservation related to specific treatments, different formats, and collection environments.
Welcome to Preservation Week 2020 (April 26th - May 2nd), a milestone for the event (an initiative of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services), as this is its 10th year! Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are - physically - separated from one another and the collections of our institution(s), so our method of celebration may take a different - completely online - form, but the goal remains the same: to work toward preservation awareness for our colleagues, patrons, and beyond. And since working from home has allowed us to explore and take advantage of online professional development opportunities and resources to a much larger extent, what better time than now to build a solid foundation of preservation knowledge?
I had the pleasure of attending the recent open house held at Academy Hall on Stanford's Redwood City campus, which houses the Media Preservation Lab, Conservation Services, and much of the Department of Special Collections. Here are some things that caught my eye:
Conservation Services welcomed Aisha Wahab on September 9, 2019 to serve as Stanford Libraries first full-time paper conservator. She will be working on collection materials including maps, broadsides, deeds, posters, and other items made of paper or parchment. She’s already begun consulting with Special Collections staff on housing flat paper materials in archival collections. She’ll be part of our “conservation office hour” visits.
After 20+ years of service to the Stanford Libraries, rare book conservator David Brock is retiring at the end of May. We are so happy to acknowledge the great contributions he has made to both the collections and the people of Stanford Libraries.