Every year during
ALA's preservation week the Preservation Lab holds an open house. The event is open to the public and allows staff, faculty, students, and guests to see what the Lab is working on. This year's theme was the Exploration and Evolution of "The Book". We had seven different stations focusing on exploring the form of the book, the evolution from pre-codex to modern codex, and, of course, having some fun with two different hands-on acitivities:
1.) Exploration of artist book structures, featuring collection items from the DAAP library and personal collections of staff members.
2.) Creating a one-page wonder featuring an original comic created by Chris Voynovich specifically for the event (which you can see
here).
3.) Pre-codex forms such as rolls/scrolls, cuneiform tablets, and palm leaf, featuring collections items and historical models created by Catarina Figueirinhas.
4.) Early codex forms with an emphasis on structures such as the Nag Hammadi and gothic bindings, 2 manuscripts from the Public Library were one display to highlight parchment, the process of making it, and discuss the overarching term "parchment" and the more specific term "vellum".
5.) Modern composite forms, focusing on the scrapbook; featuring collections items from the Public Library's Madisonville branch and the Administrative Archives collection.
6.) Hands-on activity of creating a bookmark using the hot stamper, featuring silver foil and a quote by P.J. O'Rourke - "Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it".
7.) An exploration of the RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging) capture process and how the lab has improved our setup and results over the last year. Also, exploring the use of a free app called RTI Mobile to create an interactive RTI experience. Featuring collections items from UCL's Archives & Rare Books Library.
And, as always, there were Busken cookies with the Preservation Lab logo for guests to take with them!
Mark your calendars for the 2019 Preservation Week - April 21-27, and stay tuned to see what we have in store for next year's open house.
Visit our blog -
blog.thepreservationlab.org and follow us on Instagram
@thepreservationlab to keep up posted on events and what's going on in the lab.