FYI for those attending ARLIS/NA

Gayle Schechter, MSLIS | she/her/hers

Program Associate

🍑 Based in Atlanta, GA (Mvskoke land)
The Digital Library Federation (DLF)

Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)

Alexandria, VA

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Hello,

The WPI is hosting an event this April 6 at the ARLIS/NA conference:

Preserving Photographic Glass Plates:

Conservation and Access in the Digital Age

The WPI is pleased to announce its participation at the 50th annual conference of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA). The conference will take place April 5–9, 2022 at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago, IL.

Our panel "Preserving Photographic Glass Plates: Conservation and Access in the Digital Age," scheduled on Wednesday, April 6th at 8:30AM (CDT) brings together an interdisciplinary panel of conservators, historians, and archivists who will present their own preservation and public access strategies and discuss the relevance of these materials to their distinct fields of study. The moderated question and answer portion of the session will emphasize the need for collaboration between institutions to undertake ambitious conservation-related projects and improve access to these significant historical materials.

PROGRAM

INTRODUCTION

Elizabeth Gorayeb

Executive Director, WPI New York

PRESENTATIONS

Jody Butterworth

Curator, Endangered Archives Programme, The British Library, London, UK

with Bayasgalan Bayanbat,

Archives for Cinema, Photography and Sound Recording, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Jody will introduce the British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme (EAP), which facilitates the digitization of archives around the world that are in danger of destruction, neglect or physical deterioration. Bayasgalan, a recent EAP grantee, will present the holdings of The Archives for Cinema, Photography and Sound Recording in Mongolia, which house over 160,000 photo negatives, including 10,552 glass plate negatives and their digitization process.

Elisabeth Long

Associate University Librarian for Information Technology and Digital Scholarship

University of Chicago Library, Chicago, IL

Elisabeth will discuss the Library’s collection of 175,000 images of astronomical objects on photographic glass plate slides from Yerkes Observatory and how it offers tremendous potential for both historians of science and astronomers and astrophysicists doing cutting-edge research today.

Fatima Fall

Director, Centre de Recherches et de Documentation du Sénégal (CRDS), Saint-Louis, Senegal

Preventive Conservation Specialist, Université Gaston Berger, Saint-Louis, Senegal

Fatima will present her institution’s collections of glass plates and how Fatima and her team were able to identify sitters in a series of portraits thanks to the traveling exhibition they organized.

Sandrine Canac

Director of Digital Archival Projects, WPI New York

Sandrine will share examples of glass plate negatives the WPI inherited and how the long-term preservation of these objects requires guidance and a significant commitment of resources smaller institutions often lack.

MODERATOR

Debra Hess Norris

Conservator

Unidel Henry Francis du Pont Chair, University of Delaware, Newark, DE

Q&A to follow

REGISTER HERE

The Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc. is non-profit, private foundation dedicated to the compilation of digital catalogue raisonnés and archives that support research in the field of art history.

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Olivia Rodrigues

Public Relations and Program Coordinator

Wildenstein Plattner Institute

Website: wpi.art

Instagram: @wpi_art