It was not the year we anticipated, hoped for, or a year we would want to repeat. The first rumblings of the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, escalated in February, and eventually erupted in our community in March when the Center closed its doors to in-person visits and staff began working remotely. What happened next was a natural shift to expanding the Center’s online presence throughout the year. [Read more…] about Highlights from an unprecedented year
Conservation
Hands-on research designed to preserve the Center’s collections
This essay is part of a slow research series, What is Research? Learn about the series and click here to add your voice to the conversation.
Our work in the Harry Ransom Center’s Preservation and Conservation Division focuses on caring for the Center’s vast and varied collections. Much like the interdisciplinary nature of today’s engineering and medical professions, science, technology, and craft underpin the work of the division’s conservators and preservation technicians. While our work as preservation technicians focuses heavily on preventive actions such as integrated pest management and monitoring the storage and exhibition environments, we also design and construct protective enclosures to safeguard collection objects, photographs, books, audiovisual recordings, works on paper, and more. [Read more…] about Hands-on research designed to preserve the Center’s collections
Preserving fragile phonographs of T. S. Eliot, Paul Bowles, Norman Bel Geddes, and others
Recordings of T. S. Eliot, Paul Bowles, Pablo Picasso, and other notable 20th-century figures have been preserved after the Harry Ransom Center recently digitized 2,800 unique sound recordings in a variety of formats (read more here). Unlocking Sound Stories, a project funded in part by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities is preserving and providing access to 2800 recordings (click here for more on the grant ). Among the sound formats preserved were cassette tapes, reel-to-reel audio tapes, and phonograph discs. [Read more…] about Preserving fragile phonographs of T. S. Eliot, Paul Bowles, Norman Bel Geddes, and others
