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Conservation

Highlights from an unprecedented year

December 31, 2020 - Harry Ransom Center

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

Filed Under: Art, Authors, Books + Manuscripts, Cataloging, Conservation, Digital Collections, Exhibitions + Events, Featured1, Photography, Research + Teaching, Theatre + Performing Arts Tagged With: archive, literature, Year-in-Review

Hands-on research designed to preserve the Center’s collections

November 13, 2020 - Genevieve Pierce

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

Filed Under: Conservation, Featured1, Featured2 Tagged With: Research, What is Research?

Preserving fragile phonographs of T. S. Eliot, Paul Bowles, Norman Bel Geddes, and others

August 13, 2020 - Chloe Gise

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

Filed Under: Conservation, Featured1 Tagged With: archive

Unlocking sound stories

July 8, 2020 - Katherine Quanz

In part one of a two-part blog post series, NEH Audio Digitization Project Coordinator Katie Quanz chronicles the progress of Unlocking Sound Stories, a NEH grant funded project digitizing and preserving more than 2000 rare recordings.  [Read more…] about Unlocking sound stories

Filed Under: Cataloging, Conservation, Digital Collections, Featured1 Tagged With: archive, audio, audio recording, digitization, NEH

The Conservation of Daguerreotypes: Objects in Mirror are More Complex than They Appear

June 1, 2020 - Harry Ransom Center

One of many strengths in the Ransom Center’s collections is early photography. In addition to the earliest surviving photograph produced in a camera, The Niépce Heliograph, the Center holds many beautiful examples of daguerreotypes.

[Read more…] about The Conservation of Daguerreotypes: Objects in Mirror are More Complex than They Appear

Filed Under: Conservation, Featured1, Photography Tagged With: Albert Davis collection, archive, Conservation, Daguerreotype, Photography

Conservators painstakingly remove glue that binds

March 4, 2020 - Emily Farek

conservation fellow at work

Kress Paper Conservation Fellow Emily Farek, working with paper conservators Ken Grant and Jane Boyd, describes the painstaking work of removing modern adhesive from the back of this very large (10′ x 7′) 1648 Dutch map titled, Nova totius terrarum orbis tabula, commonly known as the Blaeu World Map.  [Read more…] about Conservators painstakingly remove glue that binds

Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Conservation, Featured1 Tagged With: Blaeu World Map, Blaeu-Map-19, conservation lab, Joan Blaeu, tycho brahe, Willem Blaeu

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Ransom Center Magazine is an online and print publication sharing stories and news about the Harry Ransom Center, its collections, and the creative community surrounding it.

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