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Meet the Staff

Summer Intern: Malachi McMahon

July 24, 2023 - Alyssa Morris

This summer, the Harry Ransom Center’s Preservation and Conservation Department opened its doors to undergraduate interns in order to provide hands-on experience in the field. One of those interns is Malachi McMahon. A rising senior at Prairie View A&M University, McMahon is spending a month learning about preservation, conservation, digitization, and more.

There are few routine days on the job for McMahon, whose favorite days have included learning about the binding, design, and construction of 16th-century bibles and making isinglass, a natural glue made from gelatin and sturgeon bladders.

If you have any interest in fine arts or literature, history, this would be a great place to find a new experience and perspective.
—MALACHI MCMAHON

“I expected to do more paperwork, but I’m actually glad that I’m doing more hands-on training,” McMahon said. In addition to these new skills, McMahon says he will take other lessons back to school in the fall. “I learned how to be more professional and how to carry myself in a professional setting.”

[Read more…] about Summer Intern: Malachi McMahon

Filed Under: Conservation, Featured1, Meet the Staff

Collaborating To Conserve

July 3, 2023 - Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa

Manuscript

New initiative is designed to protect cultural collections across the UT campus

In the 140 years since The University of Texas at Austin was founded, valuable collections of books, manuscripts, photographs, art, and much more have come to the university through generous gifts and purchased acquisitions. These collections are composed of cultural objects—oftentimes unique and irreplaceable—that serve as resources for students, scholars, artists, and writers. More than 40 years ago, the Harry Ransom Center established one of the nation’s first conservation laboratories in a research library. In 2021, with the support of Executive Vice President and Provost Sharon Wood, the Center helped launch the Campus Conservation Initiative that already has resulted in more than 1,000 hours spent treating these iconic cultural objects, including a letter written by Thomas Jefferson; an artwork by Jacob Lawrence; two handwritten cookbooks made by Maria Austin, the wife of Moses Austin and the mother of Stephen F. Austin; and many more.

[Read more…] about Collaborating To Conserve

Filed Under: Conservation, Featured1, Meet the Staff

Michael Gilmore’s Life in Objects

June 26, 2023 - Alyssa Morris

Michael Gilmore assisting a researcher

Michael Gilmore’s tenure at the Ransom Center began in 1982, after a transfer from UT’s Perry-Castañeda Library on the advice of a friend. “That’s how I ended up over here with rare books and manuscripts,” he says. “It was just a delight.”

Through it all, he’s been a passionate advocate for the extraordinary objects in the collections. After eighteen years at the Center, Gilmore retired on June 16, 2023 from his role as Visual Materials Circulation Coordinator in the Reading and Viewing Room.

I asked Gilmore to show me his favorite item: a book from the collection of Ernest Hemingway, from a box of materials that was kept sealed until 25 years after his death. Gilmore was the one to catalog it.

[Read more…] about Michael Gilmore’s Life in Objects

Filed Under: Books + Manuscripts, Featured1, Meet the Staff

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Recent Posts

  • Finding Henry Street: the Broadway Revival of Funny Girl and New York City Dramaturgy
  • Summer Intern: Malachi McMahon
  • Collaborating To Conserve
  • Michael Gilmore’s Life in Objects
  • Archive of Poet James Fenton Acquired

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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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