Fall registration is coming up soon; do you know what you’re taking? Next Tuesday we’re hosting a party to help you decide. If you’re still unsure, or you have advice for those who are, come talk chat with us. A fun craft project and snacks will also be provided!
Where: SLIS Lounge
When: April 14th 4-530
Couldn’t make it to our Emerging Professionals in the Arts Panel? Check out the video below to get all the information you may have missed. A big thank you to the SLIS Media Lab for filming the event and providing this video!
Thanks to everyone who came out to campus last night and made our panel a success, especially our panelists and moderator! For anyone who couldn’t make it, we’ll be posting a recording of the event soon. In the meantime checkout our Twitter for some highlights and recommendations from last night!
After a painful winter, we’ve finally rescheduled our emerging professionals career panel for next Monday, March 23rd. We’ll be speaking with three recent SLIS grads who are working in arts librarianship, including the President of the ARLIS/NA New England Chapter.
Where: Main College Building Room C311
When: Room will open at 5:30, panel begins at 5:45
This Friday, March 20 @12pm we’ll be hosting a lunchtime lecture with Victoria Reed, the Curator for Provenance at the MFA. Ms. Reed’s talk will focus on her work researching the ownership histories of the MFA’s Nazi-era artworks, the issues surrounding restitution, and museum policy and practice. See our flyer for more details!
Entrance to the NEDCC
An unassuming building in Andover, MA holds one of the leading conservation labs in the country. Started in 1973, Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), was the first independent, conservation laboratory in the country and continues to be a trusted source for professional conservation and resources on preservation. Panopticon hosted a great visit to the NEDCC on Thursday February 26th to look at the conservation labs and to check out the new and amazing audio preservation technology, IRENE.
Julie Martin, Marketing and Public Relations Manager, met us and was our guide through the various labs at the NEDCC. We first met with Frances Harrell who is a Preservation Specialist and a Simmons graduate! As part of a small staff, she is one of three people who provides preservation need assessments to cultural institutions all over the country. We had a lively discussion about what preservation issues come to the top— more often it is administrative issues, like hiring more staff, rather than an a HVAC system (that are the biggest preservation issues!). She also helps organizes and participates in workshops, webinars, and conferences like Digital Directions.
Inside the conservation lab.
Next we moved into the lab! We started by looking at the photography conservation with Amanda Maloney. She showed us her work with daguerrotypes and ambrotypes and discussed the difference between them and special issues that arise in conserving them. We then moved on to the book conservation laboratory, where we met Athena Moore, assistant conservator. She showed several amazing specimens and the different conservation issues that arise when treating them.
Another view of the labs.
The open air labs were beautiful and I think everyone left wanting to live in that studio!
We moved on to the Imaging Services where we met Terrance D’Ambrosio, Director of Imaging Services and Carly Sentieri, Associate Photographer, who showed us the large xy table. The xy table has a vacuum bed to keep materials flat. It moves on both axes, with an overhead camera. to digitize large materials. They also showed us additional labs for capturing smaller materials. They emphasized the close relationship they have with the conservation lab which allows them to both handle these materials safely as well as capture them at the optimal time. We also learned about the horrors of nitrate film. Thanks Carly!!
XY table.
We ended the tour by meeting Mason Vander Lugt who operates IRENE. Mason showed us Irene which takes 2d or 3d high resolution images on “groove media” ( wax cylindars, laquer disks, shellac disks etc.) and then uses software to transform the grooves into waves, which become digital sound files. We got to hear voices from the past rise from one of his recent projects. You can hear more about IRENE in this story from NPR.
IRENE!
Mason demonstrates how wax cylinders are played.
Panopticon would like to thank the entire NEDCC staff for taking the time to meet with us and show us their work. We would also like to thank Jeffrey Erickson for helping us drive people to the NEDCC. Thank you!
To see all our shiny faces checkout the NEDCC Facebook page!
Due to the coming blizzard we are cancelling our upcoming emerging professionals panel Tuesday night. We will reschedule as soon as our panelists’ schedules allow. Check back here for updates, and don’t forget to follow @PanopticonSLIS on Twitter and join our listserv. Stay safe out there!
Hello Panopticoners! Welcome to 2015 and to our new site. In 2014 Panopticon started fresh with a new board of officers eager to engage with the Simmons community. We’ve got some great events in the works for 2015 and we hope to see you all there! As always, we’d love to hear your ideas and suggestions. So post a comment, send an email (panopticon@simmons.edu), or join our listserv (details on the About page), and be sure to look out for our event advertisements. Have a great semester and stay warm out there!
