Preservation Week: Digital Storage

During Preservation Week libraries all over the country present events, activities, and resources that highlight what we can do, individually and together, to preserve our personal and shared collections.

Preservation Tip:
Digital:

Keep those digital treasures safe! Schedule automatic backups through your operating system. Back them up using an external hard drive or Internet storage! Avoid-long term storage on CDs, DVDs, and flash drives.

For more information check out the Library of Congress at http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/personalarchiving/

Preservation Week: Archival Storage for Photographs

During Preservation Week libraries all over the country present events, activities, and resources that highlight what we can do, individually and together, to preserve our personal and shared collections.

Preservation Tip:
Photos:

In today’s world of digital and traditional photography, thorough knowledge of the preservation options for the format you use is helpful. For paper-based materials write relevant caption and date information in pencil on the back of the print photograph. For digital photographs, add this information (metadata) in the space provided for it in your software program, and consider naming images with meaningful and specific file names. Choose archival storage means for both, whether acid-free albums or boxes for one or a digital back-up system for the other.

For more information check out the Library of Congress at http://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/photo.html

Preservation Week Events:

Free webinar will be offered during this week: Registration is required. To register and learn more go to ALCTS Events <http://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents>. The webinar will begin at 1 p.m. CDT and will last about one hour.

Tuesday, April 29th - Low-Cost Ways to Preserve Family Archives

http://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/upcoming/webinar/042914>

Presented by Karen E. K. Brown, preservation librarian for the University at Albany, SUNY University Libraries. What can we do to protect our collectables from damage even if we don’t think we have a perfect place to keep them? Learn about possible risks from handling and the environment, and practical, inexpensive ideas to keep collections safe to help ensure what you have can be shared for many years to come. ALCTS thanks Archival Products <http://www.archival.com/> for sponsoring this webinar and supporting Preservation Week.

Preservation Week: Storing Papers + Open House Today

During Preservation Week libraries all over the country present events, activities, and resources that highlight what we can do, individually and together, to preserve our personal and shared collections.

Preservation Tip:

Paper:

Store your paper materials in an environment with relatively low humidity, away from direct sunlight, and on shelves not on the floor.  Whether you have books, maps, letters or other items made primarily of paper, a good environment will contribute a lot to their future condition.

For more information check out the National Archives website http://www.archives.gov/preservation/

OPEN HOUSE TODAY - 11:00-1:00PM

Digitization for Access and Preservation

Baker Room 02

Dartmouth College Library Digital Program: Digitization for Access and Preservation 

Visit the Digital Production Unit at Baker Library to learn how the Library’s Digital Program provides access and preservation to the Library’s collections.  An open house showcasing conservation, digitization, and digital preservation will be held on Monday, April 28, from 11 am until 1 pm in Baker Library, Room 2 (east end of the Orozco Corridor).  

Dartmouth College Library Digital Program: Digitization for Access and Preservation

Visit the Digital Production Unit at Baker Library to learn how the Library’s Digital Program provides access and preservation to the Library’s collections.  An open house showcasing conservation, digitization, and digital preservation will be held on Monday, April 28, from 11 am  until 1 pm in Baker Library, Room 2 (east end of the Orozco Cooridor).  This event is part of a nation wide celebration of the American Library Association’s observance of Preservation Week.

The Appalachian Trail at Quinttown Rd. Junction

To start the new year off I’d like to share with you the location of one of my favorite year round hiking/X-C skiing areas.   It isn’t a hike up some big mountain or a mile long stretch of startling cliff top vistas, but a walk/ski on an old logging road that crosses the Appalachian Trail in the backwoods of Orford, NH.  This area has many fun outdoor options; a short day hike to Eastman Ledges, a long walk or XC ski to the height of land and a view of Mt. Moosilauke, or a cool walk beside Jacob's Brook, which sports many beautiful waterfalls, oddly shaped crevasses, and wading pools .

In the small town of Orford, NH, take Rt. 25A 3.8 miles east to a right turn onto Quinttown Rd (on Rt. 10 North from Hanover, Orford is approximately17 miles). Quinttown Rd. heads steadily uphill for 2 miles into the valley between Mt. Cube and Smarts Mountain. The wooded, single lane dirt road winds along beside Jacob's Brook to a lower parking area near an active sugaring operation.  In the summer months there is more parking a half mile past this spot near an old logging cabin and a gated entrance onto private but accessible land.

The walking/skiing on the gated part of Quinttown Rd. is gradual and easy for most of the approximately 3 miles to the height of land.  There are perhaps one or two somewhat difficult inclines on this road walk, but on the whole it’s an easy grade.  In the summer people can ride trail bikes here (pedal only, no motorized vehicles), but most days I rarely see other human beings.   YEA !

The view at the height of land looks to the north with a pretty view of Mt. Moosilauke from an unusual angle.  Skiers be warned, since this trail is part of the snowmobile trail system in NH, caution is necessary with an ear to the ground for oncoming snow machines.  You can usually hear them from quite a distance and stepping off the trail is easy.  My experience has been that they are quite courteous and will slow down while passing by.

At about ¾ of a mile on, you cross the Appalachian Trail, one side heading north to Mt. Cube, the other heading south leading eventually to Smarts Mountain.  The north trail climbs rather steadily to a superb lookout that is only a half mile from Quinttown Rd.,  Eastman Ledges.

The view is mainly to the south and west, but the valley below spreads out beneath you in glorious fashion.  My favorite time of year at this spot would have to be fall as the colors in the huge hardwood valley will amaze even the most rabid leaf peeper.

Lastly, Jacob's Brook is a hidden local gem in my opinion.  The large brook flows through the long valley between Smarts and Cube all the way to the Connecticut River back in “downtown” Orford.

The North and South Branch connect very close to the AT crossing, separately meandering upwards to the ponds above up in the hills.  At any point along Quinttown Rd. you can take a very short walk through the woods, or simply down one of the many open embankments to the brook.

While rock hopping up the brook itself from the parking, one encounters a seemingly endless series of waterfalls, deep pools, and amazing angled rock crevasses and outcroppings.

My personal favorite is a waterfall/pool about 300 yards upstream from a new bridge crossing Jacob's Brook on the AT. The bridge is a very short distance from Quintown Rd. (found on the “J” Trail heading south to Smarts Mt.) and the falls are well worth the rocky scramble.

Once again, I hope this blog and the accompanying photos will inspire anyone interested to head on out to a now not so secret getaway.

Enjoy.

Written by Brian Markee

Geographies: New England Book Work, the New England Chapter of The Guild of Book Workers 2014 – 2015 Exhibition

It’s exciting as book workers to apply our hand skills and creativity in projects outside of the regular work we do day-to-day. For some of us it means rebinding a book in a more decorative way than usual, for others it is using the entire book form as a means of artistic expression, both inside and out.

Three members of the Preservation Services staff, Deborah Howe, Sarah Smith, and Stephanie Wolff, exhibit new personal work in the New England Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers exhibition, Geographies: New England Book Work. The exhibition highlights members’ recent work whose content has a New England connection. It opened March 3^rd at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Fleet Library. It then travels to The University of Southern Maine, University of Vermont, Williams College, Dartmouth College, and ends at the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, CT in the fall of 2015. Its Dartmouth College appearance is slated for April – August of 2015 in the Berry Library.

                                         Deborah Howe’s Reading the Forested Landscape

Deborah Howe bound a copy of Tom Wessels’ Reading the Forested Landscape. Deborah writes this about her book, “This is a rebinding of the text of Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England by Tom Wessels and images by Brian Cohen. The materials chosen reminded me of the nature which the book is about. I had the wood veneer waiting to use it for the perfect project and this seemed like the one. The colors relate to the woods on a quiet slightly damp day.”

                          Sarah Smith’s A Map of New England, which Being… (book view)

Sarah Smith’s artist book A Map of New England, which Being in Some Places Defective, Shewing Particular Features from the Curious Woodcut Map of John Foster for William Hubbard in 1677: Presented by Percival & Byron and their Favorite Cartouches is a single sheet hand-drawn pen and ink map of New England, which can be read as a book or laid out flat for seeing the bigger picture of the region.

Sarah writes, “This book—currently a prototype intended for editioning—is inspired by the visual language of maps dating from before 1900. William Hubbard’s 1677 publication including “A Map of New England,” a woodcut carved and printed by John Foster was particularly inspiring. Some favorite features from the map are displayed in this book along with some cartouches (decorative “frames” which typically held a map’s title). Various historic maps and cherubs influenced the drawing of these cartouches. Percival and Byron assist in arraying the images on a map of New England and its modern boundaries.”

                       Sarah Smith’s A Map of New England, which Being… (flat open view)

                                                  Stephanie Wolff’s Sweet New England

Stephanie Wolff’s Sweet New England highlights a selection of confections that originated in the New England region, including the popular commercial treats Sugar Daddy, Necco Wafer, and Charleston Chew, and of course the classic New England sweet: maple sugar candy. Pages consist of hand-stenciled illustrations and letterpress printed text bound in a drum-leaf style, cloth case binding.

For more information about the exhibition, check out the Guild of Book Worker’s New England Chapter website.

Written by Stephanie Wolff