100-ish Days of Digital Preservation

Hello, there. It's been a little over 100 days since I started as Dartmouth College Library's first Digital Preservation Librarian. I've been working closely with staff in many departments to define my role and work out how best to ensure long term access to the Library's digital content. Here are some of the things that I've been up to:

• Maxed out our master file server space.
• Learned about awesome projects and connected with colleagues at Digital Preservation 2014.
• Made some head-way into assessing our e-resource preservation strategies.
• Used BagIt to package 45,000 files totaling 2413 GB for long-term storage (see above re: maxing out server space).
• Started digging into PREMIS .
• Learned to harness the power of Twitter for professional research #digipres .
• Started brainstorming strategies for preserving analog and born-digital a/v content.
• Dipped my toes into web and database preservation in response to a faculty inquiry.
• Got really excited about sustainability and digital humanities projects.

Digital Preservation Brainstorming!

 I’m looking forward to my role in the Library continuing to evolve and grow over time. As these and other projects develop, I will tell you all about them here. Stay tuned for the next 100-ish days of Digital Preservation!

Written by Jennifer Mullins

Kress Conservation Fellow Tessa Gadomski arrives!

In August we announced that we were recipients of a Kress Conservation Fellow grant from the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation, funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. grant.

On September 8th, Tessa Gadomski, started her Fellowship. Tessa, recently graduated with a Master of Science in Art Conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, with a major in Library and Archives Materials. Along with this degree, she has also completed a Certificate of Advanced Study in Preservation from Simmons College, Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of Delaware receiving Honors with a Bachelor of Arts in Art Conservation, her second major was Art History with a minor in Chemistry.

Tessa has worked are the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution Archives, the Weissman Preservation Center of Harvard and Heugh-Edmondson Conservation Services in Kansas City Missouri which specializes in restoration of works of art on paper and photographs.
One of her intern appointments was at University of Delaware, working on Russian Icons. She created a reproduction of a Russian icon using traditional materials and techniques, and then participated in conserving a Russian icon from the University of Delaware Museum’s Collection.

While here at Dartmouth Tessa’s focus will be to address and perform conservation needs of Rauner’s Iconography collection. This collection within Special Collections has over 1,300 cataloged items that include printed images, glass slides, original art on paper and other media, photographs, albums and digital files. A particularly significant subcategory of the collection is focused on the history of Polar exploration.

Tessa is well prepared for such a project with her broad background and wide experience, not only will we be able to advance the work needed on this collection but we will be able to learn from Tessa and glean new techniques and ideas she can share from her conservation experience.

Tessa is original from Albany, New York, so she is very happy to be back in the northeast closer to her family.  Welcome Tessa!

Written by Deborah Howe

Top Dog

Dartmouth College is located in rural New Hampshire along the Connecticut River and Appalachian Trail System.  Although the Library and College are a fast paced place to work after 5pm things slow down to the quiet rhythm of small town life.  I moved to West Lebanon, NH from Chicago and the things that have kept me here are the simple pleasures that make this a special place to live and raise a family.

All of this is by way of allowing me to brag that my dog won the Lebanon, NH Top Dog Contest.  I admit it has nothing to do with preservation or the book arts.  File it under Summer's End.

2014 Top Dog

Nancy Drew, age 17

Written by Barb Sagraves