Digital Production Roundup

Sometimes great content comes through the Digital Production offices and we don't have a chance to share it. Here are a few of my favorite selections from recent shooting sessions:

"The Flayed Angel" by Jacques Fabien Gautier D'Agoty, available to view in Rauner Special Collections. Read more about it here

A design for a theatrical device by Denis Diderot, co-founder/chief editor/contributor to the Encyclopédie with Jean le Rond d'Alembert

Vintage ad from Dartmouth Alum Robert L. May's scrapbook. May created the Rudolph character in 1939; read more about him here

Concert posters from Dartmouth history, scanned for an exhibit in the Baker Berry Library: Fleshtones concert poster, 1983

Spring Formal poster with Duke Ellington

New Hampshire maps from the Evans Map Room, scanned as part of the Granite State Maps project

Map illustrations

Written by Ryland Ianelli

Kress Conservation Fellowship

Dartmouth Iconography Collection:

Portrait of Daniel Webster needing the outside case

repaired and possible stabilization of photo.

I am pleased to announce, on behalf of Preservation Services, that we are a recipient of a Kress Conservation Fellowship.

As quoted from their web site: “The purpose of the Kress Conservation Fellowship program is to provide a wide range of post-graduate fellowship opportunities that will help develop the skills of emerging conservators. At the crossroads of science and art, the fields of conservation and technical art history demand a complex knowledge of chemistry and materials and an extraordinary sensitivity to artistic intent, as well as physical dexterity, patience, and powers of concentration. Initial training, typically at one of a handful of institutions in North America, provides basic qualifications that must be supplemented with an extended period of specialized concentration on paintings, objects, textiles, antiquities, ethnic materials, photographs, prints and drawings, books and manuscripts, furniture, etc. Within a supervised environment, the young conservator develops the specific skills, the hands-on experience, and the confidence on which to base a future career.”

“The Kress Conservation Fellowships provide competitive grants to museums and other conservation facilities which sponsor supervised internships in the conservation of specific objects and onsite training.” This Fellowship has been supported by a grant from the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation, funded by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

For more information: http://www.kressfoundation.org/fellowships/conservation/

Our application was submitted with a proposed fellow, Tessa Gadomski, who recently graduated with a Master of Science in Art Conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, University of Delaware 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. Tessa’s first day will be the 8^th of September, 2014.

Dartmouth Iconography Collection:

Acidic mat needing to be removed from water

color painting.

The primary focus for Tessa will be to address 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. There are documents that are part of the College Archives but it also includes several of the other collecting areas including the White Mountains, Daniel Webster and Robert Frost. A particularly significant subcategory of the collection is focused on the history of Polar exploration and the majority of its images relate to Dartmouth College and New Hampshire history. 

Dartmouth Iconography Collection:

Negatives of Dartmouth and New Hampshire needing rehousing 

and assessment.

Tessa will be at Dartmouth for a full year, concluding her Fellowship in August of 2015.

Written by Deborah Howe

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

Goings on in The Book Arts Workshop!!

There have been a lot of things
going on recently in the Book Arts Workshop.

Artist Angela Lorenz visited the Book Arts
Workshop and presented her work to Esme
Thompson's Collage class.

In the fall, we went on an automnal letterpress excursion to two fabulous 
shops in Vermont-Heather Hale's and Kelly McMahon's. 
Heather showed us how her Heidelberg press works.

Kate Emlen's Drawing 1 Class came in to combine some
letterpress printing with their drawings.

This student is pretty happy with the poster she just made.

She was even happier with
 this version!

Lots of red in this holiday card.

Alex Halasz's History of the Book class has been working in the studios producing a group book with the theme of word play.

We had a holiday card-printing extravaganza that resulted in more happy printers!

Some amazing ornaments found in our shop.

Here is one of the student's type set for the Word Play book. Can you see the shape her type forms?

Two pages of the class book on the press ready to print.

Another page spread from the History of the Book Word Play class book.

A student quickly printing with our "new" Golding
Official Platen Press.

Posters from Hatch Show Print and Yee-Haw Industries on display for the Book Arts
Talk with Snacks about Sarah Smith's time at these two venerable letterpress
shops in Tennessee.

Kresge Physical Sciences Library hosted a
Geeky Valentine workshop in the
Book Arts Workshop.

Preparations for a Winter Carnival
poster-printing extravaganza.

The first proof pulled off the

Winter Carnival Poster on the

Washington Hand Press outside 

the Book Arts Workshop.

                                    A finished poster printed by a happy Carnivaler.

Written by Sarah M. Smith

Print a Letterpress Winter Carnival Poster!

Join the fun! 

Drop in anytime on Friday, Feb. 7th, 

from 12:00pm to 3:00pm 

and print your very own 

Winter Carnival Poster!

We will be set up in the hallway outside of Baker 25. 

No registration required.

Personnel Announcement

I am pleased to announce that Tracey Dugdale will be joining Preservation Services on March 25 as the new Preservation Assistant. Tracey comes to us from the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock, VT where she was Director of Youth Services. She has been active in the Vermont Library Association and currently serves as the vice president of the Youth Library Sections Committee of the Vermont Department of Libraries. Tracey is also a skilled custom wooden puzzle maker and is the owner of Lucretia’s Pieces.

Tracey will be responsible for training our student employees in both conservation treatments and shelf processing. She has a strong technical background and will be our TeCoR rep and serve as our department blog wrangler. We are excited to have her on our team.

Welcome Tracey!
Written by Barbara Sagraves.

Amos Kennedy Came to Town and Left an Impression

Amos Kennedy was on campus from January 28th to February 1st, dovetailing with the Martin Luther King, Jr. activities. His visit was sponsored by the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity, Friends of the Dartmouth College Library, Preservation Services, and the Dartmouth College Library Book Arts Workshop.



Amos intersected with campus events in many areas. He visited Michael Chaney's class on Dave the Potter, where he viewed student work and discussed his own work and ideas (photo above). On Tuesday night he had dinner with ten students arranged by the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity, and Wednesday night he was at a viewing of Proceed and Be Bold, a documentary about Amos by Laura Zinger (also available in the Jones Media Center). He was also interviewed on "Word of Mouth with Virginia Prescot on New Hampshire Public Radio (listen here).

The workshops were a drop-in style, and over the course of the workshops we estimated 200 visitors. Five posters were produced based on quotes that were submitted by members of the Dartmouth community.
Written by Deborah Howe.

Book Arts Special Instructor Appointment

I am very happy to announce that Sarah Smith has been appointed the first Book Arts Workshop Special Instructor. Sarah has an MFA in Book Arts and Printmaking from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and is a skilled letterpress printer and bookbinder. She also has deep experience with student instruction, shop management, and digital printing. Sarah comes to us from Montserrat College of Art and Endicott College where she is currently teaching. In her capacity of Assistant Professor at Montserrat she is Chair of the Book Arts Program and manages Imposition Press. Sarah has also taught at Simmons College and was an assistant book conservator for some time at the Northeast Document Conservation Center.

Sarah's appointment is a significant step in the life of the 23-year-old Book Arts Program, and everyone associated with it are extremely excited. The Special Instructor is a full time, ten-month appointment for three years and is being funded by the Friends of the Dartmouth College Library, the Dartmouth College Library's Cornell Fund, the English Department, and the Associate Dean for Arts & Humanities Office. When Sarah joins us we will be able to increase the number of instruction and studio hours as well as facilitate greater curricular use of the workshop. Sarah will begin her appointment on September 1.
Written by Barbara Sagraves.

Amos Kennedy Visit to Dartmouth

Sponsored by the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equality, Dartmouth College Library and the Friends of the Library.

Amos Kennedy is a letterpress printer using a distinctive voice to create posters, artists’ books, and publications. Through his strong graphics and bold typography, Kennedy pushes issues of race, freedom, and equality, often incorporating proverbs and tales of the Kuba and Yoruba people of Africa, as well as the work of African-American poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar. Amos quit his corporate job at the age of forty to become, as he calls himself, “a humble negro printer”. He received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin, has taught workshops in over seven countries and is currently spearheading the Detroit Printing Plant.

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign holds a large collection of Amos’s work containing artists' books, postcards, and posters. His work can also be found in many other collections such as Northwestern University and the libraries of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, but Amos will sell you an original letterpress print for just fifteen dollars. “My posters are for everybody,” says Kennedy. He is also the subject of a documentary by Laura Zinger called "Proceed and be Bold.”

Exhibit: Baker Berry Library
Letterpress broadsides by Amos Kennedy reflecting on life, race and injustices. During the month of Janurary there will be an exhibit of Amos Kennedy's posters on display in Berry Main Street.

Event Schedule:
Events will take place in the Book Arts Workshop located in Baker Library, rooms 21-23 (West entrance, lower level, around the corner from the Orozco murals). All events are free and open to the public.

Monday, January 28th
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM Printing demonstration in the Book Arts Workshop hall with the Washington iron hand press.
1:30 PM - 5:00 PM Amos Kennedy will be printing his colorful and unique posters using the Vandercook press. Come by to print your own poster and see what can be done with type. This is a drop in workshop, participants are encouraged to come for an extended time period.

Tuesday, January 29th
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM Amos Kennedy will be printing his colorful and unique posters using the Vandercook press. Come by to print your own poster and see what can be done with type. This is a drop in workshop, participants are encouraged to come for an extended time period.

Wednesday, January 30th
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM Amos Kennedy will be printing his colorful and unique posters using the Vandercook press. Come by to print your own poster and see what can be done with type. This is a drop in workshop, participants are encouraged to come for an extended time period.
7:30 PM Proceed and be Bold: A Film by Laura Zinger. A few years ago independent film maker Laura Zinger made a documentary about Amos. The film covers Amos Kennedy’s background but more than that it addresses issues of race, finding your voice in the modern world, and discovering your passion. Come and see the film and hear a lecture by the man himself. This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Library. Location: Hood Auditorium.

Dear Loyal Readers

You have come to expect a fresh and informative blog post every Tuesday morning from the members of Preservation Services and we thank you for your support. We use the blog to share information about our work and are delighted you find it worth your time to visit. However, we are finding it difficult to keep up with our weekly deadline and complete preservation projects so that we have something to report to you, our loyal readers. After careful consideration of the time needed to support a weekly blog post we have decided that effective November 20 we will move to a bi-weekly schedule.

Thank you for your support and we hope you will continue to visit our blog.

Very cordially,

The staff of Preservation Services

Quetzalcoatl Premiere

Preservation Week 2012 has come and gone. How did you celebrate? There were a number of great activities all over the country – I hope you were able to participate and deepen your understanding of the need to preserve our cultural heritage today so that it may be passed on to the next generation. If you haven’t had a chance, be sure to review our preservation pointers.

Dartmouth's major Preservation Week event was a public screening of the film Quetzalcoatl. You may recall from earlier posts (here and here) that funding for the film restoration was provided by a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation. Part of the mission of the NFPF is to promote film exhibition and so projecting the film before an audience was a grant requirement.

Quetzalcoatl was ready for public viewing at about the same time that our colleagues at the Hood Museum of Art were preparing a major exhibit, "Men of Fire: Jose Clemente Orozco and Jackson Pollock". We decided to schedule the premiere during the "Men of Fire" exhibit (April 7 – June 17) and serendipitously Preservation Week fit right in.

April 25 was the premiere and Mary Coffey, Associate Professor of Art History, provided an introduction to an audience of fifty students and community members. She highlighted these aspects of the film:

• The director’s use of pan and scan to emphasize parts of the mural.
• The impact of the musical score by Theodore Newman.
• What parts of the mural the director included and what was excluded.

What a difference it made to experience Quetzalcoatl on the big screen! After the movie, Professor Coffey took questions from the audience and many commented that the film helped them better understand Orozco's work. One person stated that although he had studied the mural, he had never before been able to see at eye level the figures of Quetzalcoatl and the Christ in the way the film maker made possible.

If you would like to view the movie, a DVD copy may be checked out from the Jones Media Center. Ask for Jones Media DVD 13348. Or you may see it on Dartmouth's YouTube channel.

If you are in the Upper Valley, be sure to visit the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College to see the "Men of Fire: Jose Clemente Orozco and Jackson Pollock" exhibit from now until June 17.

Written by Barb Sagraves.

Mark Your Calendar: Quetzalcoatl

If you are a regular reader of this blog you may remember a post about the project to preserve the film Quetzalcoatl. The long awaited world premier will be on April 25 at 7pm in the Arthur M. Loew Auditorium here in Hanover, NH.

The press release from the Hood Museum notes that the film interprets Jose Clemente Orozco's monumental Dartmouth mural The Epic of American Civilization with a spare commentary and a commissioned music score. It was written, produced, and directed by Robert Canton, Dartmouth Class of 1958.

A discussion led by Mary Coffey, Associate Professor of Art History, will follow the film screening. The event is co-sponsored by the Hood Museum of Art and Dartmouth College Library in conjunction with Preservation Week.

Written by Barb Sagraves.

The Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center

Welcome back everyone. We in Preservation Services hope you all had very happy holidays! It's a new year (happy 2012!) and here at Dartmouth we're fortunate to have a brand new facility on campus. The new Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center is AWESOME!

I was able to tour the facility with some of my colleagues and was blown away; it is magnificent in every way. The building is energy efficient, has beautiful public spaces, fabulous lab space, and state of the art classrooms that maximize interaction.

Much has been written about the energy efficient building, the flexible and innovative classroom design. Here are a few photos help tell the story:

The research labs.

Public space.

Window view.

Smart displays guide visitors through the building.

There is a greenhouse on the top floor.

This classroom is ringed with white boards and large monitors so that students can gather around the monitor, attach a laptop, and collaborate on a project.

The tour got me thinking back to when Preservation Services and other collection services departments moved in 2000 from Baker Library to the current location in Berry Library and what a tremendous difference it made on our day to day work. Our new home in Berry Library was purposely designed to link Acquisitions and Cataloging so that our staff could easily and effortlessly consult one another. When we were in Baker Library a simple question could involve traveling upstairs, through study stacks, or other connecting routes. From the first day that we moved into Berry and our department spaces were connected, the work dynamic changed. We found that by being physically closer, collaboration and communication effortlessly increased.

A well-designed building can enhance the work-life of its inhabitants. Walking through the Life Sciences Center got me thinking again about space dynamics and the differences they can make if thoughtfully planned.

Now, how to get a greenhouse on the top floor of Berry Library...

Written by Barb Sagraves. Photos provided by David Seaman and his iPad.