Posts from the Barbara Goldsmith Preservation Division

Treating and re-housing Coronation of the Virgin by the Trinity.

As a Paper Conservator, most of the objects that I treat are flat paper items, such as documents, maps, and prints. Recently, I worked on a more unusual project: an engraving on silk that came to conservation to be removed from its old mount and get better, updated housing.

You have collections at home—drawers full of video tapes, shelves packed with CDs, DVDs and books, files stuffed with photos and documents, hard drives filled with data… How can you take care of your own collections, to make sure they're protected, to make sure they last?

There is so much history wound up in these open reels that would not exist in any other form. The medium became available at a rich time in Dance history.

For Preservation Week 2015, the Preservation Division will be giving lectures on caring for your personal collections. I am composing a talk entitled Be An Informed Consumer of Custom Picture Framing.

Back in 1986 Panasonic thought they had the competitive answer to Sony's Betacam SP format. Their product was smaller, lighter and poised to take over the electronic news gathering (ENG) market. The plan must have looked great on paper, but the MII format was a disaster.

Dressed in black with his homemade blackened blimp, his pockets are stuffed with exposed and unexposed film; he is in constant fear of discovery.

The end of 20th century, when Fisher Price sold $100 time machines for children, was a wild time with a penchant for deregulation. How else could a civilization produce something as potentially disruptive as the 1987 Fisher Price PXL2000?

With all of my past allusions to time travel, the fictional trope, I thought it was time that I accounted for my flippancy with some hard time travel news.

One of my colleagues, speaking of our collection of unique recordings at the Library for the Performing Arts, has said that, “all of our recordings are made by professionals, but recording was not their profession.” These recordists are authors, dancers, actors, musicians, vocalists, and choreographers to name a few. What they share is a need to create a record that can document works that take place in time and space.

Although we may not know for sure that a certain artist consulted a certain manual, they provide important clues. In a way, these books tell a story about the history of art from the point of view of the practitioners.

To coincide with the American Library Association's national events for Preservation Week, the Preservation Division at the New York Public library has scheduled some events for the public in the local New York City area.

The New York Public Library is the proud home of the REAL Winnie-the-Pooh, the actual toy teddy bear that once belonged to Christopher Robin Milne, son of A. A. Milne, and the basis for the character Christopher Robin in the beloved Winnie-the-Pooh stories.

The return of Daylight Saving Time means that we have all just experienced a temporal displacement. Let’s set Time Machine back by a small increment and briefly revisit the VHS format.

The Monuments Men film was a slightly fictionalized version of the incredible true story of the activities of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Program at the end of World War II. Though much of the action really happened, some of the names and details were changed. If you enjoyed the movie and want to learn more, here is a list of suggested titles.

My studio is an interchange where I coax content from the past, sometimes, the content itself is looking back to a more distant past, creating a cloverleaf-like feedback loop. The Early Years, *MGZIC 9-950, is one of the current projects that has come to mind in the cloverleaf.

The Monuments Men was one of the top films again last week, bringing to light the incredible true story of the museum professionals (art historians, curators, professors, conservators) who joined the Allied army's Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program (MFAA), risking their lives to rescue art from thievery and bombing during World War II.

Happy New Year! The year has barely started and we are back on the road. And it looks like the amazing NYPL collection will be adding quite a large number of miles this year as we have already received loan requests for 22 different exhibitions throughout the year.

I am remembering our old purchase order form, a multi copy (ten copies press firmly) missive to Ruth, our beloved curmudgeon in Purchasing (her voicemail began with a sigh). Each copy was fainter and less readable than its predecessor. I am thinking about VHS, a format that succeeded by virtue of its worst quality, the ability to record at a slower speed (up to six hours on a T-120 cassette). What better way for balletomanes to compile every dance performance ever broadcast on two