[PADG:722] Nov. 16 Salvage Event at UM

[Susan Koutsky <skoutsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On behalf of the Association for Jewish Libraries Capital Area Chapter,
the University of Maryland Libraries Preservation Department, and the
UM Libraries Humanities Team, you are invited to a very exciting event:

"Recovering a Legacy: the Rescue of the Iraqi Jewish Archive," which
will take place on Nov. 16 at 4:30 in the McKeldin Library Special 
Events Room.

In the summer of 2003, Doris Hamburg, Director of Preservation
Programs at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and
Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, Chief of the Document Conservation Laboratory at
NARA, traveled to Baghdad to assess water damaged records from the
Jewish community in Iraq. The records, amassed by Hussein’s secret
intelligence agency, were located in a building that was an early target
of bombing. After the bombing, the records were found in several feet of
water. Early rescue efforts focused on removing the wet documents from
the basement and drying them. Because the weather was hot and humid,
many documents remained damp and became moldy. Hamburg and Ritzenthaler
were called in to survey the collection, which had since been placed
into 27 metal trunks and frozen.
In their presentation, Doris Hamburg and Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler will
speak about the challenges they encountered when undertaking the effort
to save an important archive of books and documents damaged by war. They
will talk about the difficulties of surveying 27 frozen blocks of
materials in a multitude of languages and how they worked with the
Coalition Provisional Authority to plan the recovery of the archive.
The treasures they found and the working conditions they encountered
while in Iraq make for an adventurous tale.

"Recovering a Legacy: the Rescue of the Iraqi Jewish Archive" will take 
place:

Date: Wednesday, November 16, 4:30 p.m.
Location: Special Events Room, 6137 McKeldin Library
Audience: Public
Attendance Fee: Free
Reception following the lecture

For more information contact Susan Koutsky (skoutsky@xxxxxxx) or Yelena 
Luckert (yluckert@xxxxxxx).

--
Susan Koutsky
Team Leader, Brittle Materials, Reformatting, and Deacidification
University of Maryland Libraries
McKeldin Library
Preservation Department
College Park, MD  20742
301-405-9346; 301-314-9971 (fax)
skoutsky@xxxxxxx