Cultural Respect in Preservation and Conservation
North Carolina Preservation Consortium Annual Conference
November 20, 2008 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM
William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Preservation and conservation of collections in libraries, archives, museums, and historic sites are guided by professional ethics, standards, guidelines, and best practices. This year's North Carolina Preservation Consortium (NCPC) annual conference will address the issues of cultural respect. Objects of material culture often hold intangible values for the community of origin. Do collection institution leaders honor these values with policies of respect and community collaboration? Some artifacts may not be intended for use or view by the public. Do collection institution caretakers place restrictions on access and exhibition? Some communities may wish to use artifacts in traditional ceremonies and rituals. Do collection institution stewards approve such requests? Some communities believe their cultural objects should deteriorate naturally. Do preservation and conservation professionals permit this to happen? We often profess to champion diversity in our collections. Do we respect multicultural perspectives on the preservation and conservation of heritage collections? Is there a moral imperative to preserve and conserve books, manuscripts, documents, photographs, film, sound recordings, art, and artifacts? Please join us for presentations and discussions on these and other issues of cultural respect and heritage preservation.
Invited Speakers
Michele Cloonan
Dean and Professor
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
Simmons College
Boston, Massachusetts
Prior to coming to Simmons College, Michele Cloonan was Chair and Associate Professor of the Department of Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Over the past twenty years, she has written extensively in the areas of preservation, book trade history, and bibliography. Her most recent publications have concerned the preservation of digital media and the moral and ethical dimensions of preserving cultural heritage. Before she began her teaching career, she worked as a book conservator at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and started the library preservation program at Brown University. While a professor at UCLA she took a one-year leave of absence and was the Curator of Rare Books at Smith College. Dean Cloonan has held a variety of offices in the American Library Association, served on the board of the American Printing History Association, and is currently on the Board of Directors of the Northeast Document Conservation Center and the Massachusetts Center for the Book. She has also served on the editorial boards of Libraries & Culture and Library Quarterly. Her honors include the Robert Vosper/IFLA Fellows Programme award, the Bibliographic Society of America Fellowship, and a fellowship to the Virginia Center of Creative Arts. She holds degrees from Bennington College (AB), the University of Chicago (AM), and the University of Illinois (MS, PhD). She has been a visiting or adjunct professor at Northern Illinois University, the Universities of Illinois, Rhode Island, and Alabama, and Smith College.
Marian A. Kaminitz
Head of Conservation
National Museum of the American Indian
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, District of Columbia
Serving as Head of Conservation at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian since 1991, Marian A. Kaminitz supervises a staff of conservators, fellows, interns, and contractors. She was Assistant Conservator in the Anthropology Department at the American Museum of Natural History, New York from 1985 - 1991 and from 1988 - 1998 was also Adjunct Professor of Conservation at the New York University's Conservation Center, teaching a course in the conservation of organic ethnographic and archaeological objects. Ms. Kaminitz received a Masters of Science in the Conservation of Artistic and Historic Works from the University of Delaware Winterthur Museum Program in Art Conservation. Advanced training included an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship at the Pacific Regional Conservation Center, Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii from 1984 to 1985. She served as the Coordinator for the Ethnographic Working Group of the International Council of Museums Committee for Conservation from 1999-2005 and is currently an assistant coordinator. Her interests and publication topics include conservation collaborations with Native American community consultants, merging disciplines of traditional cultural care of collections with museum practices, use of museum collections by Native American communities, preserving cultures vs. things, and preservation of intangible aspects of cultural materials.
Karen L. Jefferson
Head of Archives and Special Collections
Robert W. Woodruff Library
Atlanta University Center
Karen L. Jefferson has over thirty years of experience working in archives. Before coming to Atlanta she served as the African American Studies Archivist/Bibliographer for the John Hope Franklin Research Center at Duke University. Preceding Duke, she was a program officer in the Division of Preservation and Access at the National Endowment for the Humanities. She worked for eighteen years as an archivist at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University. She holds a B.A. degree in History from Howard University and received her master's degree in library science from Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University). She was an instructor in the SOLINET Preservation Workshop for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and the NEH-funded HBCU Archives Institute 2001-2004. She has served as a consultant assessing archival programs at the Amistad Research Center, Archives Center of the National American History Museum, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, and the W. W. Law Foundation. In 2003 the University of Maryland College Park, College of Information Studies presented to Ms. Jefferson the James Partridge Outstanding African American Information Professional Award. In 2004 she was inducted as a Society of American Archivists Fellow. This is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by the Society and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archival profession. In 2005 she received the National Freedom Day Association's Major R.R. Wright Award for exceptional leadership and devoted service in the honoree's chosen profession. The Robert W. Woodruff Library at the Atlanta University Center serves the information needs of four historically black colleges; Clark Atlanta University, the Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. The Library is also the custodian for the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection.
Corine Wegener
President, United States Committee of the Blue Shield
Associate Curator
Architecture, Design, Decorative Arts, Craft, and Sculpture
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Corine Wegener is President of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, a nonprofit organization committed to the protection of cultural property worldwide during armed conflict. She is also Associate Curator in the Department of Architecture, Design, Decorative Arts, Craft, and Sculpture at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. A retired major with 21 years of service in the U.S. Army Reserve, she served her last 13 years as a Civil Affairs officer. Ms. Wegener's last assignment was in Baghdad, Iraq as the Arts, Monuments, and Archives Officer for the 352nd Civil Affairs Command from May 2003 to March 2004. Her primary duty was to assist the Iraq National Museum after the looting in April 2003. She is a coauthor of the U.S. Army publication GTA 41-01-002, Civil Affairs Arts, Monuments, and Archives Guide, a resource for soldiers on the protection of cultural property in a wartime environment. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska-Omaha and dual masters degrees in Political Science and Art History from the University of Kansas.
Program Schedule
8:30 - 9:30 Registration & Refreshments
9:30 - 9:40 Welcome & Opening Remarks
9:40 - 10:40 Michele Cloonan
10:40 - 11:40 Marian A. Kaminitz
11:40 - 1:00 Lunch
1:00 - 2:00 Karen L. Jefferson
2:00 - 2:30 Afternoon Break
2:30 - 3:30 Corine Wegener
3:30 - 4:30 Panel and Audience Discussion
Who Should Attend
All personnel working in libraries, archives, museums, historic sites, and other heritage institutions will benefit from this conference, as well as college and university faculty, and students in library and information science, archives, public history, museum, conservation, and related disciplines. Community advocates for respect in heritage preservation are also welcome.
The registration fee is $60.00 for employees of NCPC member institutions and individual NCPC members, $75.00 for non-members, and $50.00 for students in library science, archives, public history, or museum programs. This fee includes lunch, refreshments, and materials. Please register before November 1, 2008. A registration form is available on the NCPC Web site under Events: http://www.ncpreservation.org
The 2008 NCPC annual conference will be held at the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Friday Center for Continuing Education
UNC Chapel Hill
Campus Box 1020
100 Friday Center Drive
Chapel Hill NC 27599-1020
Parking is free. Directions to the Friday Center are available on their Web site:
http://www.fridaycenter.unc.edu/directions/index.htm
Travel and Lodging
NCPC has not reserved any airline or hotel accommodations.
The information below is provided for your convenience.
Raleigh/Durham International Airport
Web site http://www.rdu.com
Hotels near the airport
Web site http://www.rdu.com/travelinfo/areainfo.htm
Hotels in Chapel Hill
Web site http://hotel-guides.us/north-carolina/chapel-hill-nc-hotels.html#university-hotels
The annual conference may be cancelled due to low registration or other causes beyond our control, such as severe weather. In such an event, registrants will be notified and fees refunded. Otherwise, registration fees are nonrefundable. Substitution of staff from your institution is permitted.
NCPC News
Would you like to receive email announcements about future workshops and conferences sponsored by the North Carolina Preservation Consortium? Interested in information about preservation in libraries, archives, museums, historic sites, and other heritage institutions? Subscribe to the NCPC News listserv. This is not a discussion list. You will only receive official email from NCPC. Subscribe on our Web site at: http://ncpreservation.org/mailman/listinfo/ncpcnews-l
North Carolina Preservation Consortium http://www.ncpreservation.org
The North Carolina Preservation Consortium (NCPC) is a 501C3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of educational, historical, cultural, and research collections in our state's archives, libraries, museums, historic sites, document depositories, and record centers. NCPC also informs the general public about preservation to safeguard private collections and family treasures. Our preservation mission addresses the proper care and handling of materials; storage and environmental control; disaster preparedness and recovery; the repair, reformatting and conservation of damaged items; and collection security. NCPC supports the preservation of information content, and the medium as artifact, in new and traditional formats for present and future generations.
Membership
We would like to welcome your institution to the preservation consortium. Our minimum annual membership fee is only $100.00. Higher levels of support are voluntary. Benefits of NCPC membership include discounts on our continuing education workshops and annual conference. Employees of institutional members are eligible to hold leadership positions as officers and on the consortium's board of directors, committees, and task groups. Member institutions are also recognized for their contributions on our Web site. The success of our state wide preservation program depends on the talents, diversity, and generosity of our colleagues. Together we can make a difference in the survival of our heritage collections. Join NCPC today! Membership information is available on the NCPC web site: http://www.ncpreservation.org/membership.html
Support NCPC
Our programs are made possible by the generous financial support of our institutional members, corporate sponsors, and individual donors. If you would like to make a gift to the North Carolina Preservation Consortium please visit our Preservation Philanthropy Webpage at http://www.ncpreservation.org/support.html
Institutional members are listed on the NCPC Web site at http://www.ncpreservation.org/members.html.
Corporate Sponsors are listed at http://www.ncpreservation.org/corporatesponsor.htm.
For additional information please contact:
Robert James
Executive Director
North Carolina Preservation Consortium
PO Box 2651
Durham, NC 27715-2651
Phone (919) 660-1157
Email robertjamesncpc@xxxxxxxxx