[padg] TOPS talk

["Jeanne Drewes" <jdre@xxxxxxx>]

The Preservation Directorate of the Library of Congress announces the 35th lecture in its series on Topics in Preservation Science (TOPS).  

Mr. Ralph Wiegandt, Assistant Director of Conservation and Mr. Patrick Ravines, Senior Research Fellow  will present "Recent Research in Daguerreotypes at George Eastman House."  The 2005 George Eastman House exhibition, "Young America, the Daguerreotypes of Southworth and Hawes" launched a research collaboration among Eastman House conservators, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, focused on these fragile early photographs. The research has encouraged the Mellon Foundation to support efforts to standardize and share common examination methods, develop image-based condition databases, and establish a standardized condition descriptive lexicon for Daguerreotypes. Additional funding could advance efforts to understand the deterioration mechanisms of the complex Daguerreotype structure, and to associate that with macro and micro imaging work. Such efforts could lead to new treatments for Daguerreotypes, in addition to the development of an anoxic housing system for significant, at-risk images.

Time and Location:  Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008, from 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm in the West Dining Room, Madison Building 6th floor, Library of Congress (101 Independence Avenue SE, Washington, D.C. 20540).

The Topics in Preservation Science lectures are free and open to the public. For more information about this series, which is continually expanded and updated, see http://www.loc.gov/preserv/tops/schedule.html 


Eric Hansen
Chief, Preservation Research and Testing Division
Library of Congress
101 Independence Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20540-4560
voice: (202) 707-1028 
fax: (202) 707-1525
ehan@xxxxxxx