May 12, 2016
Tour UW Libraries’ new Conservation Center May 25
Visitors learn about UW Libraries’ new Conservation Center, in Suzzallo Library, during an April Friends of the Library tour.
UW Libraries invites the public and the campus community to take a behind-the-scenes look at its new state-of-the-art Conservation Center on the fifth floor of Suzzallo Library, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, May 25.
Space is limited, so those interested are asked to register online by May 18. Light refreshments will be served.
Library staff will lead tours of the new facility and show examples of the rare books, manuscripts, maps and drawings they are working to preserve for future generations. The new center will dramatically increase the libraries’ capacity to care for the many fragile and rare books, manuscripts, maps and drawings held in its Special Collections area.
This conservation work supports the mission of UW Libraries to provide stewardship and access to its collection. The center also complements commercial binding and preservation services to give the most appropriate treatment to each item that need it.
Every year staff in the UW Libraries mendery repair, bind or make enclosures for 10,000 to 12,000 items, preserving, stabilizing or fully restoring the usability of books and paper materials.
Thanks to a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2012, UW Libraries was able to hire a senior conservator for books and paper. UW Libraries is continuing to fundraise for the challenge portion of the grant.
- That fundraising continues the evening of Saturday, May 14, at Club Husky in Husky Stadium, where U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera will deliver remarks as part of the Friends of the University of Washington Libraries’ annual Literary Voices dinner, which is now sold out. Herrera is also a visiting professor in the UW American Ethnic Studies Department.
Learn more online about UW Libraries Conservation and the senior conservator position.
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For more information about the UW Libraries Conservation Center or the 2016 Literary Voices dinner, call 206-616-8397 or email uwlibs@uw.edu.
Tag(s): Department of American Ethnic Studies • Juan Felipe Herrera • UW Libraries
