I am somewhat alarmed that I have not written anything for the blog since early January. I was, in fact, frantically trying to figure out where entries (surely at least one post!) had disappeared but alas, there has not been… Continue Reading →

In previous posts about the conservation treatments I am able to ‘perform’ here in the archives, I have mainly been mentioning surface cleaning and basic tear repairs. In the absence of a fully equipped conservation studio with a fume-hood and… Continue Reading →

For the past few months I have been kept busy continuing to go through the materials in the James Gardner archive – discovering some beautiful things in the process! I am slowly but surely making my way through it, compiling… Continue Reading →

Yet again, it has been a busy summer in the Archives – we have had some major building works done this past month or so. In the middle of the slightly chaotic goings on, we have been beavering on with… Continue Reading →

Before I head off on a spot of annual leave, I have a bit of a treat for everyone – my very first ‘guest entry’ on this blog. In an earlier entry I wrote about the carpet samples in our… Continue Reading →

Last night I returned from a short course entitled ‘Preventive Conservation’ at West Dean College’s ‘professional conservators in practice’ series of programs. I was lucky enough to secure a grant for half of the course fee from the Clothworkers’ Foundation… Continue Reading →

You know me, I am all about the paper. However, from the conservation perspective, the one thing that terrifies/fascinates me are books and book bindings. I would love to, sometime in the future, study further with a focus on early… Continue Reading →

I am starting to go through the archive of James Gardner’s plans, drawings and sketches with their preservation needs in mind – and have just come across this rusty paperclip. I simply had to share with you this short photographic… Continue Reading →

It has been quite a long time since I wrote an entry to my blog and as you can imagine, a lot of things have happened between the end of last year and now – but I will try to… Continue Reading →

The day to day ticking over of the Archives tends to take centre-stage and due to time and/or space restrictions the way in which we approach conservation is not to go and seek out an object in need but to… Continue Reading →

Preservation can be defined as a preventive measure that safeguards a collection from damage. This can be considered from two perspectives; looking after original materials and caring for digitised areas of collections. I would imagine that in the future, more… Continue Reading →

In the past few years I have noticed a series of television programs where British ‘personalities’ dig around their past and try and find out a little bit more about where they come from. I am hopeful these programs have… Continue Reading →

I can’t quite believe it is coming up to five months since I last posted a blog entry! I have been busier than usual since January as a big digitisation and photography project begun at the start of the year…. Continue Reading →

Happy new year to everyone! January is already steaming ahead and the Archives have been busy from the moment we opened our doors again after the holiday period. Just before we broke off, there was a lot of activity around… Continue Reading →

Just before we all break off for the holidays, I wanted to share with you some joyous Design Archives’ news! There has been a bit of theme forming with my ‘poster posts’ of late, but after a long wait the… Continue Reading →

Yesterday we hosted a ‘Digitisation of Archival Content – sharing expertise’ seminar. This was a free afternoon event with an aim of giving the participants an insight into the care and digitisation of archival materials – a little bit of… Continue Reading →

On Monday the 14th, I had the pleasure of a visit from Martha, a friend and a fellow conservation graduate from my year at Camberwell. She is a conservation intern at the Parks Library & Archives Preservation Department at Iowa… Continue Reading →

Re-organising the main archive space we work in alongside our researchers has been no mean feat, but we are now getting there – slowly but surely. The long-awaited new cabinet for the large format ICOGRADA poster materials arrived from France… Continue Reading →