As a college student studying history, I always get the question, “What are you going to do with your degree?” Then I explain that history majors aren’t just left with teaching or staying in academia. There are many other sectors that need history people. This past January I was a reference services intern for IHS. […]
November is Indigenous History month. Indigenous communities in present-day Indiana, existed for generations, several times over, before European contact. And they continue to exist today. Early European colonizers and American settlers came west into the Northwest Territory, to occupy land now known as the State of Indiana. Indigenous communities that existed before colonization were the […]
As I wrote in Part 1, I recently learned about a clever conservation technique that turned out to be the solution to a complicated treatment problem I’ve been mulling over. Conservator Elsa Thyss at The Metropolitan Museum of Art developed a method for consolidating severely flaking emulsion on glass plate negatives using minimal moisture, which […]
Conservation is an ever-changing field, with new techniques, materials and approaches to preserving cultural heritage materials being continuously developed and refined. One way we in the IHS Conservation Department keep up with these changes is via our affiliation with the American Institute for Conservation, a national professional organization for conservators, conservation scientists, preservation experts and […]
Part of my job as a catalog librarian involves tackling backlogged items. Bringing them out of the shadows and making them accessible to the public is always rewarding. I recently discovered an intriguing accession from 1958: a collection of mid- to late 19th century printed materials that belonged to Ephraim George Squier. Many were authored […]
Many have been taking greater advantage of opportunities recently presented at home to sift through cupboards, closets, attic storage spaces and other nooks and crannies to uncover what is there. Assessing memorabilia and the cumulative legacies of material boxed up, stuffed into corners and drawers, or placed on shelves for safekeeping is not a simple […]
The Indiana Historical Society’s Archive staff receives donated collections all the time, and first look to see if the papers or photographs come in some sort of order. That way if an original arrangement does exist it can help make sense of what may seem like a random assortment. One time we received an entire […]
Feature photo: Portrait of Elizabeth Riddle, from our Highland Vicinity Neighborhood Collection, suffers from many of the common problems with crayon enlargements – the surface is scuffed and scratched in many places and the brittle board has cracked. The portrait was repaired with strips of thin, long-fiber paper adhered with wheat starch paste. Do you have […]
Mayday. Mayday. You never want to hear that international distress signal. But when you do, you want to have a plan already in place and have experience putting the plan into action. This morning, our Archives and Library staff took part in the MAYDAY initiative begun by the Society of American Archivists and Heritage Preservation […]
We receive donations to our collection like certificates, panorama photographs and broadsides that have been rolled, which are difficult to handle and house. It is best to store these flat so they can be more easily handled and accessed for research. Many papers are made of poor quality paper and are brittle. The curl retained […]
