Blog

In DHPSNY’s first Planning & Assessment round of 2017, we received an archival needs assessment application that particularly caught our eye. The name at the top was the Empire State Aerosciences Museum, and the Museum’s website raised our hopes for the possibility of a very interesting site visit. Now, a few months since ESAM received its survey report, we reconnected with Donna Esposito, Director of the Museum’s Vander Veer Research Center. She talked to us some more about the Museum’s collections, upcoming programs, and how to stay focused at work while WWII fighter planes drop in to refuel outside your window.

Earlier this week, DHPSNY Preservation Specialist Gillian Marcus presented Mold: Prevention, Detection, and Response, perhaps our grossest webinar since Gillian's Pest Management presentation last year. This webinar identified the many species of mold commonly found in archival collections and explained how they reproduce, the environmental factors that affect their growth, and how you can prevent and mitigate damage.

Thanks to everyone who attended yesterday's webinar, Demystifying Cold and Frozen Storage, presented by Barbara Lemmen, Senior Photograph Conservator at CCAHA. This was a very popular session, packed with details on how to prepare for, implement, and maintain cold storage for your archival collections. We also had some great audience questions at the end of the presentation.

For the latest chat in our ongoing series, we caught up with Robert Clark, Director of Archives at the Rockefeller Archive Center in Sleepy Hollow, Westchester County. The Archive Center houses a number of historic collections and supports hundreds of important research projects each year. We talked with Robert about the history of the organization, a very special New York City street map, and what's in store for RAC in 2018.