Skip to main content
Home
  • Hours
  • Contact
Menu
Search this site

Ask A Librarian

Give Now

  • Search
  • About
  • Research & Teaching Support
  • Locations
  • News & Events
  • Using the Library
  • About the UCLA Library
  • About the Collections
  • Giving to UCLA Library
  • UCLA Homepage
  • Jobs @ UCLA Library
  • Social Media Directory

Quick Links

  • Preservation Program

Preservation Blog

Preservation on the brain

By Jacob Nadal on Thu, 2011-07-07 09:05

I had the chance to take a quick trip to London and Barcelona last week, largely for vacation, but wanted to share a few images that caught my eye for preservation reasons.

This is a wide shot of the Palau de la Musica Catalana, a beautiful Modernisme concert hall in Barcelona. I don't know all the reasons for the modern-not-modernisme addition of the glassed-over facade. It could be environmental control, protection from pollutants and city life, sound-proofing, or maybe a few of those together.

Image iconphoto-1-300x225.jpg

Here's are two closer shots of the facade.

Image iconphoto-2-300x225.jpg

Image iconphoto-3-300x225.jpg

In a nice recursion, we were there to hear a performance that was in itself contained a preservation event, a concert of Catalan madrigals. Most of the program was contemporary, but there were a few 17th century pieces, sung in a period style. Historical music performance practice doesn't have a lot of immediate practical application in library and archives preservation, but I think it dwells in the same theoretical space as some of the strategies we foresee for the use of emulation in digital preservation.

In London, I was struck by this section of the wall outside the Victoria and Albert Museum. The damage incurred in the Blitz has been retained as a memorial, a stark example of why conservation and restoration are distinctly different endeavors.

Image iconLondon1-300x225.jpg

In a similar vein, look at this conservation effort on a paper image adhered to a wood backing. I think this is an exceptionally sensitive treatment of an ephemeral object. These devotional prints are the sort of everyday object that was deeply important in its time and place, but rarely survive. When rare examples surface, it's critical to make them available for research and exhibition, but likewise critical that their material history be undisturbed. Stabilizing the object as it is received, rather than making it "like new", keeps every avenue of research remains open. In this case, it also avoids the risk of damage inherent in making an invasive treatment on a unique and fragile object.

Image iconLondon2-225x300.jpg

Image iconLondon3-225x300.jpg

And finally, back to performance practice, a view of Shakespeare's Globe, and a sea of groundlings. The current Globe is a reconstruction and presents plays in historical and modernized style (or both at once; I saw a very smart version of Marlowe's Dr. Faustus that was well-grounded in Elizabethan practice but clearly knew which century it was being staged in, as well). Reconstruction and re-presentation are preservation methods that I think we'll need to find a theoretical space for as libraries, archives, and museums develop.

Image iconLondon4-300x225.jpg

Preservation

A weblog about preservation, conservation, and the stewardship of the UCLA Library's collections.

Archives

  • September 2020 (1)
  • July 2020 (2)
  • May 2020 (4)
  • April 2020 (2)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • December 2019 (1)
  • May 2019 (2)
  • March 2019 (1)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (1)
  • November 2018 (1)
  • October 2018 (1)
  • March 2018 (1)
  • November 2017 (1)
  • October 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (2)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • June 2017 (1)
  • May 2017 (1)
  • April 2017 (3)
  • March 2017 (2)
  • February 2017 (4)
  • April 2015 (2)
  • March 2015 (1)
  • December 2014 (1)
  • October 2014 (1)
  • July 2014 (1)
  • November 2013 (1)
  • October 2013 (2)
  • September 2013 (2)
  • August 2013 (3)
  • June 2013 (3)
  • May 2013 (1)
  • April 2013 (1)
  • March 2013 (2)
  • February 2013 (1)
  • September 2012 (2)
  • July 2012 (1)
  • June 2012 (1)
  • May 2012 (1)
  • April 2012 (2)
  • March 2012 (1)
  • February 2012 (1)
  • October 2011 (1)
  • September 2011 (1)
  • August 2011 (2)
  • July 2011 (6)
  • June 2011 (1)
  • May 2011 (1)
  • April 2011 (6)
  • March 2011 (3)
  • February 2011 (1)
  • January 2011 (1)
  • November 2010 (1)
  • October 2010 (2)
  • September 2010 (2)
  • August 2010 (1)
  • July 2010 (1)
  • June 2010 (1)
  • May 2010 (1)
  • April 2010 (3)
  • March 2010 (2)
  • February 2010 (8)
Home

The UCLA Library creates a vibrant nexus of ideas, collections, expertise, and spaces in which users illuminate solutions for local and global challenges. We constantly evolve to advance UCLA’s research, education, and public service mission by empowering and inspiring communities of scholars and learners to discover, access, create, share, and preserve knowledge.

facebook social-link-twitter class= social-link-instagram class= social-link-youtube class=

  • About the UCLA Library
  • About the Collections
  • Giving to UCLA Library
  • UCLA Homepage
  • Jobs @ UCLA Library
  • Social Media Directory
  • © 2014–2021 UC Regents,
  • Creative Commons Attribution 4.0