EMORY LIBRARIES
The Life of An Item
An Online Preservation Exhibition Series
The Life of an Item is an online, preservation exhibition series that highlights and examines the history of rare collection material from the Emory Libraries. This series will illuminate the history and acquisition, conservation and digitization, storage concerns, research value, and instructional use of unique artifacts in our valuable special collections.
The Life of an Item may include discussions of preservation challenges, educational research, and recordings pertinent to the exhibited items from Emory Libraries’ special collections.
Preservation
Who We Are
The Preservation Office is located in the Robert W. Woodruff Library on the main campus of Emory University and serves all Emory Libraries. It includes the Digitization and Conservation teams of nine combined members plus graduate and undergraduate students. Together, staff collaborate with others to ensure that all of the library collections are appropriately preserved, accessible, and discoverable. This work supports a research community of faculty, students, and patrons using the important and vast collections at Emory Libraries.
The Conservation Lab was established in 1990 and expanded in 2000. Services provided to all collections of Emory Libraries include minor item repair, advanced and complex treatments, protective enclosures, exhibition support, environmental monitoring, and emergency planning.
The Digitization Lab opened in 2006 with an expansion that included audiovisual suites. Digitization and audiovisual services include collection inspection, reformatting, and preservation of still images, moving images, and sound recordings.