Lecture 7 - Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa

Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa, Assoc. Dir. for Preservation and Conservation, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin

Overview

The roots of the field of library and archives conservation reveal a little studied yet critical component of the history of preserving cultural records in U.S. institutions. Emerging from grass roots craft, trade practice and apprentice training in the 1950s, in 1981 conservation of library collections and archives became a topic of graduate education and an increasingly integral component in the care of cultural records. To depict the nature and growth of the library and archives conservation field over this twenty-five-year period, Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa will highlight the life and work of Paul Noble Banks, who in the 1960s and 70s was one of a handful of book conservators in the U.S. A leader and visionary for the field, Banks’ career is a window to the world of people, ideas, institutions and mindsets that are central to understanding the professionalization of library and archives conservation.