Consuela "Chela" Metzger from the University of Texas at Austin School of
Information will present the lecture "Rare Skills for Rare Books: Book Conservation
Education" on Friday, Nov. 7, at 4 p.m. in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons on
the first floor of E.S. Bird Library at Syracuse University. Free event parking is
available in Booth Garage, on the corner of Waverly and Comstock avenues.
"Even in our screen-driven age, the book still carries monetary, artistic and symbolic
value, in addition to its intellectual content," Metzger says in describing her lecture
topic. "What skills must a book conservator have to treat damaged rare books
properly? Is the restoration/conservation of books a craft related to bookbinding?
And if so, what is the best way to teach that craft? I have been teaching book
conservation at the graduate level since 2001, but to me these questions remain
unsettled and unsettling. I hope to bring together observations from my life as a
librarian, bookbinder, book conservator and educator to explore the skills needed for
book conservation in the 21st century."
Metzger teaches full time at the Kilgarlin Center for Preservation of the Cultural
Record in the University of Texas at Austin School of Information, the only program
focused specifically on library conservation in the United States. A graduate of the
North Bennet Street School, she completed an internship in rare book conservation at
the Library of Congress in 1994 and worked as a project conservator for more than
five years at the Huntington Library. She has also lectured and taught
internationally, with a focus on Latin America, and writes articles and book reviews
in the field of book arts and bookbinding in the United States.
The lecture is sponsored by the Brodsky Endowment for the Advancement of Library
Conservation, which sponsors programs to promote and advance knowledge of
library conservation theory, practice and application, both on the SU campus and in
the Central New York region.
For more information on the lecture and the series, contact Peter Verheyen at
pdverhey@syr.edu or 443-9756. For directions to E.S. Bird Library, see
http://libwww.syr.edu/information/
spcollections/contact.htm#directions.
