I gave remarks for the opening of the 35th International Association of Paper Historians Congress, June 7–11, 2021, hosted by the Library of Congress and our interagency partners at the National Gallery of Art and the National Archives and Records Administration.
Hello, my name is Jacob Nadal, Director for Preservation at the Library of Congress. In 2017, the Library was invited to host the 35th International Paper Historians conference. From that initial invitation to the present, the Planning Committee has in effect planned two conferences with different requirements: the in person conference that was canceled in September of 2020 and this one.
The IPH conference has not been held in the US since 1982, and so I am also glad to know that this meeting has attracted many new American members to the organization, and proud to remark that the planning committee for this meeting was made up of conservators from US Federal cultural institutions. In reviewing the program for this meeting, and knowing the people who have worked to bring this together, I cannot help but see a conference that bears the hallmarks of good conservation work.
Successful conservation must be multi-national and multi-disciplinary: our institutions are charged with the stewardship of items from every place on Earth, and to succeed in that responsibility, we have to understand collections in terms of the texts they contain as well as the technologies they embody. The virtual format of this meeting includes participants from six continents and over 25 countries. Together, they will have the opportunity to enjoy 35 presentations from a combined 51 authors exploring the history of paper in its fullest sense.
Preservation is necessarily multi-generational and multi-cultural, as well. We have these collections for our study today because skills, knowledge, and responsibilities have been passed from person to person, time and time again. So I am also glad to say that the conference has been successful in offering grants to subsidize student attendance, to help create and sustain connections between specialists in paper.
Finally, an event of this scope requires many hands. Thanks are due to the foreign language specialists in the Library’s Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate who translated many of the abstracts into German, Spanish and French; curatorial staff who are showing notable items from our many collecting Divisions; and our Special Events, Development and Contracts officers who provided the crucial administrative assistance an event such as this requires.