Paul Bellenoit, director of operations and security for Harvard College Library, was recently elected vice president of the New England Chapter of the International Foundation for Cultural Property Protection (IFCPP), and Tim Gray, manager of security services, was elected secretary. The IFCPP, a national organization based in Denver, is dedicated to the protection of cultural property in museums, libraries, historic sites, and other institutions. IFCPP is the only organization to offer a professional certification program for individuals who are responsible for cultural property protection. Both Bellenoit and Gray hold Certified Institutional Protection Manager II certification and are regular presenters at IFCPP conferences.

Virginia Danielson, Richard F. French Librarian, and Bruce Gordon, audio engineer, both of HCL’s Loeb Music Library, published the article “Sound Directions: A Program in Digital Audio Preservation” in the most recent issue of the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives Journal (IASA) as part of the information-sharing for Harvard’s Sound Directions audio preservation program, conducted with Indiana University’s Archives for Traditional Music. The article may be found in the IASA Journal 31 (July 2008): 42-45.

Kazuko Sakaguchi, librarian of the Documentation Center on Contemporary Japan (DCJ) at the Fung Library, HCL, and Atsuko Yamashita, library assistant for DCJ, hosted a workshop on Japanese political history materials in mid-October. The workshop was co-sponsored by Harvard College Library, the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources. Hiroo Horiuchi from the National Diet Library (NDL) and Yuhei Kato, chief of the NDL Washington DC Office, led the hands-on workshop, which was held in the computer lab of the Knafel Building.

Bradley Schaffner, head of the Slavic Division in HCL’s Widener Library, presented the paper “Bayard L. Kilgour of Cincinnati” at Russian Art and Russian Studies in America, 1917–1945: A Symposium. The symposium was held at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, in October.

Jane Zhang, records analyst at the University Archives, Harvard University Library, delivered the paper “Remembered History: Archival Discourse and 9/11 Digital Archive” at the 2008 annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists, held in San Francisco in August. At the same meeting, University Archivist Megan Sniffin-Marinoff was a commentator on the panel “Skills and Competencies: Changing Requirements in the 21st Century.”