Kate Bowers, collections services archivist in the University Archives, Harvard University Library, has compiled and edited a new online publication, Thesaurus for Use in College and University Archives—a set of 1,300 terms for use by any college or university archives in the US for describing its holdings. The topical facets are academic affairs, administration, classes of persons, corporate culture, events, fields of study, history, infrastructure, sports, and student life.

The publication is available on the Society for American Archivists web site.


Photograph conservator Elena Bulat and Paul M. and Harriet L. Weissman Senior Photograph Conservator Brenda Bernier, both of the Weissman Preservation Center, Harvard University Library, presented papers at the Photographic Materials Group (PMG) meeting in Tucson, Arizona. The PMG of the American Institute for Conservation is the professional association for photograph conservators, and its biannual meeting is the premier scholarly venue for its members, drawing an international audience.

Bulat’s presentation, entitled “A Case for Preservation: Revisiting the Agassiz Collection of Daguerretoypes from the Peabody Museum Archives at Harvard University,” summarized an extensive preservation project on 36 exceptional daguerreotypes, some of which famously depict African American slaves. The daguerreotypes are among Harvard’s earliest photographs and present numerous conservation challenges.

Bernier’s talk, “Polaroid Vectographs,” focused on an unusual type of 20th-century three-dimensional photograph. She outlined the history and physical characteristics of vectographs in general and the preservation of the extensive vectograph material from the Polaroid Corporate Collection at Baker Library Historical Collections. Audience members were given 3-D glasses to view part of her presentation.


Haden Guest, director of the Harvard Film Archive (HFA) in the Harvard College Library’s Fine Arts Library, has published an interview he conducted with the Argentinean director Lucrecia Martel when she visited the HFA. The interview is in the Winter 2009 edition of BOMB magazine, a quarterly arts and culture publication.

Steve Livernash, media technician for the Harvard Film Archive, was honored with a special commendation on February 8 by the Boston Society of Film Critics for “setting a sterling example of film projection as a serious, aesthetic calling, and for extending his job definition to include film preservation.”