This online workshop is designed to guide participants through the process of facilitating a sustainable environmental management project and will empower participants to implement the methodology and techniques learned at their own institutions. This includes assessing and analyzing data from current collection spaces and mechanical systems, setting appropriate environmental parameters, testing energy-saving operations, and making informed decisions that will improve the preservation quality of collections environments. Offered once a month from November through February, the workshop is four days long with two sessions per day from 10am-12pm ET, and 1-3pm ET, and involve a mixture of presentation, discussion, and exercises designed to put principles into practice. This includes activities to help participants learn to use various tools, read HVAC documentation, and plan for implementation at their own institution. This workshop is open to any individual or team from a collecting institution that has an active environmental monitoring program and has been collecting and evaluating data for at least one year. While teams are encouraged, individuals may also apply. Space is limited to only 16 participants per workshop. As part of the workshop, each participating institution will be able to borrow instruments from the IPI Tool Library, and will also be eligible for two free hours of one-on-one time with IPI’s Environmental Consulting Team to discuss specific issues.
Over the last decade, IPI has studied the stability and preservation of digital print materials. We offer workshops to all professionals responsible for the preservation of digitally-printed materials including conservators, catalogers and registrars, curators, archivists, librarians, exhibition preparators, etc. Topics include a definition of the term digital print, an introduction to the history and technologies of the most common digital printers, likely forms of deterioration for digital prints, general recommendations for care, as well as suggested naming conventions and descriptive terminology for cataloging and other records.
IPI provides a holistic approach to image-based print process identification by examining the intertwined relationships between print technologies, aesthetics, and use. Photographic, photomechanical, and digital prints are made of a wide variety of materials including plastics, papers, glass, metals, pigments, dyes, and organic substances like gelatin, albumen and polymers. IPI offers workshops that teach participants to identify every mainstream image-based print process, from the daguerreotype to the inkjet print, via the study of their component materials, structures, aesthetics, and historical and cultural uses.