These three-day workshops are 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 learning how to establish a project, collect environmental data from collection spaces and mechanical systems, and assess facilities and collections spaces as well as how to make informed decisions that will improve the preservation quality of collections environments while at the same time reducing energy consumption. Instruction will include evaluating building documentation including images and building plans allowing participants to collaboratively practice interpreting and understanding facilities documentation. It is intended that each participating institution send several participants (two to four) that represent multiple departments and the basis of an environmental management team. Each team should consist of no less than a collections representative and a facilities representative. Participants will work within their institutional teams during breakout sessions to build trust, comradery, and common knowledge. IPI instructors will oversee the sessions and assist teams throughout the process. Successful applicants must have at least one year of collections environmental data obtained through active environmental monitoring.
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.