HCA Scholarly Articles

This poster presents the conservation treatment of two 19th-century varnished wall maps from the Harvard Map Collection, with a particular focus on preserving and reusing their original cloth backing and ribbon edging. While these textile elements are integral to the look, feel, and function of varnished wall maps, my professional experience has shown that they are often considered secondary to the paper map itself and are frequently removed and discarded. Reusing original textiles is commonly perceived as unnecessarily prolonging the treatment process. As a result, most conservation strategies involve replacing the original textiles with new linen, muslin, or paper backing, substituting new ribbon for the edging, or omitting the edging altogether. Through this poster, I challenge two widespread assumptions in the conservation of varnished wall maps: that textile elements should be discarded, and that their reuse inevitably extends the treatment.

Varnished wall maps are valued by historians as vital sources documenting the development of towns, counties, and regions across 19th-century America. These distinctive maps are composite objects that consist of ink, paper, cotton cloth, silk ribbon, turned wood, iron tacks, and, of course, varnish—materials selected to withstand the demands of extended display. Today, these maps are usually found darkened and brittle, prompting conservation efforts focused on restoring their legibility and structural integrity—but often at the expense of their historical appearance and texture. Having previously treated scores of varnished maps where original backing and edging were discarded for efficiency’s sake, I saw these two Harvard maps as an opportunity to explore an alternative approach.

The poster will provide an illustrated, step-by-step review of these textile-focused treatments. Stained and delaminating with internal losses, the wall map Rhode Island (1832) underwent blotter washing and the addition of an interlayer of toned Tengucho between the map and its backing cloth. The second map, East Bridgewater (1848), was partially broken and mended locally with layers of reinforcing strips. Its fragile ribbon edging was lined with pre-coated tissue and sewn back into place using the original holes. After treatment, both maps were cleaner and sound, while retaining the authenticity of their composite structure. Reusing the original textiles naturally added time as I developed my procedure; however, I could see that subsequent map treatments would become more efficient and cost-effective.

I have been inspired by the collective expertise showcased in the Book and Paper Group’s special annual publication, The Conservation of Varnished Wall Maps (2024). While this invaluable resource rightly addresses issues of varnish removal, problems, and ethics, I hope this poster will broaden the conversation to include greater consideration of the textile components of these historic maps.

Cette affiche présente le traitement de conservation de deux cartes murales vernies du XIXe siècles issus de la collection de cartes de Harvard, en mettant l'accent sur la préservation et la réutilisation de leur support en tissu et de leurs bordures en ruban d'origine. Bien que ces éléments textiles soient essentiels à l'aspect, au toucher et à la fonction des cartes murales vernies, mon expérience professionnelle a montré qu'ils sont souvent considérés comme secondaires par rapport à la carte elle-même et qu'ils sont fréquemment retirés et jetés. La réutilisation des textiles d'origine est généralement perçue comme un facteur allongeant inutilement le processus de traitement. Par conséquent, la plupart des stratégies de conservation consistent à remplacer les textiles d'origine par un nouveau support en lin, en mousseline ou en papier, à substituer de nouveaux rubans aux bordures, voire à supprimer complètement ces dernières. À travers cette affiche, je remets en question deux idées reçues dans la conservation des cartes murales vernies : que les éléments textiles doivent être jetés et que leur réutilisation prolonge inévitablement le traitement. Les cartes murales vernies sont précieuses pour les historiens, car elles constituent des sources essentielles documentant le développement des villes, des comtés et des régions des États-Unis au XIXe siècle. Ces cartes distinctives sont des objets composites composés d'encre, de papier, de tissu de coton, de ruban de soie, de bois tourné, de clous en fer et, bien sûr, de vernis – des matériaux choisis pour résister aux contraintes d'une exposition prolongée. Aujourd'hui, ces cartes sont généralement assombries et fragiles, ce qui justifie des efforts de conservation visant à restaurer leur lisibilité et leur intégrité structurelle, souvent au détriment de leur aspect et de leur texture historique. Ayant déjà traité de nombreuses cartes vernies dont le support et les bordures d'origine avaient été jetés par souci d'efficacité, j'ai vu dans ces deux cartes de Harvard l'opportunité d'explorer une approche alternative. L'affiche présentera un aperçu illustré, étape par étape, de ces traitements spécifiques aux textiles. La carte murale de Rhode Island (1832), tachée, délaminée et présentant des lacunes internes, a fait l'objet d'un nettoyage par buvardage et de l'ajout d'une couche intermédiaire de papier Tengucho teinté entre la carte et son support en tissu. La deuxième carte, celle d'East Bridgewater (1848), était partiellement déchirée et a été réparée localement à l'aide de bandes de renfort. Sa bordure en ruban fragile a été doublée de papier de soie préenduit et recousue en place en utilisant les perforations d'origine. Après traitement, les deux cartes étaient plus propres et en bon état, tout en conservant l'authenticité de leur structure composite. La réutilisation des textiles d'origine a naturellement rallongé le temps de travail nécessaire à l'élaboration de ma méthode ; cependant, j'ai constaté que les traitements ultérieurs des cartes seraient plus efficaces et plus économiques. Je me suis inspirée de l'expertise collective présentée dans la publication annuelle spéciale du Book and Paper Group, The Conservation of Varnished Wall Maps (2024). Si cette ressource précieuse aborde à juste titre les questions de dévernissage, les problèmes rencontrés et les considérations éthiques, j'espère que cette affiche élargira la discussion pour inclure une plus grande prise en compte des composants textiles de ces cartes historiques.

The 969th Field Artillery Battalion and the “Historical Approach” at the International Military Tribunal constitutes a chapter in the monograph entitled Service in the Shadow of Justice: The Legacy of the Black American Military Court Guards in the Nuremberg Military Tribunals. This chapter documents the earliest attempt to assign Black troops to duty in Nuremberg at the start of the International Military Tribunal in 1945. It includes content from an interview with Junius Charles Heard, a descendant of a member of the 969th Field Artillery Battalion. It also examines the advocacy of Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr. on behalf of Black troops. The fuller work demonstrates that the assignment of Black troops to security details at the historic Nuremberg Trials was both symbolic and significant in the Long Civil Rights Movement and within the activism surrounding the desegregation of the U.S. military. Dim perceptions on the performance of the U.S. Army’s Black troops (pejoratively termed “the Negro Problem”) during WWII and the continuation of Jim Crow policies in the European Theater were factors in the exclusion of these servicemen from earlier duty at the Trials (1945-1949). By 1946, Nuremberg had become a symbol for the strivings of American racial justice while the verdicts delivered at the International Military Tribunal precipitated calls for anti-lynching legislation. A confluence of events, including slowly staged advocacy work by the Black press and by antiracists from within the U.S. military, eventually brought Black troops into courtroom duty while the service window and stakes in the Nuremberg legacy waned. America was at its finest postwar display in the Palace of Justice while simultaneously revealing a tension between its democratic ideals and actions. The Black U.S. military court guards of Nuremberg are situated in this complex and historic legacy.

Creative Ideas in Technical Services Interest Group (CITSIG) is an interest group under the auspices of the American Library Association’s (ALA) CORE division, a nonprofit library organization. The group seeks to engage its membership through a variety of in-person and virtual mechanisms to identify new and creative approaches to technical services work. Interest Group Week, in March, is a virtual event. The ALA roundtable meetings have remained in-person events. Over the past year, CITSIG has sought to engage its members in a variety of ways.

This article describes the use of a project management approach to existing backlogs and to ongoing receipts in technical services for improved efficiency. Drawing from lessons from the COVID19 pandemic, successful strategies regarding timely backlog reduction, and improving efficiency for ongoing work are applied to new backlogs produced through a move and in absorption of additional workflows.

This article applies modern scientific analysis to early nineteenth-century American playing cards from the Winterthur Museum, uncovering new insights into their materials and manufacturing techniques. Through advanced methods such as transmitted light microscopy and FT-IR spectroscopy, the study reveals details about paper types, fiber sourcing, adhesives, pigments, and sizing. The findings illuminate prevailing trends in American card production, such as the transition from laid to wove paper and the use of rag fiber, starch, and kaolin clay. The research not only provides a deeper understanding of period craftsmanship but also highlights analytical methods for distinguishing originals from later reproductions or fakes.

Twenty-five years ago, Harvard University was in the early stages of a project to build a first-generation digital library infrastructure. The project was carefully named the Library Digital Initiative (LDI), signifying that ‘digital’ would be an integral and integrated aspect of ‘library’ and not a separate entity. The initiative aimed to develop knowledge and expertise relating to digital objects, as well as technical infrastructure to create, curate, access and preserve them, and to integrate the new digital collections with Harvard’s extensive tangible collections.

Today, we still benefit from the foresight of this first-generation development and the subsequent ones it spawned, but we are also at a pivotal point of reflecting on lessons learned and opportunities to be seized as we rebuild and reimagine our digital infrastructure and services in a vastly expanded data ecosystem. Predicting what libraries will look like two decades ahead is always conjecture. What we do know, however, is that while the themes and challenges from the past two decades endure, the way we are tackling them is different. This paper examines what has changed since early library digital initiatives, and the imperatives we see for the future.

NIH Public Access Policy Key Requirements The Policy applies to any Author Accepted Manuscript resulting from NIH funding that has been accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025. This replaces the 2008 Policy. FREE COMPLIANCE Authors do not have to pay a fee to comply with the Policy. See the NIH’s Supplemental Guidance on Publication Costs. https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-048.html AUTHOR ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT The Policy applies to the Author Accepted Manuscript, or author’s final version that has been accepted for publication in a journal that meets NIH’s criteria. PUBMED CENTRAL Authors must submit the Author Accepted Manuscript to PubMedCentral NO EMBARGO Author Accepted Manuscripts deposited in PubMed Central must be made publicly available no later than the article’s official date of publication, eliminating the previous 12-month embargo.

Large language models (LLMs) use data to learn about the world in order to produce meaningful correlations and predictions. As such, the nature, scale, quality, and diversity of the datasets used to train these models, or to support their work at inference time, have a direct impact on their quality. The rapid development and adoption of LLMs of varying quality has brought into focus the scarcity of publicly available, high-quality training data and revealed an urgent need to ground the stewardship of these datasets in sustainable practices with clear provenance chains. To that end, this technical report introduces Institutional Books 1.0, a large collection of public domain books originally digitized through Harvard Library's participation in the Google Books project, beginning in 2006. Working with Harvard Library, we extracted, analyzed, and processed these volumes into an extensively-documented dataset of historic texts. This analysis covers the entirety of Harvard Library's collection scanned as part of that project, originally spanning 1,075,899 volumes written in over 250 different languages for a total of approximately 250 billion tokens. As part of this initial release, the OCR-extracted text (original and post-processed) as well as the metadata (bibliographic, source, and generated) of the 983,004 volumes, or 242B tokens, identified as being in the public domain have been made available. This report describes this project's goals and methods as well as the results of the analyses we performed, all in service of making this historical collection more accessible and easier for humans and machines alike to filter, read and use.