White Gloves and McDonald's Bags

Today, in Culture and Collections, we once again looked at printed materials. Today we moved onto screen printing and wallpapers.  We once again went over how to recognize different methods of printing.  What was funny, was that we were looking at the printing on a McDonalds bag and as we were holding it we were wearing our white archivist gloves, and passing it carefully from one person to the next, though really this was just a McDonalds bag you could get at any store.  

After looking at the McDonlads bag and finishing learning about basic prints we moved onto wallpapers, which were very interesting to study.  We discussed their origins, how to tell time periods, and methods of making.  The funny part was when we were holding a piece in our bare hands the instructor was like, "umm...since you dont have gloves on, i just wanted to let you know that you should wash you hands, because a lot of old wallpaper paints were made with toxics, green is notorious for having arsenic in it."  Well needless to say that was comforting.

But all and all it made for an interesting class today.

Productive Days

Normally, up here in the Cooperstown, we have Professional Seminars on Fridays.  Professional Seminars are days when guests, like different people who work in the museum field, come in and lecture for the day, telling us about their experiences.  Since this was the  first week of classes though, a professional seminar was not scheduled.  Thus, I received a day to be active.

There is nothing like actually being able to get up and moving in the morning and get out for a run.  Cooperstown is actually a beautiful town, with lots of cute and historic-looking streets to run down and soak up some fresh morning air, especially while the weather is still halfway decent.  I promise pictures at a future date, but its unfortunatley raining at the moment, so it is not the best of times to go out and retrace the running route.  

Besides the exercise and getting a few chores done, I also had the chance to go to the library and get some work done.  One of the assignments for next week that I wanted to get done today was for my Culture and Collections class, which involved finding a historic paper print and writing about it.  I decided to start in the library and wander the stacks.  While down in the basement I discovered an old New York register and almanac dating from 1831.  In the front of the book there was a lithograph of Albany's City Hall.  Take the old, well-worn book off the wall, I sat down and studied it for an hour, and tried to decide what story the picture was telling.  

After about an hour I finished up my writing and went t go print out some journal articles to read for my American Cultures class.  While CGP and SUNY Oneonta, have a great collection of online resources, I still found myself logging onto my UConn web account and looking up some journals that way.  I find that UConn's site is definitely more user friendly and also seems to have more resources readily available, but that;s probably because its a much bigger institution.    The UConn web log-in is a one time deal, you start the session by logging on and then you can navigate through different gated research sites, the Oneonta website, requires to you login every time you move to a different database, which is much more time consuming and my main issue.  Besides that, UConn's website is a little better formated and has easier interfaces established, so its much easier to find basic information quickly.  I found though Oneonta had a lot of what I was looking for the information was easier to get to on UConn's page.

Paper, Prints and More

Today, was the first day of our Culture and Collections class, which is a class the studies objects and their historical significance.  We started by learning about how to identify different paper and be able to place a piece of paper in  time.

Paper has been made different ways throughout time: mainly it has either been laid, which basically means hand-made or it has been woven (i.e made by a machine).  We learned today how to tell the difference between handmade paper and woven paper, based on the lines and characteristics of the paper itself.  Once you id how the paper is made it is easier to place it during a certain period of time, laid paper being older.

The second way we dated/id'd paper was based on the material it was made of.  Earlier on paper was actually made from linen and cotton fibers, which produce heavier and more mailable paper.  Wood pulp paper is a later invention which is more easily recognized because as it ages it turns brittle and yellows.

After we learned about the paper itself, when then learned about different ways that images were printed on the paper, whether in relief (i.e. woodcuts), intaglio (i.e copper plate etchings and engravings), or planographic (i.e litography).  We learned about the various ways these processes were done, how to distinguish between processes, and the dates that correspond to when the processes were popular.

I did not consider myself a material culture's person going into class today, but I can say that class was in fact very interesting.  It was interesting to finally be in a small class that we fully participate in and have a chance to spend most of the time to hands-on work.  The majority of the class was spent actually looking a different paper and prints and letting us actually hold them in our hands and identify the differences.  I can definitely say so far, one class in, grad school is pretty darn awesome.