Description (de)
7th Kuopio Conference 2022: Review and Renew - Changing Strategies in Collection Management
Präsentation im Rahmen einer Veranstaltung am Freitag, dem 9. September 2022 in der Sky Lounge der Fakultät für Mathematik, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, 1090 Wien
Session 7. Zoitsa Gkinni and Nikolas Sarris: Conservation at the National Library of Greece - the Transition's Aftermath
Video vom Vortrag: https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:1612088
Abstract: The conservation of books and archives in cultural organizations such as Libraries and archives, secures the longevity of the cultural wealth of its collections for current and future generations. Imagine now, the role and impact that conservation would play in a once in a lifetime transfer project of about one million books of the National Library of Greece (NLG). In 2018, the National Library, with a history of nearly two centuries and significant collections, moved its headquarters to its new building at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre (SNFCC), a new landmark of Athens and one of its most celebrated cultural hubs. During a five-year preparation period, the Conservation Lab contributed to the successful collections’ transfer and installation. This paper codifies the Lab’s actions prior and after the collections’ transfer and extracts within a critical standpoint the main key lessons from the experience of the above transition from a collections’ conservation point of view, as well as the new opportunities and challenges emerging in the transition’s aftermath.
Zoitsa (Zoe) Gkinni is currently employed at the National Library of Greece, as a senior book and paper conservator, working on various projects, including the conservation of rare collections and manuscripts, collections transfer and exhibitions, preventive conservation, and research projects. In 2017 she was part of the management team for the transfer of the National Library of Greece to its new premises. In the past, she had been working at the Directorate of Conservation for Ancient and Modern Monuments, Hellenic Ministry of Culture. As head of the Paper conservation lab she organized and supervised conservation actions on various paper-based materials, such as manuscripts and printed codices, works of Art on paper, archival materials but also objects from mixed materials such as paper, leather and textile. She has also worked as a consultant on various projects in major international museums and designed and delivered a training workshop for UNESCO. She has an extended experience as an instructor and lecturer at the for the National Centre for Public Administration and Local Government, the University of West Attica and the National Kapoditrsian University.She graduated from the Department of Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art – University of West Attica, Greece and continued her studies in Camberwell College of Arts -The University of the Arts, London, with a Master of Arts in Conservation. In 2012 she was awarded a PhD from the Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean, Greece. She publishes and presents her work regularly in conferences and journals, and is a Fellow of the International Institute of Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.
Dr. Nikolas Sarris is a book and paper conservator at the National Library of Greece. He has been a lecturer of book and paper conservation at undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Greece and a book conservator at the British Library. He worked as the supervisor of the conservation laboratory at the monastery of St John Theologian, Patmos, Greece, where he also organized the “Patmos Workshops on Conservation and Historic Bookbinding”. He was a member of the St Catherine’s Library Conservation Project team since 2001 and the Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation for conservation and training projects at the National Library of Egypt, Cairo. He collaborated with the Ethio-SPARE project on the preservation and on-site conservation of Ethiopic manuscripts in Tigray, Ethiopia and with UNESCO on preservation training in libraries of Iraq. He has lectured widely on the topics of book conservation and archaeology of bookbinding. He received his PhD from the University of the Arts London on the study of tool decorated bookbindings from the Monastery of St Catherine in Sinai, Egypt.