APHA National Conference "Saving the History of Printing"
New York City, October 10th - 12th
Saturday: day two
by Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher
Saving the History of Printing, the 33rd annual conference of the American Printing History Association, will address the preservation of both the materials and practices which are the primary sources of printing history. As the digital revolution continues its creative destruction, we are faced with saving not only physical materials like presses, type, and other equipment; manuals, catalogs and other printed material; and drawings and other archives, but the skills and knowledge to use and produce them.
Jill Cypher & Ray Nichols produced a broadside as a keepsake for all attendees of the conference. The piece was 15" x 22" and is a quote from Gardner LePoer, director of the Museum of Printing in Andover, Massachusetts. Copies are available from Lead Graffiti for $25 with proceeds going to the Printing Museum.
Michael Ryan, Director, Rare Book and Manuscript Library welcomed the group to Columbia University.
Mark Barbour (left) and Ethan Lipton (right), International Printing Museum, Carson, California: “The International Printing Museum: A Case Study in Preserving Printing’s History”
Johan de Zoete (right), Museum Enschedé, Haarlem, The Netherlands spoke on “The Paradox of Preservation Through Use”
Dennis Ichiyama (left), Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, Justine Nagan (right), Kartemquin Films, and Bill Moran (below), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis:“Typeface: Contemporary Perseverance and Historical Preservation at the Hamilton Wood Type Museum”
Dennis Ichiyama describing a specimen of rather large type (which had been produced in two pieces for ease of storage) from research he had done in Italy.
Justine Nagan showing one of Dennis's specimens of multi-color wood type.
David Shields, University of Texas, Austin in his talk “Preserving the Material Construction of 19th Century Wood Type” said that had Rob Roy Kelly's typeface collection at UT and some of it was "This big." And in the author's humble opinion, someone should give them a bigger Vandercook.
Kathleen Walkup, Mills College, Oakland, California: “ ‘Help! My Lockdown is Loose’ and Other Stories from the Teaching Trenches.”
Above Barbara Heritage, Rare Book School, University of Virginia, Charlottesville: “Collecting Litho Jam Jar Labels & Teaching Wood-Engraved Elephants: Rare Book School’s Printing Surfaces Collection” listens to David Shields.
Ah, lunch in New York sometimes just requires getting to the sidewalk.
Jane Siegel of Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library and a co-organizer of this year's APHA conference.
Sarah Bromage, Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland, and Scottish Archive of Print and Publishing History Records: “SAPPHIRE: Engaging People in Printing History.”
One person who kept to the schedule was Frank Romano, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, and Museum of Printing, North Andover, Massachusetts who spoke “Preserving Printing's Past.” Actually he couldn't be there so he sent an digital audio file and Gerald Cloud advances Frank's PowerPoint presentation. And in fact, it was a very nice presentation.
The final speaker was Rich Hopkins, American Typecasting Fellowship who spoke about “Saving Printing History Outside of the Box” while describing his collection of printing equipment which was monumental to say the least.
This was the author's favorite talk so he is included a few frames from the presentation.
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A walking tour of public typography, guided by Paul Shaw was scheduled for Sunday, but neither Jill nor I attended, but maybe we can find someone to give us the lowdown on how that went.
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