Preservation of Library Materials SIG [PRESERV]
Biographies
[ Steven Bell | Margy Burn | Claudia Chemelo | Liz Ho | Alan Howell | Jan Lyall | Heather Mansell ]
Steven Bell
Assistant conservator, State Reference Library Preservation Team, Preservation Branch at the State Library of New South Wales, Steven Bell studied hand-bookbinding and book restoration at the Colchester
Institute of printing and binding from 1980-84. He was awarded the accolade of the best student for the four years. Steven worked in small hand-bookbinders in the U.K. for eight years. He moved to Australia in 1988 and has work in numerous hand-bookbinders
around the country, including Melbourne and Perth. Steven moved to Sydney in September of 1995 where he joined the Preservation team at the State Library of New South Wales. He has been involved in a microfilm quality control project at the Library for
over 12 months.
Margy Burn
Margy Burn is director, Australian Research Collections and Collection Services at the State Library of NSW. She has some twenty years experience as an Australiana specialist in state and university libraries.
Margy has represented the Council of Australian State Libraries on the Heritage Collections Committee for the last 3 years and has recently been appointed to its successor body, the Heritage Collections Council.
Claudia Chemello
Claudia completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1993 with majors in Archaeology and History. It was whilst studying archaeology that she became interested in conservation as a career and following her work experience in Egypt she joined the staff of
the Powerhouse Museum as Assistant Conservator. She worked there for over three years before taking up the position as Assistant Conservator at the State Library of New South Wales Preservation Branch in 1996.
Claudia's interest in historic book-binding structures has been sustained through her work at the library as well as her studies in Book restoration at Sydney Institute of Technology. Recently she returned from a visit to America where she studied Medieval Binding and hand manufacture of materials in a hands on workshop presented by Thompson Conservation Laboratory. She was the only participant from Australasia.
Elizabeth Ho
Elizabeth is currently acting director of the State Library of SA. As associate director, and deputy, of the State Library, Elizabeth has explored many of the major issues for collection managers in public institutions. Elizabeth also sits on the Panel
for assessment of community heritage grants.
What to collect and why, indigenous rights issues, how to manage donors, how to preserve and interpret collections; how to move towards the electronic future and the prospect of widespread digitisation of information; how to improve public access are among the many topics that confront the profession and for which there are not always straightforward answers.
As a senior library manager Elizabeth has worked to improve the perception and position of preservation issues within the State Library context and as a former member of the NPO, through the national preservation agenda.
Alan Howell
Alan Howell is manager of the Preservation Branch at the State Library of New South Wales, Convener of the Australian Council on Library and Information Services NSW Preservation Taskforce, editor of Preservation of Library Materials, newsletter
of the Australian Library and Information Association SIG for Preservation, and chair ACDP Technical Advisory Group.
Jan Lyall
The first part of my professional life was spent as a researcher in a number of areas including organic chemistry, clinical biochemistry and cytogenetics.
In 1978 I switched interests and studied to be a conservator. In 1980, on completion of the course I was employed at the National Library of Australia as a paper conservator and in 1985 was appointed to the position of Director, Preservation Services. In 1989 I was designated as the Director of the IFLA Preservation and Conservation Regional Centre for South-East Asia and the Pacific. In 1992 I was appointed as the Director of the newly established National Preservation Office (NPO) at the National Library of Australia. During 1995 and 1996 I conducted a number of tasks for the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme including collaborating with three Australians to prepare the guidelines for the programme and the carrying out of a world wide survey.
In early 1997 I was appointed to the position of director, National Initiatives and Collaboration at the National Library of Australia. This new branch incorporates the functions of the NPO, the Distributed National Collections Office and the International Relations section.
From the time I commenced working for the National Library of Australia, I have maintained a strong interest in preservation science. I now devote much time to issues associated with the preservation of digital information, particularly in the development of a national strategy for the preservation of documentary heritage material, including digital information.
Heather Mansell
Heather is preservation consultant in the Preservation Branch at the State Library of New South Wales. Heather studied the Conservation of Cultural Materials at the University of Canberra. Her previous work experience includes chief conservator of
Special Collections at the National Library in Canberra and manager of the Paper Laboratory at Artlab in Adelaide. Heather has special interests in adult learning, preservation of library collections and collection management.
