PITTSBURGH, Pa. – Discover how to preserve and protect cherished family heirlooms at Preservation Fair 2002, “Saving Your Family Treasures,” Feb. 23 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The Preservation Fair is free with museum admission.
The Preservation Fair will encourage visitors to learn how to protect and preserve precious family heirlooms, collectibles, books, photographs, and more. Visitors are also welcome to bring a family treasure and discuss preservation options with the experts. Free take-home preservation information will be available. No appraisals of value for objects will be provided during the event.
Demonstrations. Included at no additional charge will be four brief talks and several demonstrations. All exhibits and demonstrations will take place in Sculpture and Architecture Halls. The talks will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Carnegie Lecture Hall.
Four speakers will discuss the importance of preserving our personal histories as a means of preserving a region’s cultural heritage. These include Dennis East, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh, Ron Baraff, Rivers of Steel Heritage Area, and Richard Cox, Department of Library and Information Science, University of Pittsburgh.
Featured speaker. The featured speaker is Andy Carroll at 1 p.m. Carroll, 32, is the author of three New York Times bestsellers, including his most recent book, “War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars.”
“War Letters” features 200 never-before-seen letters from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and even the fighting in Somalia and Bosnia.
“This event will give people practical information on how to preserve cherished objects from their family’s past,” said Berriadene Callery, Carnegie Museum of Natural History librarian. “The most important thing you will leam is what not to do.”
Conservators from Carnegie Museum of Art, the Andy Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, University of Pittsburgh Libraries and area preservation professionals will be providing basic preservation tips. They will discuss how to protect photos from normal and artificial light, store and display quilts and samplers, and why the bindings of family bibles should not be repaired with adhesive tape in response to visitor questions.
Admission to Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Preservation Fair is $8 for adults, $5 for senior citizens, $5 for children ages 3-18 and full-time students with ID, and free to children under age 3 and Carnegie members.
For more information, call the Carnegie Museum of Natural History at 412-622-3131 or visit the “Saving Your Family Treasures” Web site at www.pitt.edu/~olcpwg/presfair.html or the museum Web site at www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmnh.
