Purchase Storage Furniture to Preserve Humanities Exhibits

FAIN: PG-50212-07

Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA 19119-1726)
Karl Krueger (Project Director: May 2006 to April 2008)

Purchase of exhibition cases and bookmounts to preserve materials on display at the library. The library's collections contain cuneiform tablets, illuminated manuscripts, and approximately 6,000 rare books related to biblical, theological, and Reformation studies as well as to the American Lutheran experience in the colonial era.

The Krauth Memorial Library (KML), following recommendations of the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts assessment, will purchase five exhibition cases and five horizontal butterfly bookmounts for its museum area. Since Brossman Learning Center opened on campus in Fall 2005, for the first time in its history, the library has a secure, dedicated exhibition space, equipped with climate control and fire suppression systems. Although environmental conditions now reflect current archival practices, not all exhibition cases and bookmounts meet ANSI standards. With NEH support, KML will purchase new display cases and replace wooden book supports with versatile archival butterfly mounts, thereby permitting recommended methods for displaying items from its vast humanities collections. Thus, KML can better care for valuable resources, such as rare books or 18th-century manuscripts, when it makes them available for the public exhibition.