MX8 Blogs
Welcome to Our Inaugural Blog & New Peer Survey!
Welcome to our blog for the Mushiboshi Project! We are hoping to collect and analyze different aspects of our research and the work of our colleagues on topics that look at Preservation outside the box and around the world.
The project is growing but we need your help. Do you know of any ethnographic preservation practice at home, at work or in your community or abroad? We are reaching out to our peers to expand our list. Please take this short survey and let us know if we can contact you at a later time to learn more about your ‘Mushiboshi example.”
Latest Content:
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** Mushiboshi Project Survey**
Long Term Stewardship of Cultural Heritage in Institutions – Peer Survey
NOW EXTENDED UNTIL October, 15th 2017!
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“These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects…”
– King Lear: Act 1, Scene 2
I recently had a brief conversation with a colleague about how we need to reconsider what the nature of Preservation is. What are we really preserving by undertaking all kinds of activities that take so much planning, acquisition and practice of specialized skills and long-term financial commitment? It reminded me how the Mushiboshi Project first began by wondering what people used to do before Preservation began to take form as a professional field. What does it takes for something to survive the test of time, conflicts, neglect and the ravages of nature itself? What can we learn about what people chose to preserve?
MX8 Blog 09.27.17 Echoes of the Past at the the Manzanar War Relocation Camp in California.
Welcome Sign at the Manzanar War Relocation Camp
What to preserve is at the core of the latest MX8 blog. It is a report of a visit last summer by two of our Preservation graduate assistants, Jon Sweitzer-Lamme & Siobhan McKissic, to the Manzanar War Relocation Camp in California. This is a place that is recording a different type of man-made disaster where people were unfairly displaced from their normal lives and much of the material evidence has been removed once the events passed. How do you tell the story with what remains?
In recent weeks we have seen a series of natural disasters that are still taking a toll in the lives of the people in the areas affected. Of course the first priority is the preservation of human life, and the efforts of search and rescue and recovery, are all taking place at different phases and speed. Even though natural disaster happen all the time, and while we feel compassion and send aid, they do not really affect us until they land home.
Disasters did hit home for members of the Mushiboshi Project. Our own recent iSchool graduate Elizabeth Mayer is now the Preservation Librarian at Houston Public Library. Elizabeth is learning early in her career to deal with the effects of hurricane Harvey. This author is originally from Puerto Rico and is witnessing from afar the uncertainty of recovery in her native land and across the Caribbean islands after the historic ravages of hurricanes Irma and Maria. Let us not also forget the earthquakes in Mexico and the wildfires in the West of the US. I suppose that the one thing we must all produce more amongst are ourselves and others is resilience.
Disaster relief
If you would like to send help, here are some links with information on good places to donate:
- How to help Mexico & Puerto Rico: http://latinousa.org/2017/09/21/help-mexico-puerto-rico/
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It’s not just Puerto Rico: 6 other Caribbean island nations are in crisis after the hurricanes:
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/9/26/16367410/hurricane-maria-2017-puerto-rico-caribbean-barbuda-dominica-virgin-islands-cuba-st-martin - How to Help Hurricane Irma Victims (and How to Avoid Scams) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/us/hurricane-irma-help-donate.html?mcubz=0
- Here’s How you can help Libraries and Schools Affected by Hurricane Harvey: https://www.literacyworldwide.org
- Hurricane Harvey City Of Houston Employee Assistance Fund: http://houstonhealthfoundation.org/donate/coh-employee-relief-fund
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April 2017 MX8 Blog
Saving Books in Mongolia Will Schlaack explores the religious & cultural attitudes that help preserve books during uncertain times.
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January 2017 MX8 Blogs
The Story Is In The Journey – Our interview with Laila Hussein Moustafa about her newly published article and her research process.
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Use of saffron in the dye on religious texts can protect against fungus.
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Amate and the Preservation of Indigenous Identity
Reemerging the practice of creating and designing amate paper works, Latin American indigenous groups have been preserving their religious practices and their traditional artwork.