Announcing James W. Needham Chief Conservator for Special Collections, Pamela Spitzmueller
The Harvard University Library and the Harvard College Library are pleased to announce the arrival of Pamela Spitzmueller, the first James W. Needham Chief Conservator for Special Collections in the University Library and the College Library. Pamela will direct the work of the special collections conservation laboratory in the Weissman Preservation Center in Holyoke Center. The lab is dedicated to the treatment of rare books and maps, manuscripts, prints, drawings, and other materials that are rare, unique, or otherwise of great historical and artifactual value. Such holdings are among the hallmarks of Harvard's libraries, large and small.
"Harvard College Library is committed to ensuring that the rare and unique holdings in our collections are conserved and properly housed so that they will be available to future generations of researchers and students. I am pleased that a conservator of Pamela Spitzmueller's stature has joined our staff and confident that she will be key in developing an efficient and effective program for the care and conservation of our collections," said Nancy M. Cline, Roy E. Larsen Librarian for Harvard College.
After earning a degree with distinction and highest honors at the University of Illinois, Chicago, Ms. Spitzmueller began studying bookbinding in 1976 with renowned book conservator Gary Frost. During the course of twenty-two years of practice Ms. Spitzmueller has also trained with Anthony Cains, Director of Conservation at Trinity College, Dublin; Tom Albro and Barbara Meier-Husby at the Library of Congress; Chicago book conservator William Anthony; and Paul Banks, architect and first director of the only degree-granting graduate program in library preservation and conservation in the U.S. In 1979 Pamela received a National Endowment for the Humanities-sponsored fellowship in preservation and conservation hosted by Yale University. She has also received grants from the Kress Foundation and the National Museum Act to support studies in the U.S. and in England.
Ms. Spitzmueller comes to Harvard from the University of Iowa Libraries, where she was University Conservator and Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Art and Art History. Pam directed the work of the University of Iowa Libraries Conservation Department, where she secured a major grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to direct two 4-year apprenticeships in rare book conservation. On the same grant, she taught a series of advanced conservation workshops that attracted conservators from throughout the United States.
In the School of Art and Art History Pamela taught semester-long courses in Historical Book Structure and other subjects. She also served as guest lecturer for the University of Iowa Center for the Book, School of Library and Information Science, and Museum Studies program. Previous to her work at the University of Iowa, Ms. Spitzmueller was Rare Book Conservator at the Library of Congress, working mainly on early American, Hebraic, Islamic, and European books and manuscripts. Before that she trained at Chicago's Newberry Library, where she held several positions and ultimately became Rare Book Conservator.
Ms. Spitzmueller has lectured on a broad range of topics having to do with book history and conservation, ranging from theoretical (the aesthetics, ethics, and mechanics of book conservation) to historical and technical (book- and paper making and conservation). She has lectured, taught classes, and presented seminars and workshops at universities, cultural institutions, and at professional meetings throughout the United States and in Canada, London, and Italy. In addition, since 1991 Ms Spitzmueller has co-directed Paper and Book Intensive, an annual 2-week working session for practitioners and students in conservation, papermaking, and the book arts.
Recognized for the technical excellence and historical sensitivity of her conservation treatments, Pamela's replicas of historical book structures and her artists' books have been widely exhibited at libraries and art galleries including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, New York Center for Book Arts, the Boston Athenaeum, Grolier Club, Art Institute of Chicago, and the Barbican Centre in London.