BIOGRAPHY
Freelance book conservator, with a master’s degree in Cultural Heritage Conservation and Restoration at the University of Palermo (Italy) in 2015. From November 2017 to November 2018 was involved in a one-year project at the Palermo Astronomical Observatory as a national civilian service volunteer, dealing with a conservation project on its Historical Archive’s material. During 2019 has worked in conservation project and exhibition of some books of the Historical Library of the Astronomical Observatory.
ABSTRACT
Collection care at the historical library and archive of the Palermo Astronomical Observatory – start and developments.
Early in 2014 Prof. Stefana Milioto, then head of the Course in Conservation of Cultural Heritage, reported during a meeting of the Course’s staff, the interest showed by some of her colleagues from the Astronomical Observatory for the specialty in book conservation. As a consequence, a visit to the Observatory historical premises was organized and soon the collaboration between the Course and the Observatory to take care of their documentary heritage started when I was the book conservator in charge. It was an invaluable occasion for the Course to challenge the students and engage in a proper collection care activity, with the dual goal of teaching the students the modern approach to book conservation in collections and benefiting the Observatory’s extraordinary heritage.
In 2017, selected as a volunteer of the Italian Servizio Civile Nazionale, when asked to develop a conservation project for the documentary collections of the Palermo Astronomical Observatory, it was spontaneous to follow up on the previous experience started as a student there. After a careful planning, considering both the time allocated for the project (one year) and the needs of the collections, the work focused on the assessment and stabilisation of the Historical Archive’s materials, becoming the first preventive conservation project on INAF archives’ collection in Italy.
