May 2026 OhioDIG/OPC Joint Quarterly meeting
Thursday, May 7 · 10:00am – 12:00pm
Location:
Case Western Reserve University - Kelvin Smith Library
Main meeting will be held on the second floor in the Dampeer Room (on the left side of the hallway leading to the Hatch Special Collections Reading Room)
Hybrid Business Meeting: Zoom meeting details to come.
Theme: Preservation-minded Handling Through the Imaging Workflow
Parking:
Complimentary parking will be provided by the Preservation Services Department at KSL. Specific parking instructions for CWRU Lot 29 to come.
Schedule Overview:
- 9:00 – 10:00 am: OPC Business Meeting (all are welcome)
- 10:00 – 10:30 am: Coffee & Networking (coffee/tea and light snacks provided)
- 10:30 – 11:30 am: Presentations / Program / Announcements
- OPC Professional Development Grant Recipient Presentation - Jacob Stickel (10 minutes)
- Two presentations (20 minutes each)
- Rita Sausmikat and Dana Best-Mizsak, University of Akron - Digitizing fragile textiles requires balancing access with preservation. This session presents a case study of an 1880 weighted silk wedding dress from the Hower House Museum, a material prone to irreversible shattering . We will outline safe handling strategies used during imaging, including minimal handling, multi-person support, and the use of rigid and soft supports to prevent stress and distortion . The session also addresses environmental considerations and workflow challenges, offering practical guidance and lessons learned for safely digitizing delicate and at-risk collections.
- Jamye Jamison, Paper Conservator; Jamison Art Conservation - Documentation and conservation treatment go hand in hand, as part of the job of a conservator is to document their work in both written and visual form. If a fragile bound volume is slated for both conservation and digitization, bringing conservators into the process as early as possible to find the most opportune time to digitize the object can result in both better images and less potential damage to the object. A discussion of the conservation and digitization of two manuscripts will serve as an example of how to think of the two in tandem rather than as separate steps.
- Announcements and featured updates (OPC upcoming meetings and workshops, OhioDIG announcements)
- 11:30 am – 12:00 pm: Break / rearrange room / pick up lunch (return to KSL if you want to participate in round robin)
- 12:00 – 12:50 pm: Brown bag lunch/Round robin
- 12:50 – 1:00 pm: Walk to designated tour locations
- 1:00 pm: Tours begin
Participants will select one tour during registration; either one longer tour of the Allen Memorial Medical Library or shorter tours of the CMA facilities (one group will start in Conservation then go to Photography, and vice versa)
We hope to see you at the meeting! Please make sure to register by May 1.
For any further questions please contact OPC/OhioDIG hosts:
If you will be driving in the night before and need a hotel, the Glidden House is the best bet for proximity to CWRU as well as price. If you are in Cleveland, we will have an informal meetup at Jolly's Pizza at 7 PM on Wednesday, May 6th. Hope to see you there!
