As a February 19, 2014 New York Times article, “Behind the Smashing of a Vase” by Nick Madigan notes, Miami artist Maximo Caminero destroyed a vase by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei that was on display at the Perez Art Museum Miami in a protest against Miami museum policies. Caminero was arrested and charged with criminal mischief. The irony of this situation is that one of Weiwei’s earlier works involved the destruction of a vase. The difference in the situations seems to be that Weiwei owned the vase he destroyed and Caminero did not. As conservators should we not be troubled by the implication that ownership is what determines whether an object can or can’t be destroyed.
Month: February 2014
Associate Conservation Scientist, Yale University
Associate Conservation Scientist
Yale University
New Haven, CT
Requisition: 24121BR
www.yale.edu/jobs
Yale University offers exciting opportunities for achievement and growth in New Haven, Connecticut. Conveniently located between Boston and New York, New Haven is the creative capital of Connecticut with cultural resources that include two major art museums, a critically-acclaimed repertory theater, state-of-the-art concert hall, and world-renowned schools of Architecture, Art, Drama, and Music.
Position Focus:
In its continuing effort to support the conservation of cultural property through scientific research and innovation, the Art Conservation Research Center (ACRC), a part of the Center for Conservation and Preservation at Yale’s West Campus, seeks a full-time scientist to perform research into the effects of light on museum, library, and archival materials. The research will primarily involve the use and further development of the micro-fading technique pioneered at the ACRC. The development would include evaluating the limitations of the technique and establishing protocols for its application to photographic print materials and manuscript inks. Other investigations would explore the chemistry of light-induced color changes and the dark chemistry of light-sensitive residues in photographic prints. These investigations could become collaborations with other scientists at Yale, other universities, and museum laboratories. In addition to this laboratory research, this position will utilize the micro-fading tester to provide diagnostic services, examining Yale collection objects for their vulnerability to light damage. This position reports to the Director of the Art Conservation Research Center.
Required Education, Skills and Experience:
- Bachelor’s Degree in chemistry or related field and three years of laboratory research experience or equivalent combination of education and experience.
- Proven ability to perform scientific research in experimental physical or analytical chemistry or a related field.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and ability to work with others.
- Strong computer skills, with the ability to learn LabVIEW or other computer programming language for instrument control and data processing.
Preferred Education, Skills and Experience:
- Ph.D. in physical or analytical chemistry; experience developing computer interfaces for data acquisition and control.
- Experience performing scientific research on cultural property or natural history collection objects.
- Working knowledge of art history, studio art practice, and routine art conservation practices.
Salary and Benefits:
We invite you to discover the excitement, diversity, rewards and excellence of a career at Yale University. One of the country’s great workplaces, Yale University offers exciting opportunities for meaningful accomplishment and true growth. Our benefits package is among the best anywhere, with a wide variety of insurance choices, liberal paid time off, fantastic family and educational benefits, a variety of retirement benefits, extensive recreational facilities, and much more.
How to apply: Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Applications, consisting of a cover letter, resume, and the names and contact information of three professional references should be submitted by applying online at http://www.yale.edu/jobs. The STARS req. ID for this position is 24121BR. Please be sure to reference #24121BR in your cover letter.
Yale University considers applicants for employment without regard to, and does not discriminate on the basis of an individual’s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, status as a veteran, or national or ethnic origin; nor does Yale discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.
A Nod to the Monuments Men: The National Gallery of Art's New Exhibition
David Finley in his office at the National Gallery of Art. Finley was director of the Gallery from 1938-1956, and vice chairman of the Roberts Commission.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Gallery Archives
The officers who served in the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) program rescued masterpieces from Nazi thieves during the chaos of liberation. Prior to the war, six of these officers were associated with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and in later years three held important positions at the museum. Perhaps more important, even before the MFAA operation was established, the Gallery was the center of lobbying efforts to create such a program and later, in association with the Roberts Commission, worked tirelessly to support MFAA activities in the field.
“The Gallery is proud to have played such an integral role in the story of these real-life Monuments Men, ” said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. “These men—and women—worked to protect Europe’s cultural heritage at the height of World War II, ensuring its safety in the aftermath and returning works, when possible, to their rightful owners once peace and security were restored.”
From February 11 to September 1, 2014, the Gallery will showcase The Monuments Men and the National Gallery of Art: Behind the History, an archival display featuring World War II-era photographs, documents, and memorabilia, many never before exhibited. On view in the West Building Art Information Room, the display will demonstrate the seminal role the National Gallery of Art played in the creation of the MFAA, the Roberts Commission, and the experiences of real-life MFAA officers.
On March 16 at 2:00 p.m., the Gallery will host the lecture The Inside Story: The Monuments Men and the National Gallery of Art detailing its relationship with the Monuments Men of the MFAA. Speakers will include Maygene Daniels, chief of Gallery Archives; Gregory Most, the Gallery’s chief of library image collections; and Lynn H. Nicholas, author of The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War. Faya Causey, head of the academic programs department, will moderate. The event is free and open to the public and the audience is invited to participate in an open discussion afterwards.
The Monuments Men Film: A Story about Real-Life Heroes
The film The Monuments Men, based on Robert M. Edsel’s book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, dramatizes the efforts and successes of an unlikely group of aesthetes in uniform. In peacetime, many were art historians, curators, archivists, and librarians who staffed cultural institutions such as National Gallery of Art, which was in its infancy when the war broke out.
The Gallery sent its most fragile and irreplaceable objects to Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina less than a year after it opened. They remained there until 1944. Meanwhile, the National Gallery in London had long since stripped its walls and secured its most important works in Welsh coal mines. An exhibition of late 18th and 19th century French masterpieces organized by the Louvre was left stranded in South America; through the efforts of Walter Heil, director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the show was resuscitated for a tour of museums in the United States, including the National Gallery of Art, where the collection remained from 1942 until the end of the war.
Troubles in Europe left the cultural communities in both the United States and abroad disquieted at best, panicked at worst. Amid the air of uncertainty and uproar that engulfed academics, artists, historians, and museum professionals alike, the American Defense–Harvard Group—established by university faculty and personnel—began working with the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) to devise plans for protecting cultural property in Europe. Gallery Director David Finley and Chief Justice and Gallery Chairman Harlan F. Stone became the groups’ spokesmen in Washington, an advocacy that ultimately led to the formation of a government organization to protect and conserve works of art and other cultural treasures during the war.
In December 1942, Stone took their proposition to President Franklin D. Roosevelt who, in turn, created the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in Europe. Later the Commission’s scope was expanded to include all war areas. He appointed Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts as chairman; hence, the new group became known as the Roberts Commission.
Behind the Scenes: The Roberts Commission at the National Gallery of Art
Throughout the war, the Gallery provided offices and staff for the Roberts Commission and was deeply involved in its activities: Finley served as vice-chairman and de facto head; the Gallery’s Secretary and General Counsel Huntington Cairns was secretary; Chief Curator (and Finley’s eventual successor as director) John Walker was a special advisor.
In its nascent days, the Commission sought to formalize the MFAA program within the War Department and to recommend would-be Monuments Men. Later the Commission sought to feed information to military strategists, including the locations of churches with spires tall enough to imperil Allied bombers and targets that should be spared because of their cultural importance.
True stories from the Frontline: Lieutenant Charles P. Parkhurst and WAC Captain Edith Standen
The MFAA’s officers bravely followed frontline troops into war zones. Among them were Lt. Charles P. Parkhurst, Jr., the Gallery’s former registrar and eventual assistant director, and Women’s Army Corps (WAC) Capt. Edith Standen, secretary to the Widener Collection, the great gift of donor Joseph P. Widener that had only recently been installed in the museum’s galleries.
“The finding [of looted art] was either easy or accidental, ” Parkhurst told a Gallery oral historian 45 years after his service in the MFAA. “Usually we had clues from shippers, from local residents who said, ‘well, there’s something funny about that castle.’ ”
Chasing one such rumor, Parkhurst happened upon a full-sized cast of Rodin’s Burghers of Calais (1884–95), which German soldiers en route to Baden had been forced to abandon on a mountainside. Parkhurst continued up the mountain to the castle at its peak and found room upon room of plundered art. “The owner of the castle gave me a cup of tea and a list of the objects. [He] said ‘I’ve been wondering how long it would take you guys to get here!'”
For her part, Edith Standen dug up an antique bronze cannon with her own bare hands. The Nazis had taken the priceless mortar from Paris—where it had been since Napoleon captured it more than a century before—and buried it in Stuttgart shortly before the Allies arrived. “I was delighted to [have been] able to give the cannon back, ” she later said, though the gesture was tinged with controversy. Some felt that the cannon should remain in Stuttgart because that was where it had been cast in the late 16th century. “Of course [the idea] was rubbish, ” she said. “It had been taken from the Musée de l’Armée. It went back to the Musée de l’Armée.”
Similar disputes followed, particularly in the wake of the War Department’s decision to send 202 masterpieces from Berlin museums to the National Gallery of Art for safekeeping. The paintings included works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Tintoretto, El Greco, Daumier, and Botticelli. Amid murmurings that the Gallery was claiming these masterpieces as the spoils of war, Finley conferred with Stone, who approved the measure. “If the government asks us to take care of these paintings, ” he said. “We must do it. It is a duty. ”
The 202—as the Berlin paintings were popularly called—arrived in Washington in 1945 under military escort and remained there until 1948. The Gallery put the 202 on view with very little ceremony, but within hours, visitors flooded in. For 40 days, the line often wrapped around the block. The exhibition drew in 964,970 people, an unprecedented number at the time. Everyone, it seemed, was talking about these works or trying to catch a glimpse, from President Harry S. Truman, who dropped in twice, to Clara Bryant Ford (the wife of Henry Ford) and John D. Rockefeller. All 202 works were returned to Germany: the most fragile paintings went directly back, while the others were sent on a tour of a dozen cities first.
A Continuing Legacy
The Roberts Commission also worked with the Office of Strategic Services to create a special unit to investigate and document Nazi art appropriation. Just as Hitler’s officers took meticulous pains to record their own wartime activities, MFAA officers and the Roberts Commission collected archival records of Nazi acts of aggression and Allied efforts to protect and return stolen art.
From its first meeting in August 1943 to its last in June 1946, the Roberts Commission upheld the spirit of the National Gallery of Art’s mission and its founding benefactor, Andrew W. Mellon, who had funded construction of the West Building, donated his personal collection, and created a sizeable endowment to secure the Gallery’s future. As Roosevelt so eloquently said upon accepting Mellon’s gift to the nation:
“Great works of art…belong so obviously to all who love them—they are so clearly the property not of their single owners but of all men everywhere. The true collectors are the collectors who understand this—the collectors of great paintings who feel that they can never truly own, but only gather and preserve for all who love them, the treasures that they have found.”
Conservation Round Table at the Center for Italian Modern Art
Conservation Round Table at the Center for Italian Modern Art
On Monday, February 24th, 2014, the Center for Italian Modern Art will host a conservation roundtable for conservators, curators, conservation scientists, and other interested participants to consider questions of technique and conservation in Italian 20th-century art. The program will be focused on the subject of CIMA’s inaugural installation: the Futurist Fortunato Depero, whose paintings, sculptures, tapestries, collages, and other works on paper will be on view at CIMA until June 28. The program is part of CIMA’s ongoing efforts to support scholarship and advance dialogue around Italian modern art.
Gianluca Poldi, a conservation scientist from Visual Art Centre, Università di Bergamo, will lead a technical tour of the Depero installation and will share the insights he has gained from his study of a number of the works in the Mattioli Collection. He has been building a database of original materials used by Depero, which can help serve as a baseline in the discussion of the technical investigation, conservation and restoration of Italian art from the 20th century. Furthermore, attention to Depero’s unique materials creates a methodological framework in which to consider the impressive problem of fakes in Italian modern art.
http://www.italianmodernart.org/upcoming-events/
For questions or additional information, please contact info@italianmodernart.org
DRAFT SCHEDULE
9:30 AM:
Check-in and coffee
9:45:
Welcome
Heather Ewing
Executive Director, Center for Italian Modern Art
Introduction to the Depero Installation
Laura Mattioli
President, Center for Italian Modern Art
10:00:
Technical Tour of Depero Installation
Gianluca Poldi
Conservation Scientist; Visual Art Centre, Università di Bergamo
11:30:
Roundtable Conversation with all Participants
1:00 PM:
Conclusion / Adjournment
Director of the Artist Initiative, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will undertake the Artist Initiative, a five-year, curatorially-driven, artist-centric, contemporary art collection research project serving all four collecting curatorial departments within the museum (Architecture & Design, Media Arts, Painting & Sculpture, and Photography). Funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this initiative will be led by a new senior manager, the Director of the Artist Initiative, http://www.sfmoma.org/about/press/press_news/releases/983. SFMOMA invites applications for this unique and rewarding role that will provide an exciting opportunity for the right individual to steer highly committed and expert museum staff in completing five research engagements involving artists, scholars, and other experts within the museum field.
SFMOMA is dedicated to making the art of our time a vital and meaningful part of public life. A period of expansion, transformation and growth is now well underway to enable the museum to realize its ambitions, of which the Artist Initiative is a key component. This director will oversee collaborations between artists and museum staff to explore issues of preservation, materials and presentation of works of art.
Successful candidates are likely to have more than ten years’ experience as a curator, a conservator or a museum educator. They must have demonstrated experience working with artists and excellent research skills. Successful candidates must have expertise in complex project management and superlative communication skills. It will be important for the director to build and enhance collaborative working relationships across the organization as well as with allied academic and university project participants. He/she will also play a formative role in activating new spaces in the expanded museum that have been designed to sustain these modes of collaborative collection research. The director will ensure that the initiative’s research results are shared generously via all of the museum’s content delivery streams, in gallery, online and in print. The director must have an affinity with SFMOMA’s mission and a real desire to support the overall aims of the museum through this role. A Manager of the Artist Initiative will assist the director in this work.
This is a term position, ending June 30, 2019.
Under the supervision of the Director of Collections and Conservation, the Director of the Artist Initiative is responsible for the development and management of all aspects of the five artist engagements of the Initiative, http://www.sfmoma.org/about/press/press_news/releases/983. In this capacity, he/she encourages SFMOMA’s work with artists and their estates through oversight of curatorially-driven, interdisciplinary, contemporary art collection research and dissemination of research results via SFMOMA’s content delivery platforms.
As a department head within the museum’s Collections Division, the Director will work with other division department heads (Library/Archives, Conservation, Registration and Collections Information and Access) to envision, implement and refine integrated, museum-wide programs of stewardship and research for contemporary art. In this capacity, the Director of the Artist Initiative will assume programmatic oversight for the museum’s Collections Center, encouraging and sustaining vital and meaningful study and learning opportunities with the SFMOMA collection at this venue while also upholding the policies and practices reflecting the highest standards of care.
ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Oversees all aspects of the Artist Initiative including: 1) facilitating the work of the five artist engagements; 2) supporting collaborative collection research at SFMOMA; 3) hosting scholarly colloquia with invited outside experts; and 4) ensuring the generous dissemination of research results via the museum’s content delivery platforms.
- Envisions and implements dynamic collection programming possibilities at the Collections Center while working with Registration and Facilities & Operations to ensure safe use, handling, security and storage of the fine art collections.
- Collaborates with the departments of Collections Information and Access, the Library/Archives, and Content Strategy and Digital Engagement to develop documentation and dissemination plans that contribute to the museum’s exhibition, education, community, and online programs. In this capacity, the Director will also work with the curators, and the departments of education, exhibitions, registration, installation, conservation, development marketing and finance.
- Contributes actively in the development and improvement of integrated systems of collection information and knowledge to serve the museum’s mission.
- Models highly collaborative modes of operating through fluid communication with staff and respect for the diverse expertise essential to an art museum.
- Develops and implements the Artist Initiative budget.
- Manages critical and periodic evaluation of this program in order to improve and sustain it in perpetuity.
- Serves as a liaison to museum and academic communities regarding inquiries into the Artist Initiative.
- Acts as spokesperson for the Artist Initiative and the Museum as needed.
- Performs other related duties as assigned.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
Education and Training: Post-graduate degree in Art History, Art Conservation or Education. PhD desired.
Work Experience: 10 years of related experience.
Skills and Abilities: Knowledge of modern and contemporary art, art conservation and collection management. Superb writing, speaking and diplomatic skills essential. Demonstrated experience working with artists. Demonstrated ability to lead and facilitate collaborative working teams and complex projects. Ability to work effectively under pressure and meet deadlines. Strong organizational skills a must: ability to prioritize and organize complex documentation and multiple activities, as well as coordinate the activities of staff members around a common project. Ability to communicate effectively with donors, artists, Museum staff, colleagues, museum board members, and the general public, whether in person, on the telephone, or in writing. Reading and writing proficiency in a language additional to English is desirable.
WORKING CONDITIONS:
Physical Demands: Must be able to visually inspect work.
Special Environmental Factors: Close office setting.
Interested candidates should apply online at http://sfmoma.snaphire.com/?job=15879AIC .
NO PHONE CALLS, PLEASE!
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art encourages people of color, residents of SOMA, and other San Francisco residents to apply. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity.
Associate Conservator of Objects, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Since its founding in 1935, SFMOMA has championed innovative and challenging contemporary art through active exhibition and collection programs. A current expansion project – opening in 2016 – will create an additional 100,000 sq. ft. of gallery and public space, highlighting the Fisher Collection, one of the world’s foremost private collections of contemporary art. New conservation and collections spaces in the expansion will underpin the museum’s long-standing commitment to working closely with living artists.
Under the Deputy Head of Conservation, the Associate Conservator of Objects will be responsible for all aspects of conservation treatment of sculpture, decorative art objects, furniture, and architectural models in the collection. As necessitated by the art of our time, the conservator will work collaboratively with other departmental conservators in the care of objects of mixed media, as well as a range of other museum colleagues. Engaging with artists, their studio assistants or estates in the documentation and care for their work is a fundamental responsibility of this position.
Successful candidates will have graduated from a recognized conservation training program with a specialization in objects, direct experience working with living artists, and a minimum of three years work history. They will have knowledge of modern and contemporary art and an ability to apply the philosophies of modern and contemporary art aesthetics to the procedures of conservation. The ability to collaborate creatively and communicate clearly in writing and conversation with other conservators, museum staff, colleagues and the public is essential.
Interested candidates should apply online at http://sfmoma.snaphire.com/?job=15860AIC
NO PHONE CALLS, PLEASE!
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art encourages people of color, residents of SOMA, and other San Francisco residents to apply. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity.
What happens to meaning or integrity when an architectural element is separated from its context
When looked at together, two recent articles in The New York Times inspire one to think about the question of how meaning and integrity are related to context and how they are affected when an architectural element or interior decoration is separated from that context. In the February 13, 2014 article, “Building May Be Lost, But Its Façade Will Live (In Storage Someplace)”, David W. Dunlap notes that the sixty-three cast copper-bronze panels comprising the façade of the American Folk Art Museum are to be dismantled and stored although they could be re-erected on a free-standing armature in the same location. He quotes architect Elizabeth Diller as saying, “Facades and buildings and their organization, their logic, are tied entirely together. You either have the integrity of a building with all its intelligence and connected ideas, or you don’t.” In the February 4, 2014 article, “At Four Seasons, Picasso Tapestry Hangs on the Edge of Eviction”, David Segal quotes architecture critic Paul Goldberger saying about the Picasso curtain “Le Tricorne” that was to be removed from its place in the Seagram Building, “It can’t be treated like just another picture that happens to be hanging on that wall and could be interchanged with something else. By virtue of years of being there, it has the effective status of being part of the architecture even if it’s not part of the architecture.”
Health & Safety Committee Call for Student Member
Are you concerned about the health and safety of yourself and others? Do you want to get involved in AIC and be part of a great team? Will you be enrolled in a graduate conservation program during the upcoming academic year?
The Health & Safety Committee of AIC is seeking a new student member to serve a 2-year term (2014-2016).
Health & Safety is a very active committee, with members contributing articles and guides to the AIC News and AIC Wiki; hosting an informational booth, workshops, and a full day of sessions at the Annual Meeting; and regularly addressing questions and issues related to health and safety in our field.
Membership parameters:
- All H&S Committee members are AIC members
- Members serve a 4-year term with an option to serve a second term if other members approve. Student members serve a single, 2-year term.
- There are 10 H&S member positions, including Chair, 8 professional members, and 1 student member; at least one member is a health professional.
- The members are supported by an AIC board liaison, the Collections Care Member, and a staff liaison, the Membership and Meetings Director.
Student member position description:
The student member will share with the other committee members the responsibility to plan for AIC Annual Meeting activities, attend meetings/conference calls, contribute to H&S projects, and represent the organization. This position will also offer the student member an opportunity to act as the liaison between H&S and the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network. The ideal candidate will have a strong interest in health and safety issues, and a desire to participate and learn from the more experienced members of the committee.
For more information on the H&S Committee, please visit our website: www.conservation-us.org/healthandsafety. If you would like details on the duties and commitment of the position, please contact current student member Heather Brown, hbrown@udel.edu. Potential candidates should submit a resume or CV and statement of interest to Chair Kathy Makos, kamakos@verizon.net, by April 1, 2014.
AIC Sustainability Committee Seeks Student Member
Term: June 2014 – May 2016
The committee aims to:
• Provide resources for AIC members and other caretakers of cultural heritage regarding environmentally sustainable approaches to preventive care and other aspects of conservation practice. Resources may be provided via electronic media, workshops, publications and presentations.
• Define research topics and suggest working groups as needed to explore sustainable conservation practices and new technologies.
Membership Parameters:
• The committee is comprised of 8 voting members.
• Members serve for two years, with an additional two-year term option.
• One member is a conservation graduate student.
• One member serves as chair for two years.
• During the second year of the chair’s term, another member serves as chair designate, assisting with and learning the chair’s responsibilities.
• As needed, corresponding (non-voting) members and non-AIC experts will be invited to guide research on special topics.
Tasks:
• Telephone conference calls with the committee members- about once a month.
• Research, write and edit the AIC Wiki Sustainable Practices Page.
• Participate in researching and writing any group presentations, publications, blogs, and social media posts.
• Collaborate with related committees, networks, and working groups.
• Serve as liaison between the Sustainability Committee and the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network.
Please submit a statement of purpose (1 page maximum length) and your resume by March 31, 2014 to Betsy Haude, Committee Chair.
Contact:
Betsy Haude
mhaud@loc.gov
AIC Sustainability Committee Seeks a New Professional Member
Term: June 2014 – May 2016
The committee aims to:
• Provide resources for AIC members and other caretakers of cultural heritage regarding environmentally sustainable approaches to preventive care and other aspects of conservation practice. Resources may be provided via electronic media, workshops, publications and presentations.
• Define research topics and suggest working groups as needed to explore sustainable conservation practices and new technologies.
Membership Parameters:
• The committee is comprised of 8 voting members.
• Members serve for two years, with an additional two-year term option.
• One member is a conservation graduate student.
• One member serves as chair for two years.
• During the second year of the chair’s term, another member serves as chair designate, assisting with and learning the chair’s responsibilities.
• As needed, corresponding (non-voting) members and non-AIC experts will be invited to guide research on special topics.
Tasks:
• Telephone conference calls with the committee members- about once a month.
• Research, write and edit the AIC Wiki Sustainable Practices Page.
• Participate in researching and writing any group presentations, publications, blogs, and social media posts.
• Initiate and support committee projects to increase awareness of sustainable practices in the conservation community.
• Collaborate with related committees, networks, and working groups.
Please submit a statement of purpose (1 page maximum length) and your resume by March 17, 2014 to Betsy Haude, Committee Chair.
Contact:
Betsy Haude
mhaud@loc.gov