Ms. Deborah Novotny

On February 15 and 17, 2011, a two-day open lecture on preservation and conservation by Ms. Deborah Novotny, Head of Collection Care at the British Library (BL), was held in the Tokyo Main Library. She delivered stimulating talks in front of an audience of over one hundred on both days, introducing an overview of the activities at the BL’s Collection Care department.

Before joining the BL, Ms. Novotny worked in the private sector as a bookbinder and launched her own business where she initially managed the Print Books Conservation studio. With her broad and professional experiences of over thirty years, she has lectured both nationally and internationally on preservation related topics.

In summarizing her career, Ms. Novotny has said ‘The role of Collection Care is fundamental to the changing needs of the BL and is currently undergoing a major internal transformation mainly as a consequence of the expanding digital agenda. I see my role as creating and steering the new policies needed to maintain and safeguard our ever-growing collections as well as making sure that we develop new expertise and have the right mix of skills in place to be able to address these emerging issues whilst also ensuring that more traditional skills are not overlooked.’

For the content of lectures at the NDL, please refer to the transcripts and slides below:
Lecture 1 (February 15)
“Preservation and Conservation Activities at the British Library: from original to digital”

• Transcript of the lecture [PDF Format, 170KB]
• Slides (Part1) [PDF Format, 1.93MB]
• Slides (Part2) [PDF Format, 988KB]

Lecture 2 (February 17)
“Stack Management and storage environment at the British Library”

• Transcript of the lecture [PDF Format, 196KB]
• Slides (Part1) [PDF Format, 983KB]
• Slides (Part2) [PDF Format, 982KB]
• Slides (Part3) [PDF Format, 972KB]

Note: Red numbers in transcripts correspond to slide numbers.

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