Geokit: Building Map Software Out of Pieces of Paper
Speaker: Omar Rizwan
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Date/Time: October 19, 2021, 10am PST / 1pm EST/ 7pm CEST
Description: Geokit is map software – a bit like Google Maps or Apple Maps – that Omar Rizwan built at Dynamicland, a non-profit research lab that is making a new sort of computer, one that occupies a whole building in the real world. In Dynamicland, you don’t need your laptop, monitor, keyboard and mouse; you instead compute entirely by manipulating real objects (pieces of paper, usually). Dynamicland is intended to be a provocative alternative vision of what computing could be like.
Speaker Information: Omar Rizwan is interested in new computer interfaces and new ways of programming computers, ways that learn from the openness and richness and flexibility of the physical world. He has worked on a novel physical computing system at Dynamicland. Omar lives in Oakland, California. See: https://omar.website/
Before and Beyond Pop-up Books: Storytelling through Materials and Design
Speaker: Jacqueline Reid Walsh
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Date/Time: November 11th, 2021, 8am PST/11am EST/5pm CEST
Description: This talk discusses affordances in different kinds of historical (17th -19th centuries) and contemporary interactive books. Jacqueline Reid-Walsh will share her analysis of how children are enabled to be interactors by the way the words, images and movable components convey the story in these books. Jacqueline’s talk will focus on both early turn-up books – a long-standing fascination of hers – and contemporary movable board books, a newer area she is researching. To begin this exploration, she will show a short power-point about the history of movable books. then discuss more explicitly how a child enables a book’s enactment through the affordances of design, format and materials. Paperology members are invited to bring examples, especially of contemporary movable board books, to share in the conversation following Jacqueline’s presentation.
Speaker Information: Jacqueline Reid-Walsh is an Associate Professor at Pennsylvania State University. Cross-appointed between the Departments of Curriculum and Instruction and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, she teaches courses on children’s books and girl cultures. She is a specialist in children’s and girl’s literature, culture and media past and present having published on a range of topics from contemporary children’s popular culture to 17th century turn-up books. Her latest book is Interactive Books: Playful media before Pop-ups (Routledge: 2018). Also, she has a digital archive and blog project housed with Penn State University Libraries – http://sites.psu.edu/play/
Madness: Reading Hamlet in the Time of Covid-19 and other Plagues
Speaker: Emily Martin
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Date/Time: December 20th, 8am PST/11am EST/5pm CEST
Description: Emily Martin will share her ongoing project, Madness: Reading Hamlet in the Time of Covid-19 and other Plagues, which began with her making a series of paper puppets and copying out the play Hamlet during her time in isolation as calming activities. The project, as it has emerged over time, is an accordion book with attached printed and collaged puppet figures of the characters from Hamlet. The text and puppets interact and interfere with each other during reading. The pages of the accordion will have a combination of letterpress printed texts from the play, from current events, and from Emily’s own writings over the last year and a half.
Speaker Information: Emily Martin has been exploring the relationship between format and content for many years in her studio work. She also teaches bookbinding and paper engineering classes at the University of Iowa Center for the Book, and is part of the leadership of the Movable Book Society. Martin often combines letterpress printed images and text with movable and/or sculptural book forms using a variety of traditional and experimental techniques. She has held artist’s residencies at a number of book centers, most recently as printer in residence at the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford, England in 2018. Martin lives and rides her bicycle in Iowa City, Iowa.
A Hidden Gem: The History of the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking
Speaker: Virginia Howell
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Date/Time: Tuesday, January 25th, 2021 at 10am ET
Description: The Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking is home to approximately 100,000 artifacts chronicling the history of paper and papermaking. Museum founder and paper historian Dard Hunter considered the museum to be his greatest contribution to the knowledge of papermaking as a craft. See some of the treasures of the collection, hear our history, and learn how the museum integrates into a major research institution.
Speaker Information: Virginia Howell is the director of the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking at Georgia Tech. A museum professional with over twenty years in the field, Howell has a degree in history and American Studies from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and a master’s degree in American history from the University of Mississippi. Howell served as Education Curator at the Paper Museum for 7 years before being named director in 2019.
Queer Papers
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Speaker: Michele Schwartz
Day/Time: February 21, 2022 at 1pm EST
Description (sneak peek): Co-director of the Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada archive, Michele Schwartz will discuss the collections at the LGLC archive such as two books by Don McLeod that chronicle the liberation movement in Canada, which form the backbone of the archive. The archive has many other materials which Michele will share with attendees: queer zines, magazines, newspapers, and photographs.
Speaker Information:
- Michelle’s page: https://www.lackingauthoritycontrol.com/
- LGLC archive page: https://lglc.ca/
Astrologia by Ottavio Pisani: conservation issues of an oversized movable book
Speakers: Irene Cristofari
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Date/Time: March 30th, 2022 from 10:00-11:30 EST
Description: Astrologia is a scientific treatise written by Ottavio Pisani and printed in 1613. It is a rare example of an oversized movable book with astronomical plates. Most of the plates consist of different overlying rotating paper discs (volvellae), useful for astronomical calculations. The copy belonging to the Casanatense Library in Rome has recently undergone conservation treatments at ICPAL, providing a great opportunity to study this kind of artifact for the first time. The first point conservators focused on was learning how to name and describe all the different parts of the volume. The second aim was to study how this artifact was produced also by making comparison with a color copy of the same book owned by the Galileo Museum in Florence. All the information acquired made the conservation treatment possible, especially reassembling all the volvellae that were detached from the volume. Furthermore, due to the big size of the book, conservators tried to develop guidelines for its safe handling and use.
Speaker Information: Irene Cristofari is a conservator graduated in 2015 at the ICR – Istituto Centrale del Restauro with a specialization in conservation of ceramics, glass, metals and archeological organic materials. Since 2018, she has been working as a Senior Conservator for the Italian Ministry of Culture – ICPAL Conservation Department dealing with conservation of paper, books and related materials.
The Current State and Future of the Pulp and Paper Industry
Speaker: Chris Luettgen
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Date/Time: Wed, April 20, 2022, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM EDT
Description: What does the future hold when it comes to the pulp and paper industry, which seems to still persist in on-shore manufacturing jobs?
The desire for communication of concepts, ideas, religious beliefs and stories has been rooted in humankind throughout history. The invention of paper, over 2000 years ago, spread these concepts to the masses. It was through industrialization and mechanization that the proliferation of paper-based communication made it economical for paper to become ubiquitous in society. Now we have seen the digital age take its toll on some segments of the paper industry; however, others continue at high demand, and in some cases with excellent margins. What does the future hold when it comes to this industry that seems to still persist in on-shore manufacturing jobs? We will touch on some opinions and projections of the next steps of the industry such as bio-based barrier chemistries, nanocellulosic materials and biorefining technologies.
Speaker Information : Chris Luettgen has 25 plus years of industry experience, with Scott Paper and Kimberly-Clark Corp., where he most recently served as head of North American Innovation at the Kimberly-Clark Professional business sector. He has held positions in product development and innovation as well as in capital project management and manufacturing facility leadership. For several years, Luettgen has served on the Georgia Tech Renewable Bioproducts Institute Industry Board of Advisors, and as the Chairman of the Board of the Technical Association of the Pulp & Paper Industry (TAPPI). He earned his bachelor’s degree in Paper Engineering at Western Michigan University (’85), his master’s degree at the Institute of Paper Chemistry, Appleton, WI (’87), and his Ph.D. in Surface Chemistry at the Institute of Paper Science and Technology – now the Renewable Bioproducts Institute at Georgia Tech (’91).
He rejoined Georgia Tech in November 2014 as a Professor of the Practice in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Associate Director of Pulp, Paper, Tissue and Packaging at RBI. He also serves as the Director of the undergraduate Pulp and Paper Certificate Program and its Foundation. Areas of research interest include: Recycling; renewable cellulosic feedstocks; replacing fossil-based products with bio-based materials; commercialization of nanocellulosic materials in consumer and packaging products; Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0; tissue/towel manufacturing and converting; and manufacturing leadership / operational excellence.