The Sacramento Room

I’ve mentioned the Sacramento Room in a previous post, but today I had the great pleasure of getting a behind the scenes tour of the facilities. The Sacramento Room is located inside Sacramento’s Central Library and has been open for the last 15 years. It is the special collection of rare books in the Sacramento area. I have been emailing so many people these last few weeks I had to create a task list in my Google calendar to keep track of who I have and haven’t heard back from. The Sacramento Room was one of the first emails I sent off and I finally had the great opportunity today of meeting Amanda Graham, the archivist and special collections librarian for the Sacramento Room.

Beginning next week I’ll be a new intern for the Sacramento Room. Projects to include taking an inventory of the Book Arts Collection (BAC), researching local book conservators, creating exhibitions for several collections around the central library, and anything I can think of pretty much. Amanda explained there are many, many, many projects available to work on, as certain things have been put off for decades. As Amanda took me inside the vault and said “this is where you’ll be primarily working,” I did a little squeal on the inside. It was awesome in there. I mean, WAY awesome. Books near 500 years old, large maps, manuscripts, books in desperate need of loving repair and boxes that need organization of their amazing contents. I’m very excited about diving into all the projects the Sacramento Room needs help with. Once a week, for four hours, but once school starts I may need to rearrange some things around.

So as of right now, I am volunteering at San Francisco Center of the Book once a week, interning for the Sacramento Room, working full-time in retail, studying for the GRE (poorly), and trying to prep for chemistry. I’ll be taking Trigonometry, Italian and Chemical Calculations in January, split between two community colleges. I went through orientation at the Crocker Art Museum and need to work out volunteer dates with everything else.

I have also been reaching out to conservators, aspiring and established. I’ve contacted Karen Alkons of the Northern California Art Conservators, who was the first art conservator I had the pleasure of speaking with and was kind enough to answer all my questions. On Monday of this week, I was able to meet Heather Brown of Repair the Tear at her lecture at Sacramento State, who I also bombarded with questions and gained valuable information from. It’s so nice to have people to talk with who are passionate about the same things.

For others out there who are at the beginning of their journey into conservation I would love to hear more about how you are gaining experience and reaching out in your community.