There is a new email address for ALL MAAFS Annual Meeting related business. Please use maafsmtg@gmail.com to reach meeting chair Cassandra Burke. The maafs@comcast.net email address is no longer in use.

2010 Annual Meeting Evaluations

The 2010 MAAFS Meeting Planning Committee would appreciate your feedback for this year's meeting. Meeting and workshop evaluations are now online. Please take a moment to give us your opinion!

Workshop Evaluation
General Meeting Evaluation

2011 Annual Meeting Information

May 23-27, 2011

Keynote Speaker:

Fenella G. France, Ph.D., MBA, FAIC

Spectral Imaging for Preservation Forensics of Historic Founding Documents at the Library of Congress

On the weekend of the 4th of July, 2010, news reports highlighted recent studies of the original words of Thomas Jefferson in drafting the US Declaration of Independence. The Washington POST noted in citing digital evidence of Thomas Jefferson’s erasure of the word "subjects": "Using a modified version of the kind of spectral imaging technology developed for the military and for monitoring agriculture, research scientists teased apart the mystery and reconstructed the word that Jefferson banished in 1776." The Library of Congress has developed methodologies and adapted spectral imaging techniques to reveal information from degraded ancient texts and objects. Spectral imaging systems have been used for forensic imaging and remote sensing, as a powerful tool for non-invasive, non-contact collection of chemical information about the material composition of artifacts. Significant artifacts studied with this system include not only Jefferson's handwritten draft of the Declaration of Independence, but also Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the Waldseemüller 1507 World Map and the L'Enfant Plan of Washington D.C. Spectral imaging has recovered lost scientific and societal knowledge that formed the basis of modern society. This non-invasive characterization of materials provides access and enhances previously undiscovered non-visible and visible information in high resolution digital images.

Biography:

Dr. Fenella G. France is a leading US scientist in the field of applying advanced spectral imaging technologies to the care and conservation of historic manuscripts. She is currently a senior preservation scientist at the US Library of Congress Preservation, Research and Testing Division (PRTD), and conducts spectral digital imaging studies of manuscripts and maps from the library collection. These include US Top Treasures, ranging from drafts of the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg Address to the Waldseemüller 1506 World Map.

Dr. France received her Ph.D degree in Textile Science from Otago University (1995) in Dunedin, New Zealand, and a MBA from Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia (1999). After lecturing at Otago University, as an expert in photodegradation, she was invited to joint the Star-Spangled Banner Project for the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History. She was the textile and environmental scientist on this project, whose research defined the treatments to be used on the historic flag. Dr. France was an independent textile scientist with a specialty in textile degradation, in particular wool aging, focusing on monitoring and measuring mechanical properties. She performed textile and environmental related research for the Star-Spangled Banner Project, the National Park Service, Ellis Island Immigration Center artifacts, the preservation of World Trade Center artifacts, Historic Western Hemisphere textiles for the Museum of Natural History, American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) International textile standards, and the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) technical committee on the quality of lighting displays in museums. This entailed work with representative from a range of organizations, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Smithsonian, to the US Customs Service and NYPD.

Hotel

Founder's Inn and Spa Virginia Beach, VA
Reservations MUST be made prior to April 23, 2011. Reservations can be made by calling the hotel at (800) 926-4466. Please reference MAAFS when making your reservation to get the appropriate rate.

Government room rate for conference week: $88. Tax is 13% plus $1/day city tax. (This is a Federal per diem rate and is subject to change if the Federal per diem changes).

Non-government room rate for conference week: $109. Tax is 13% plus $1/day city tax.

Weekend rate: MAAFS has negotiated a room rate of $139 plus applicable taxes for reservations extended from Friday, May 27 - Monday, May 30 (Memorial Weekend). These reservations must be made in conjunction with a MAAFS meeting reservation. This rate does not apply to weekend only reservations.

Call for Papers

Coming soon!

Registration

Coming Soon!

Meeting Attendance Requirements

As per the Bylaws, you must attend a MAAFS-sponsored event once every four years. You must have attended an annual meeting in 2007, 2008, 2009, or 2010 or a MAAFS-sponsored Workshop in 2008 or 2009 to have met the membership requirement. This 2010 MUST ATTENDS list indicates those members whose membership status will be downgraded to Associate at the end of 2010 unlesst a MAAFS-sponsored event is attended this year. If you believe your name appears on this list in error, please contact maafs4n6@gmail.com.

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Upcoming Meetings:

May 23-27, 2011: Founders Inn, Virginia Beach, VA

2012: Turf Valley Resort, Ellicott City, MD

2013: Hotel Roanoke, Roanoke, VA

2014: The Penn Stater, State College, PA