The aim of the Traditional Care Practices series is to illustrate the relationship between traditional caretakers and their books. The series connects with manuscript scholars and knowledge keepers across several Hidden Stories research areas and will be a transformative resource for GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives, museums), conservation labs, and a broad public of book users and caregivers. The Hidden Stories project hopes to share this information widely, in order to improve the handling, display, care, and storage of these heritage belongings.

This video (in 14min and 7min versions) was filmed with Amanda McLeod (Sagkeeng Anicinabe Nation) and wampum belts at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., and the NMAI Cultural Resource Center. 

This video was filmed with Eyob Derillo (SOAS, University of London) and Ethiopic manuscripts at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Toronto. The video is part of the Hidden Stories series on Traditional Care Practices of books and book-adjacent belongings. The series aims to share knowledge about community care of belongings in order to improve their care while they are living in museum and library spaces outside of their communities.

“Traditional Care Practices for Books: Connecting Local Knowledge to Global Care”: Care & Conservation of Manuscripts Seminar, April 2025

This video is a recording of the session “Traditional Care Practices for Books: Connecting Local Knowledge to Global Care” which was part of the Care & Conservation of Manuscripts Seminar, in Copenhagen. Filmed April 11, 2025, the plenary panel took place at the Royal Danish Library’s Queen’s Hall. In this session, conservators, historians, and knowledge-keepers discuss the traditional care of books and book-adjacent belongings, such as wampum belts and Ethiopic amulet scrolls, with the goal of sharing knowledge about traditional care and discussing the challenges and possibilities of integrating traditional care into today’s institutional conservation and care spaces.

Session Participants

Speakers include:
Melissa Moreton, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
Overview of Hidden Stories Traditional Care Practices Project

Eyob Derillo, SOAS, University of London
“Care Practices for Ethiopic Manuscripts”

Jasdip Singh Dhillon, Pothi Seva and Oxford Conservation Consortium
“Traditional Care of Sikh Books”

Bidur Bhattarai, Written Cultural Heritage of Nepal
“Traditional Care of Books in Nepal: The Newa Hindu-Buddhist Tradition”

Amanda McLeod, Sagkeeng Anicinabe Nation, Independent curator and conservator
"Lost Beads, Missing Stories: A Preliminary Study of the Effects of Relative Humidity on the Deterioration of Wampum Beads"

Giselle Simon, University of Iowa, Head of Book Conservation
“The Popol Vuh and Its Quiché Relations: A Conservator’s Experience of Collaborative Care of a Mayan Belonging”