Heirlooms, Artifacts and Family Treasures: A Preservation Emporium is a free, public event focused on providing preservation advise on the care of family heirlooms.

Keynote Address by Holly Labisky at 2pm “Of Mortar and Mortality: Breaking New Ground in the Concept of Cemetery Preservation”

Free admission and free parking (lot D22, east of the museum)

Bring your preservation questions along with small, hand-held items or images of larger items for examination by preservation specialists whose expertise ranges from antiquities to textiles and artwork to modern digital media.

In her keynote address, “Of Mortar and Mortality: Breaking New Ground in the Concept of Cemetery Preservation,” historical researcher Holly Labisky discusses how the living memorialize loved ones who have passed on and how such memorials are preserved throughout time. Urbana’s Woodlawn Cemetery, with its monument to General Charles Bowen Busey and Busey Bank founders Simeon and Samuel Busey, is among the 600 central Illinois cemeteries that Holly Labisky and her mother Hope researched and photographed over a seven-year period.

The Preservation Emporium is a presentation of the Preservation Working Group of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in conjunction with the American Library Association’s Preservation Week (April 22-29).

For more information, please visit http://will.illinois.edu/pwg/ or conservation librarian Jennifer Hain Teper (jhain@illinois.edu).