Many of you were able to attend the PADG meeting in San
Antonio when Alfred Lemmon,
Curator of The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC Main page can be found at
http://www.hnoc.org/index.html ),
gave a riveting presentation on the disaster preparedness and recovery lessons
learned by THNOC staff before, during and after Katrina. His talk was,
for many of us, the highlight of PADG at Midwinter.
Building on the presentation and the interest it engendered, Alfred and
I have been working on a plan to allow up to 60 members of PADG to come to the
THNOC on the morning of Friday, June 23rd for a special free behind the scenes tour!! The tour
will start at 9:30 and last until 11:30. Please come to the front door of the 533
Royal Street
facility. If you cannot be there right at 9:30, please come any time before
10:45 since you will be allowed to join the tour in progress.
Attendees will be organized into equal size groups in order to flow
smoothly through several portions of the facilities. Groups will rotate
through all portions of the THNOC, so that everyone can see everything!! The
first group will tour the Williams Research Center (WRC). For details on the WRC,
please click the Research button in the left panel of the main page.
A second group will first explore “Common Routes: St. Domingue to Louisiana” (Exhibit web
site at http://www.hnoc.org/stdomingue/flash_commonroutes.html
) The THNOC staff member leading that portion of the tour will speak on the
nitty gritty details of preparing the collection for exhibit, touching on new
standards for shipping crates, insurance changes relating to terrorism and the
creation of condition reports.
A third group will begin by watching a video on the exhibition produced
and directed by Walter Williams, perhaps better known as the creator of
“Mr. Bill” on Saturday Night Live. All three groups will see the
Exhibition, video and WRC.
At the end, all attendees will congregate in to one central area so
that we can get a group update from Alfred on how the Collection and the City
are doing post-Katrina.
Family members are also welcome to attend and there is a family guide
to the exhibition.
Please RSVP to Cathy Martyniak (cmook@xxxxxxx)
or Jane Hedberg (jane_hedberg@xxxxxxxxxxx
) by Monday, June 5th, so that Alfred will be able to schedule
sufficient staff to host the event.