Tomorrow is the “Ask the Smithsonian” Q&A on Facebook

Tomorrow is the “Ask the Smithsonian” Q&A that is part of the Smithsonian’s American Archives Month events. From 10 am to 5 pm tomorrow, Wednesday, October 12th, Smithsonian conservation and archives specialists will be available virtually on the Smithsonian’s main Facebook page to answer questions the public may have about their own paper-based and electronic archival items.

Here are the experts that will be on hand to answer your questions:

Riccardo Ferrante, Information Technology Archivist and director of the Smithsonian Institution Archives' Digital Services Division, oversees the Archives’ digital preservation, digitization, and electronic records management activities. His work has focused on born digital objects and digital curation, including websites and email.

Nora Lockshin is a Paper Conservator at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, and conserves physical objects and consults on preservation goals with archivists, collection managers, and curators at the Archives and throughout the larger Smithsonian archival and museum community. She runs the Smithsonian Center for Archives Conservation, a service and teaching laboratory of Smithsonian Institution Archives Collections Care team.

Michael Pahn is a Media Archivist, specializing in audio, video, and motion picture film, at the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, a position he has held since 2003. He has a BA in Anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh and an MLS from the University of Maryland.

Gina Rappaport is the archivist for historical photograph collections at the National Anthropological Archives (NAA), and manages all aspects of the acquisition, arrangement, description, and preservation of the NAA's photographic collections. In addition to photographs, she has experience with a wide variety of personal and organizational records containing paper, audio, moving image, cartographic, and other material (including large, disorganized, poorly preserved collections of family archives!).

We hope that you’ll join us on Facebook today, and we look forward to your questions!