Julia Merkel
Preservation Officer, Associate Professor
0000-0002-4666-6145
Building: Burruss Hall
Office: 253
MSC: 1706
Departments: Academic Engagement, Digital Scholarship and Distinctive Collections, Special Collections
Pronouns: She / Her / HersAbout me
Responsibilities:
Special Collections Team Member
Conservation technician
Disaster Recovery collection salvage consultant
Book repair & hand bookbinding
Music Score binding
Environmental Monitoring
Exhibit design & installation
Artists and movable books subject interests
MFA Painting, James Madison University
BFA Sculpture & Art History, cum laude, University of Notre Dame
Collections Care & Maintenance Certification, University of Missouri
Academy of Certified Archivists
About Academic Engagement
Academic Engagement is a new, public-facing division of the Libraries, under formation now. Departments include Library and Information Services, the Music Library, Research & Education Services, Digital Projects, and Special Collections. These latter two teams are coming together soon as the department of Digital Scholarship and Distinctive Collections.
About Digital Scholarship and Distinctive Collections
We partner across JMU and in the surrounding communities to create, collect, steward, and imaginatively share unique collections in a variety of media types. We leverage the latest technologies and best practices in digital scholarship to support the exploration and understanding of our shared cultural heritage. Our expertise includes rare books, manuscripts, archives, digital archives, primary source instruction, preservation, conservation, digitization, digital pedagogy, and digital and immersive projects. The Digital Scholarship and Distinctive Collections (DSDC) department combines the Digital Projects and Special Collections teams.
About Special Collections
We collect, steward, and preserve materials that document the Central Shenandoah Valley as well as the institutional history of James Madison University. Special Collections also serves as the Libraries’ repository for rare and unique materials. The Preservation office within Special Collections provides book and paper conservation for rare and archival collections as well as book repair for the Libraries’ circulating collections.
Our team works to support teaching and scholarship with primary source materials. We also promote primary source literacy within teaching and learning at JMU and in the wider community of researchers.
Special Collections’ materials and services are available to the public.