UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Internationally renowned bookbinders Don Etherington and Monique Lallier were the featured speakers at the inaugural William D. Minter Lecture in Conservation Sept. 26 in Foster Auditorium on Penn State’s University Park campus. 

Conservators from the U.S. National Archives, Folger Shakespeare Library, and Michigan State University were in attendance to hear about Etherington’s major projects and view examples of Lallier’s exquisite bookbinding work. In addition to serving as consultant to the Norman Lear Family Foundation on the display and encasement of the Declaration of Independence (Dunlap broadside), Etherington was consultant and project director for the treatment and display of Ross Perot’s 1297 copy of the Magna Carta. 

Etherington, director of the Book Conservation Program at the American Academy of Bookbinding, is internationally recognized for innovative design and implementation of state-of-the-art conservation procedures, including phased preservation programs for libraries and institutions. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Conservation and the International Institute for Conservation, and an accredited Fellow of the Institute of Paper Conservation in England. His wife, Monique Lallier, is an internationally recognized bookbinder and book artist.

The William D. Minter Lectureship in Conservation was named in honor of Bill (William) Minter, senior book conservator in the University Libraries’ Department of Preservation, Conservation and Digitization, and their new Conservation Centre. The focus of the lectureship is to raise awareness and advance knowledge of book and special-collections conservation history, theory and practice among members of the Penn State community and central Pennsylvania residents. The annual lectureship hosts distinguished national and international researchers, scholars, practitioners and prominent library conservators as invited speakers.