Lyon, France, 11-13 October 2012.

Challenges for the preservation, study and exhibition of typographical heritage materials

Conference held at Lyons Printing Museum

The biannual meeting of the Association of European Printing Museums took place in Lyon (France) over three days, from Thursday 11th to Saturday 13th October 2012. The conference was open to non members and attracted 80-odd participants, of which 44 were present from 23 museums from eight European countries (Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Poland).

The speakers were :

James Mosley

visiting professor, Department of typography & graphic communication, Reading University, United Kingdom
The state of typgraphical heritage: preservation, study and evaluation – an overview of European typographical collections

Guy Hutsebaut

Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp, Belgium

Patrick Storme

Metal Conservation Department, Artesis University College, Antwerp
Recent research on the conservation of metal type at the Plantin-Moretus Museum

Richard Southall

specialist in phototypesetting and digital typography, United Kingdom
There’s no body there: conserving dematerialized type


Download Richard Southall’s talk here : Richard Southall


Andrea De Pasquale

Director Braidense National Library (Milan) and Turin University Library, Italy
Exploring 18th century typographical production through the unexploited archives of GIambattista Bodoni

Alice Savoie

type designer, doctoral student, France / United Kingdom
International cross-currents in typeface design during the phototypesetting era: the value to researchers of public and private typographic archives

Mathieu Lommen

Curator of graphic collections, Amsterdam University Library, Netherlands
The value of typographical archives for publications and teaching


You can download a pdf version of the visuals which Mathieu Lommen presented during his talk here : Mathieu Lommen. (Patience, it will probably take a full minute to download.)


 Charlotte Delannée, Johan Sievering, Andréas Schweizer

Association pour le patrimoine industriel, Geneva, Switzerland.
Towards a systematic and semantic inventory of printing heritage materials


Download their talk here : Association pour le patrimone industriel


The meeting also included a guided tour of Lyon Printing Museum’s exhibition Letters in the age of technological revolution, and a visit to Lyon City Library’s rare books collection.

On Saturday morning, following the annual general meeting:

Johan de Zoete

Museum Joh. Enschedé, Haarlem, Netherlands
The archives of Bijzondere Collecties (Special Collections) of the Library of the University of Amsterdam (UBA).


Download a résumé of Johan’s talk here : Johan de Zoete