I went to meet some of the people Patrick works with. Here is a photo of him with Ulrike and Eden. I of course already met Ulrike a week ago at the IAML Conference in Salzburg, and Patrick had earlier arranged for her to give me a tour of the music collection at the stift, since she and I are both in the same discipline. Ulrike, like Patrick, is a PhD student, and Eden is the librarian, though she also teaches Upper Middle German to students who are preparing to be teachers.
Martin, who is the leader of the research team, shares an office with Ulrike and Eden, and I had met him earlier, when he had told us about three interns he has visiting from Princeton, and he asked Patrick if he would be willing to spend some time with them discussing his research, since they are trying to understand the various types of scientific and cultural research currently underway in the library. Patrick had said he would. So after this photo, we went to find Martin and the interns.
We found them, and so of course, I insisted upon taking a photo. Sorry, not sorry.
Above we have the three Princeton interns, and I do not remember all of their names, only Nadia, because I have her in my phone, who is at the left. Then the young man with the gray pants goes to university in Vienna, and Max, in the light blue jeans, works there at Klosterneuburg, doing computer things. His mom is one of Patrick's collaborators. Then there is Patrick and Martin and a very nice stift employee whose name I can't remember. (I remember four of the names, so 50% right here!)
The first order of the day was to walk over to where Patrick's equipment has been, to move it back to room seven, because he has another 120 or so items to work with at Kosterneuburg. And with many hands to make light work of the move, and to be his surrogate hands, since this crazy syndrome he has renders his hands pretty useless, we headed over to do that. It was an interesting walk because Martin has all the keys--he can go anywhere in the complex!
But we ended up in this courtyard. And I had to take a picture of the yellow birds in the plants. Apparently I should be more interested in the fountain, which is the Leopold Fountain, but it was the yellow that drew my eye. FYI: Saint Leopold III is known as the founder of Klosterneuburg Abbey, which he established in 1114 and brought the Augustinian Canons there in 1133. He is also the patron saint of Austria, and his feast day, Leopoldi, is celebrated in Klosterneuburg each year.
Our destination was the Stiftsarchiv.
In the Stiftsarchiv, there are two volunteer retired professionals who are dealing with the collections of coins and medals. (Medals look like coins, but you can't spend them--they have no monetary value. So they are separate collections.) These were immediately in view when we entered the room, so I took a picture of them, but nobody talked about them, and I didn't ask, so they shall remain a mystery!
I am not the only one who forgets names! Patrick can't remember the name of this lovely lady, a retired university professor who donates her time to taking care of the coins and medals, and who was very happy to allow us to see the collections, and to touch them, as long as they were put back where they belonged.
Here she is opening drawers of coins, and encouraging us to get close and personal with them. So the Princeton interns are doing just that. These are lower value coins.
Here is a close up of our friendly nameless guide, doing an inspection of a small coin:
More tiny coins being inspected up close:
And then she drew our attention to these coins, also of low value like a penny's worth, only they are not flat like the coins we had been looking at. They are sort of convex/concave (depending on the side you are looking at) and that is an interesting concept, not what most of us would think of as a shape that would be expected in a coin.
Then our guide wanted us to look at dollar coins, which even in ancient times were larger and more elaborate than the lower value coins.
This image was actually a video. I used to know how to edit the video so I could get the very best still photo, but with my new phone, I no longer can do that, so here is just the final image. I hope you can still see the size of the coins pretty well.
And another attempt at the same drawer full of coins:
Then we moved on to medals, which might be awarded for valour, or for appeasement, or just to give someone something that they might value, but which will not break the bank for the giver. Some of the medals come in elaborate boxes, but they can't store the boxes in the same way they store the medals, because they take up too much space. Medals can be quite fascinating in design.
And then the guys, who were waiting to move all of Patrick's equipment, were showing signs of wanting us to hurry up, and so we did.
Max and one of the ladies carried the frame which weighs about a hundred pounds, and another of the ladies carried the machine itself in its case, and another one carried the case that the frame would go in if dismantled, and Patrick gave me some lightweight thing to carry so I wouldn't feel totally useles, and honestly, he was so grateful that they helped carry it all back to room seven, since his hands are not working properly!
I should have documented them carrying everything! We had to use the elevator in two groups because we were too much for it all at once, us and equipment.
So here we are in room seven, with Patrick talking to the interns about what he does to use FTIR spectroscopy to date paper, or leather, or papyrus. They are all organic compounds, and those are the materials that the process is aiming to date with increasing accuracy, in noninvasive and nondestructive ways, so that the material being studied receives no negative impact from the study.
The interns listening...(I thought I should take pictures of them listening, since they asked me to share photos with them!)
And I thought I should also take photos of Patrick explaining, since he is my son, so I did.
Here, they are getting closer in order to see the images that Patrick has brought up on the computer. (He wasn't set up to work with actual materials yet, but maybe since he is getting better (Hallelujah!) and the interns are still here for a couple more weeks, maybe he will get it set up and they can see the equipment they carried in actual working order? I don't know, but maybe. Two of the girls are studying classics, and one of them is studying art history, and the materials that Patrick uses in his testing do overlap into those areas for sure.
Just changing to a landscape shape as Patrick is instructing, and the interns are listening, and asking intelligent questions as they go. It was quite lovely to watch. It just makes me remember asking Patrick what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he would say "Pizza man." (A choice which he still defends, because pizza is delicious, and when people receive their pizza from the pizza man, it makes them happy, so how could that not be a good choice?)
And one last view of these lovely young ladies, who were so interesting to talk to, and who are so enjoying the opportunity to be at Klosterneuburg for the month of July, getting such good experiences with people and things related to their disciplines. (They look serious, but they were not bored--if they had been, they would not have been able to come up with such good questions and comments!)
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