PCS Founder Paul N. Banks (center) and students celebrate #1 rating in 1999 by U.S. News and World Report for the archives and preservation programs at UT-Austin. The #1 rating has been achieved again in 2000 and 2001.

Paul N. Banks Memorial Scholarship Fund established
to honor pioneer in the field
Paul N. Banks (1934-2000) established the first academic training program for conservators and preservation administrators of libraries and archives. After serving for nearly twenty years as Head of Conservation at the Newberry Library in Chicago, the first position of its kind in the field, Banks founded the Libraries and Archives Conservation Education Program at the School of Library Service at Columbia University in 1981. Upon the closing of Columbia's library school in 1991, Banks was instrumental in ushering this program to the School of Information at UT-Austin where it assumed the name of Preservation and Conservation Studies. He designed the PCS book and paper labs and taught courses in Austin until 1997. Banks then served as a consultant to the Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration and collaborated on a basic text on library and archives preservation.

His vision and leadership have had a tremendous and far-reaching impact on the growth of the preservation and conservation fields. Banks passed away in May 2000, and he will be deeply missed by his former students, colleagues, members of the UT-Austin community, and his many friends. To honor the life and work of Paul Banks, a Memorial Scholarship has been created in his name.

This scholarship is the second such award to be associated with the PCS program. An Endowed Presidential Scholarship was established to honor the memory of Carolyn Hixson Harris. Ms. Harris, an Austin native, directed the PCS program during its move to Austin from New York and taught preservation administration classes until her untimely death.

Your gift to the Paul N. Banks Endowed Graduate Fellowship or the Carol Hixson Harris Endowed Presidential Scholarship is tax deductible. For information about either of these awards, please call (512) 471-8290, or you may send a check made out to The University of Texas at Austin and marked for either the Carolyn Harris Scholarship or the Paul Banks Fellowship, to the following address:

Preservation and Conservation Studies
School of Information
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station D7000
Austin, TX 78712-1276

PCS Research:

Sarah Reidell and April Smith, second-year conservator students, presented a paper entitled
"Breaking the Mold", at the TLA Conference held in San Antonio, Texas on March 29, 2001.

The PCS Newsletter

Spring 2003 Forum Schedule:

All Forums are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Forums meet from 4:30 to 6:00 P.M. in SZB 556 unless otherwise indicated.

Past Forum Schedules