Renate Mesmer, head of conservation at the Folger Shakespeare Library, will discuss “Playing Our Part: Traveling and Preserving Shakespeare’s First Folio from a Conservation Point of View” at 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 6, in the Class of 1941 Room in the University of Delaware Hugh M. Morris Library.

Her talk is the last in a series of free public lectures and an exhibition at the University of Delaware Library celebrating William Shakespeare. These events are occasioned by First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare, which came to campus from the Folger Shakespeare Library in September.

To display the First Folio on its traveling tour, the Folger conservation team had to carefully consider how to implement passive climate and custom designed book supports, weighing the risks and benefits of these processes. Expertise and an innovative approach were vital for this unique traveling show.

Mesmer will provide an inside look at how all of this came to fruition and discuss how exhibition and preservation can go hand in hand.

Those planning to attend are encouraged to RSVP by sending an email to rsvp-library@winsor.lib.udel.edu. Walk-ins are welcome.

Before becoming head of conservation at the Folger Shakespeare Library in 2011, Mesmer was assistant head of conservation there. Earlier, she directed the Book and Paper Conservation Program at the Centro del bel Libro in Ascona, Switzerland.

She has a master’s in bookbinding from the Chamber of Crafts of Palatinate in Germany and started working as a bookbinder when she was 16. As head of conservation at the Speyer’s State Archives in Germany she gained experience in conservation and was awarded a grant to study conservation abroad. Her internships took her to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Library of Congress, the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

She has taught a great variety of workshops in book and paper conservation in the U.S., Switzerland and Australia for many years.

‘Shakespeare Through the Ages’ exhibition

This exhibition “Shakespeare Through the Ages” -- on view through Dec. 12 in the Special Collections Gallery at the Morris Library -- explores the reception and treatment of Shakespeare and his works across the years, ranging from Shakespeare’s age to our own. Books on display include early editions of Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and his sources. Also on display are examples of Shakespearean criticism, adaptations, parodies, illustration, private press editions, and forgeries, all drawn from the University of Delaware Library’s extensive holdings of rare books and manuscripts. All this, and more showcase the many ways in which Shakespeare’s works have lived on in the four centuries since his death.

These programs and exhibitions are sponsored by University Museums and the University of Delaware Library, with support from the Delaware Humanities Forum, the Special Collections Projects and Planning Committee of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Charlotte Orth Shakespeare Fund of the Department of English and the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, University of Delaware Library.