About Becky Fifield

Becky Fifield is a cultural heritage professional with 25 years experience in institutions large and small. She is currently Head of Collection Management for the Special Collections of the New York Public Library. An advocate for preventive conservation, Ms. Fifield is a Professional Associate of the American Institute for Conservation, Chair of the AIC Collection Care Network, and former Chair of Alliance for Response NYC. She is also a scholar of 18th century female unfree labor and dress. There's a bit of pun in the title The Still Room, delineating a quiet space brimming with the ingredients of memory, where consideration, analysis, and wordcraft can take place. Ms. Fifield’s interests include museum practice, dress history, historic preservation, transit, social and women’s history, food, current events, geneaology, roadtrips, and considerations on general sense of place. Becky and her husband, Dr. V, live in the Hudson Valley.

Crossing the Susquehanna

I was compiling a list of objects with a Maryland theme from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection for the fun of it. My mother’s family has been rooted along the lower Susquehanna and Chesapeake Bay for nearly 400 years. … Continue reading

Wanderlust Wednesday – Aix en Provence

After my work trip to St. Tropez in 2008 (see last week’s post) I also stopped for a couple of days in Aix for another job. Here are a few travel notes. I was in Aix at the time of … Continue reading

Transit Tuesday – The New York Transit Museum

Transit and Museums? Two of my loves rolled up into one. Visitors to New York want to see the Empire State Building, Times Square, and the Statue of Liberty. I try to coax them off the beaten path. The New … Continue reading

Museum Monday – Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections

Spinach? It’s our not-quite-precise pronunciation of the SPNHC acronym for the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections. Visit their website here. I have never worked for a natural history museum, but the challenges in preserving science collections for … Continue reading

Join Me: Eat Only Local, In-Season Fresh Tomatoes

I’m reading Tomatoland, the 2011 book by Barry Estabrook. It is a damning revelation about the fresh market tomato industry in Florida. Check out Estabrook’s blog Politics of the Plate. I grew up with the three-in-a-row packaged in cellophane variety … Continue reading

What I Ate: New Haven

I was just in New Haven to attend the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections Conference (what a great bunch of museum professionals!). Besides being overwhelmed with its very creative parking garages (recurring class project of the architecture … Continue reading

Transportation Tuesday – The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel

Until December 2010, at the intersection by the Trader Joes on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, you might find a few traffic cones surrounding a popped manhole cover. Dozens of people queued on the nearby sidewalk. Between green lights, a few … Continue reading