Katie Wagner

Senior Book Conservator

Katie Wagner is a senior rare book conservator for the Smithsonian Libraries & Archives. She works primarily with the two special collections libraries: The Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library and The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology as well as with the other branches of the Smithsonian Libraries with rare material. She is Chair of the Adopt-a-Book Working Group, organizing the policies and workflow for the program that has grown into a major fundraiser for the Libraries. Katie contributes to the Libraries monthly blog post, The Fix, highlighting conservation treatments. She specializes in the topic of leather degradation striving to determine the nature of leather degradation through testing and analysis of the changes in the leather tanning process.

Katie is passionate about disaster preparedness and emergency response. She serves as a founding member of the Smithsonian wide Preparedness and Response in Collections Emergencies (PRICE) team, is a former co-chair of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) Emergency Committee and served on the steering committee for the DC Alliance for Response. She has represented the Smithsonian on disaster response outreach trips to Haiti, Peru, The Bahamas and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

B.A. in History, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA

MLS, University of Maryland, College Park, MD

Professional Associate, American Institute for Conservation (AIC)