Katie Wagner

Head of Book Conservation

Katie Wagner is Head of Book Conservation for the Smithsonian Libraries & Archives. She manages conservation projects and workflow for the rare and circulating collections. She is responsible for organizing response and recovery for collections emergencies. Specializing in the topic of leather degradation, she strives to determine the nature of leather degradation through testing and analysis of leather during the stages of the tanning process.

Katie serves on the Smithsonian Collections Advisory Committee (SCAC) advising senior leadership on collections issues and policy revisions. On SCAC she is on the Collections Care Preservation Fund (CCPF) sub-committee awarding internal grants to Smithsonian units to assist with their collections care needs. She served 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.

MLS, University of Maryland, College Park, MD

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

Professional Associate, American Institute for Conservation (AIC)