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Preservation (library and archive)

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National Bureau of Standards preserving the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1951
Decaying books at the library of Merton College, Oxford.

Preservation is a branch of Library and Information Science concerned with maintaining or restoring access to artifacts, documents and records through the study, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of decay and damage.

It should be distinguished from conservation which refers to the treatment and repair of individual items to slow decay or restore them to a usable state. Conservation is occasionally used interchangeably with preservation, particularly outside the professional literature.


History

Main article: History of preservation

Antecedents

Although preservation as a formal profession in libraries and archives dates from the twentieth century, its philosophy and practice has roots in many earlier traditions. In library science, preservation is treated as an active and intentional process, as opposed to the passive sense of preservation that might be applied to paleontological or archaeological finds. The survival of these items is a matter of chance, from an information science perspective, while the preservation of them after their discovery is a matter of intentional activity.

Human record-keeping arguably dates back to the cave painting boom of the upper paleolithic, some 32,000-40,000 years ago. More direct antecedents are the writing systems that developed in the 4th millennium B.C. Written record keeping and information sharing practices, along with oral tradition, sustain and transmit information from one group to another. This level of preservation has been supplemented over the last century with the professional practice of preservation and conservation in the cultural heritage community.

  1. Oral tradition or oral culture, the transmission of information from one generation to the next without a writing system.
  2. Antiquarian practices, including scribal practice, burial practice, the libraries at Pergamum, Alexandria and other ancient archives.
  3. Medieval practices, including the scriptorium and relic collection
  4. Renaissance and the changing conception of artists and works of art
  5. Enlightenment and the Encyclopedists
  6. Romantic movement’s imperative to preserve

Significant events

  • 1933: William Barrow introduces the field of conservation to paper deacidification when he publishes a paper on the acid paper problem. In later studies, Barrow tested paper from American books made between 1900 and 1949 and learned that after forty years the books had lost on average 96 percent of their original strength; after less than ten years, they had already lost 64 percent. Barrow determined that this rapid deterioration was not the direct result of using wood-pulp fibers, since rag papers of this period were also aging rapidly, but rather due to the residual sulfuric acid produced in both rag and wood pulp papers. Manufacturing methods used after 1870 employed sulfuric acid for sizing and bleaching the paper. Earlier papermaking methods left left the final product only mildly alkaline or even neutral. Such paper has maintained its strength for 300 to 800 years, despite sulfur dioxide and other air pollutants. (2. The Library, Edited by Rolland E. Stevens) Barrow's 1933 article on the fragile state of wood pulp paper predicted the shelf life of this paper was approximately 40-50 years. At that point the paper would begin to show signs of deterioration, and he concluded that research for a new media on which to write and print was needed.
  • 1966: The Flood of the River Arno in Florence, Italy damaged or destroyed millions of rare books and lead to the development of restoration laboratories and new methods in conservation. This event awakened many historians, librarians, and other professionals to the importance of having a preservation plan. Many consider this flood to be one of the worst disasters since the burning of the Alexandria Library in ancient Rome. It spurred a resurgence in the profession of preservation and conservation worldwide.
  • 1987: Terry Saunders releases the film Slow Fires: On the Preservation of the Human Record which examines paper embrittlement resulting from acid decay

Significant preservationists

  • William Barrow (1904 – 1967) was an American chemist and paper conservator, and a pioneer of library and archives conservation. He introduced the field of conservation to paper deacidification through alkalization.
  • Paul N. Banks (1934 - 2000) was Conservator and Head of the Conservation Department at the Newberry Library from 1964 to 1981, and published regularly on bookbinding, book and paper conservation and problems related to conservation. He designed and implemented a curriculum for Columbia University's School of Library Science that dealt directly with preservation training.
  • Pamela Darling, author and historian, was Preservation Specialist for the Association of Research Libraries. Her works include materials to aid libraries in establishing their own comprehensive preservation programs.
  • Carolyn Harris worked as head of Columbia University Libraries' Preservation Division from 1981 until 1987, where she worked closely with Paul Banks. She published extensive research throughout her career, especially dealing with mass deacidification of wood-pulp paper.
  • Peter Waters, former Conservation Officer at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, worked in the areas of disaster recovery and preparedness, and the salvaging of water-damaged paper goods.
  • Nicholson Baker is a contemporary American novelist and author of Double Fold, a criticism of libraries' destruction of paper-based media.
  • Patricia Battin, as the first president of the Commission on Preservation and Access, worked to organize a national campaign both for the use of alkaline paper in publishing companies and for a national program of preservation microfilming.

The Paul Banks and Carolyn Harris Preservation Award for outstanding preservation specialists in library and archival science, is given annually by the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, a subdivision of the American Library Association. It is awarded in recognition of professional preservation specialists who have made significant contributions to the field. Banks/Harris award winners:

  • Sally Buchanan 2001 - Buchanan received the award in recognition of years of service in the preservation field while an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Science
  • Ellen McCrady 2002 - Since 1975, McCrady has edited and published the "Abbey Newsletter", covering important information for preservation professionals. She also conducts research regarding papermaking and acid testing.
  • John F. Dean 2003 - Since its inception in 1985, Dean has led the Department of Preservation and Conservation at Cornell University.
  • Jan Merrill-Oldham 2004 - As the Malloy-Rabinowitz Preservation Librarian at Harvard University, Merrill-Oldham oversees the Weissman Preservation Center and the Preservation and Imaging Department.
  • Paul Conway 2005 - Conway is a professor in the University of Michigan School of Information and has worked with Yale and [Duke University]] after beginning his career at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library. His research and educational work focuses primarily on digital preservation and electronic media.
  • Gary Frost 2006 - Currently a conservator at the University of Iowa Libraries, Frost has been an educator and practitioner in the field of library preservation for over 35 years.

Practices

Care and handling

  1. Exhibitions
  2. Circulating collections
  3. Special collections


Research and testing

With old media deteriorating or showing their vulnerabilities and new media becoming available, research remains active in the field of conservation and preservation. Everything from how to preserve paper media to creating and maintaining electronic resources is being explored by students and professionals in library and information science. The two main issues that most libraries tend to face are the rapid disintegration of acidic paper and water damage (due to flooding, plumbing problems, etc). Therefore, these areas of preservation, as well as new digital technologies, receive much of the research attention.

The American Library Association has many scholarly journals that publish articles on preservation topics, such as College and Research Libraries, Information Technology and Libraries, and Library Resources and Technical Services. Scholarly periodicals in this field from other publishers include International Preservation News, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, and Collection Management among many others.

Regional centers

  • The Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Phildelphia, PA. CCAHA is a non-profit conservation laboratory specializing in the treatment of art and historic artifacts on paper. The Center also trains museum and library professionals in disaster planning, records and archives management.
  • The Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, MA. Since its inception in 1973, the Center has instructed institutions and organizations, as well as librarians, conservators, preservationists and museum professionals in preservation care and procedures.

Vendor services

Because of the complicated and often expensive nature of preservation activities, libraries, museums, and other educational facilities are often unable to adequately repair and preserve their own items. Many private entities have stepped in to provide preservation and repair services. Listed here are many of these businesses.

Archives and Special Collections
Library Binding

One method of preserving a library collection is to rebind paperback items in hard cover library binding. Some facilities do this themselves, but there are also commercial companies that work exclusively in library binding.

Exhibitions

Branches of Preservation

Standard functions of preservation programs

  • Collections Care refers to the general maintenance and preventive care of a collection as a whole. This can include activities such as security, environmental monitoring, preservation surveys and more specialized activities such as mass deacidification.
  • Conservation refers to the treatment and repair of individual items to slow decay or restore them to a usable state. Conservation is occasionally used interchangeably with preservation, particularly outside the professional literature.
  • Digital preservation refers to the maintenance of digitally stored information. This should not be confused with digitization, which is a process of creating digital information which must, in turn, be digitally preserved. Means of digital preservation include refreshing, migration, replication and emulation.
  • Disaster Preparedness refers to the practice of arranging for the necessary resources and planning the best course of action to prevent or minimize damage to a collection in the event of a disaster of any level of magnitude.
  • Reformatting refers to the practice of creating copies of an object in another type of data storage device. Reformatting processes include microfilming and digitization.

Media specific issues and treatments

Education

One of the biggest challenges in the field of preservation today is educating a library's community, especially librarians and other staff, in the best ways to handle materials as well as the conditions in which particular materials will decay the least. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that preservation is a peripheral element of most library science curricula; indeed, there are few places where one can receive a specialized education in preservation.

The primary degree granting institution for library and archival preservation is the University of Texas at Austin's School of Information Science. The conservation and preservation program is offered in partnership with the Kilgarlin Center for Preservation of the Cultural Record and trains both conservators and preservation administrators. Other conservation programs in the United States focus on Art Conservation and are considered to be more museum focused than library focused. These programs are all part of the Association of North American Graduate Programs in the Conservation of Cultural Property (ANAGPIC).[1]

The Rutgers Preservation Management Institute provides post-graduate training in preservation administration for working librarians who have already completed a Master's degree. [2] UT Austin also offers certificates of advanced study in conservation[3] and preservation to librarians who already hold their MLS.[4]

Another educational resource available to preservationists is the Northeast Document Conservation Center or NEDCC.[5] This institution was founded in 1973 as a reaction to the growing problem of paper deterioration occurring in repositories in the New England area. The Center provides institutions and organizations, as well as librarians, conservators, preservationists, and museum professionals, with help in learning proper care and procedures to better preserve the integrity of their collections. The institution provides a variety of services such as imaging, surveys and consultations, and digitation. They also assist with disaster planning. The educational opportunities it provides include provision of workshops, conferences, and specialized trainings. Additional online courses are also available. For instance, some of the workshops offered by the NEDCC include: Basic Preservation, Collections Care, Emergency Preparedness, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), Identification and Care of Photographs, Basic and Intermediate Book Repair, Basic Paper Repair, Preservation of Scrapbooks, Preservation Technologies, Holdings Maintenance, Creating and Maintaining Digital Collections, Scanning Training, and Grant Writing. [6]

Additional preservation education is available to librarians through various professional organizations, such as:

Non-Academic Facilities and Preservation

Public Libraries: Limited, tax-driven funding can often interfere with the ability for public libraries to engage in extensive preservation activities. Materials, particularly books, are often much easier to replace than to repair when damaged or worn. Public libraries usually try to tailor their services to meet the needs and desires of their local communities, which could cause an emphasis on acquiring new materials over preserving old ones. Librarians working in public facilities frequently have to make complicated decisions about how to best serve their patrons. Commonly, public library systems work with each other and sometimes with more academic libraries through interlibrary loan programs. By sharing resources, they are able to expand upon what might be available to their own patrons and share the burdens of preservation across a greater array of systems.

Archival Repositories and Special Collections: Archival facilities focus specifically on rare and fragile materials. With staff trained in appropriate techniques, archives are often available to many public and private library facilities as an alternative to destroying older materials. Items that are unique, such as photographs, or items that are out of print, can be preserved in archival facilities more easily than in many library settings.

Museums: Because so many museum holdings are unique, including print materials, art, and other objects, preservationists are often most active in this setting.

Reformatting, or in any other way copying an item's contents, raises obvious copyright issues. In many cases, a library is allowed to make a limited number of copies of an item for preservation purposes.

Criticism

There is a longstanding tension between preservation of and access to library materials, particularly in the area of special collections. Handling materials promotes their progression to an unusable state, especially if they are handled carelessly. On the other hand, materials must be used in order to gain any benefit from them.In a collection with valuable materials, this conflict is often resolved by a number of measures which can include heightened security, requiring the use of gloves for photographs, restricting the materials researchers may bring with them into a reading room, and restricting use of materials to patrons who are not able satisfy their research needs with less valuable copies of an item. These measures can seem intimidating to less experienced researchers who might feel that these preservation measures are in place solely to keep materials out of the hands of the public.

There is also controversy surrounding preservation methods. A major controversy at the end of the twentieth century centered on the practice of discarding items that had been microfilmed. A similar concern persists over the retention of original documents reformatted by any means, analog or digital. Concerns include a scholarly needs and legal requirements for authentic or original records as well as questions about the longevity, quality and completeness of reformatted materials. Retention of originals as a source or fail-safe copy is now a fairly common practice.

Many digitized items, such as back issues of periodicals, are provided by publishers and databases on a subscription basis. If these companies were to cease providing access to their digital information, facilities that elected to discard paper copies of these periodicals could face significant difficulties in providing access to these items. Discussion as to the best ways to utilize digital technologies is therefore ongoing, and the practice continues to evolve.

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Association of North American Graduate Programs in the Conservation of Cultural Property". University of Texas School of Information. Retrieved 2007-05-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ "Rutgers Preservation Management Institute". http://www.scils.rutgers.edu Rutgers School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies. Retrieved 2007-05-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  3. ^ "Conservation Program". University of Texas School of Information. Retrieved 2007-05-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  4. ^ "Preservation Administration Program". University of Texas School of Information. Retrieved 2007-05-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  5. ^ "NEDCC". Northeast Document Conservation Center. Retrieved 2007-05-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  6. ^ "Workshop Offerings". Northeast Document Conservation Center. Retrieved 2007-05-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  7. ^ "American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works". American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. Retrieved 2007-05-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  8. ^ "Amigos Library Services Preservation Service". Amigos Library Services Preservation Service. Retrieved 2007-05-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  9. ^ "Association for Recorded Sound Collections". Association for Recorded Sound Collections. Retrieved 2007-05-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  10. ^ "Preservation Programs at the National Archives". The National Archives and Records Administration of the United States of America. Retrieved 2007-05-11. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)


See also

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