Training session on conservation assessment surveys

Authored by Sonya Issaeva and Kathy Lechuga

Workshop on Identifying and Describing Condition Problems in Circulating

Collections Volumes

Context:
Middle Eastern Program Collection (circulating), Perry Castaneda Library

Duration:

One full day

Format:

Roundtable, conducted in a large conference room

Audience:

Librarians who are interested in preservation issues

PA students

School of Information students interested in preservation issues

Relevance:

One of the major components of assessing the condition of circulating volumes in the Middle Eastern Program Collections, PCL, is conducting an item-level survey of the collection. As part of the proposed assessment two student technicians would have to examine the physical condition of a book, identify the existing problems, enter the information into a survey form and choose the appropriate preservation action, listed on the survey form. The workshop could provide a practical training opportunity for technicians, who will be taking over the survey project. On a broader level, it is important for library, archive and museum professionals, who are interested in working with preservation projects and programs, to have familiarity and a level of comfort with examining materials in their collections for condition problems.

Workshop Preparation:

• In preparation for the workshop, the instructors need to pull a substantial number of books from the shelves. There should be 3 books for an instructor-led demonstration, and 3 books for each workshop participant to use in an individual activity. The 3 books in a group should illustrate a variety of condition problems in different stages of severity. The instructors should also set aside about 10 extra books, so if some participants are done with their individual exercise early, while many others are still working, they can get an extra book to keep them busy.

• The instructors should also prepare several handouts and place them into individual packets to be given to each participant. One handout should be a blank survey form to keep as a record, another handout should be the survey form with additional explanatory notes, definitions and tips typed on it to refresh memory of workshop in minds of participants. The packet should include a list of preservation resources that offer relevant information and archival products, like NEDCC Preservation Leaflets, or Gaylord Library Suppliers. A copy of the Powerpoint presentation with space for taking notes and a pencil should also be included in the individual participant's folder.

• Snacks and hot beverages should be provided for the coffee break. Sodas and water should be provided for the duration of the workshop

• The instructors should prepare a form that could be filled out by the participants to evaluate instructor performance and workshop structure

Workshop Structure:

1) Introduction and brief lecture

• The instructors and workshop participates introduce themselves and say a few words about what they do, how it relates to preservation and how this workshop might inform their work.

• The instructors go through a short Powerpoint presentation with many photo examples of common condition problems in circulating collections volumes, differentiating between problems that arise from patron use and problems that come about as a result of inherent vice in materials, from which the books are made. Appropriate preservation actions for the different condition problems, such as reformatting, boxing and book repair, are discussed.

2) Instructor demonstration

• The instructors and workshop participants gather in a close group around the table, so that the instructors can demonstrate and discuss physical condition problems in the books that they have pre-selected for the purpose of this presentation.

Short break for tea, coffee, snacks and conversation: 10-15 min, refreshments provided

3) Individual exercise

• The instructors hand out groups of 3 books to each individual participant and have them examine the books an fill out a survey form for each book. The instructors circulate throughout the room and check in with participants about their progress and answer possible questions.

• The workshop breaks for lunch at this point. While the participants are at lunch, the instructors will examine the books, look at the filled out forms and see if there are serious misunderstandings or difficulties.

Lunch - 1 hour, participants get their own lunch outside the facility

4) Evaluation:

• When the participants come back from lunch they will talk about one of the books that they examined and discuss their decision-making process while filling out the survey form. This helps the instructors evaluate the level of understanding and comfort that the participants have about the survey process. This active evaluation also helps access whether the survey tool is successful and whether instruction is clear and satisfying for the participants
• Final questions are answered. The instructors give a short 'wrap-up' and 'conclusions' statement

• In the end of the workshop the participants fill out a short instructor evaluation form

Job Search

I did not count the numer of positions because I was not sure what the time frame was - for last year? Right now? I went to two places online: PADG and COOL, hoping to find two job postings that I could write about.

When looking at what might be available for me on the job market, I usually refer to Conservation Online's (COOL) Distribution List. Since I am interested in working within the U.S., I will not mention the overseas positions for conservators. Although the COOL DistList started out as advertising exclusively conservator jobs, in recent years I've seen both conservation and preservation jobs there.

The tricky thing I discovered is that for most of the conservation jobs, preservation components and management of preservation programs and projects weighs heavily in the job descriptions. This is true of the announcement for 2 positions at NARA. One of the positions is for a conservator responsible for coordinating digitization efforts. I assume that this would involve bench treatment time devoted to fragile objects to e digitized. The other position is for a conservator to develop and conduct a preservation training program.

I would think that for this second position, a PA professional would qualify just as well as a conservator. However, the advertisement says that they are looking for a person with professional conservation and preservation experience of a wide range of archival materials and formats. The ad goes on to mention all the major preservation administration competencies as being desired qualities in a candidate. These include, I am quoting: "program development in such areas as preventive conservation, risk assessment and prioritization,reformatting including digitizing, and emergency planning and response." If the person they are looking for is to have professional experience in development of preservation programs, it means that that person would have a fair amount of management experience as well. I have noticed that sometimes postings for Federal Government jobs do not include a detailed list of specific qualifications that the applicant must possess, like the type of degree or the number of years of post-graduate experience. I have encountered this in LOC job postings as well. Perhaps it's an effort to appear open and non-discriminatory?

Both of these positions require collaboration with other departments - digitization for the first one and the various division of NARA for the second one. Clearly, what they are looking for is a person who has leadership skills (able to develop, maintain and evaluate new programs) and is a team player, since cross-department interactions would be an everyday occurance.
The two positions advertised by NARA are examples of an exciting cross-germination between the fields of conservation and preservation. Such high expectations of professional expertise can seem overwhelming to want to acquire (in order to be able to qualify for a job like in the middle of my career). It seems that they are looking for people who embody both disciplines of conservation and preservation management. For many conservators, that career trajectory is natural and welcome. Taking on more responsibility for collections care and management of emergency preparedness and environmental monitoring programs are ways to advance to being head of a conservation lab, and in some cases, heads of preservation divisions. In any case, both of these positions are for people who have been acquiring experience in the field for 7-10 years, that's what I think.

When I looked on the PADG listserv, I saw a job offering for Digital Preservation Librarian at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The position was posted by Shannon Zachary, who is head of Preservation and Conservation. I went to the UM library website to find a detailed list of requirements. The requirements for this position are listed in a much more specific way, I am quoting: "ALA-accredited masters degree in library or information studies or equivalent advanced degree and experience. Demonstrated knowledge of the lifecycle management of digital material; an understanding of issues related to digital formats, media, and migration is required, along with an aptitude for quickly mastering technical topics. Experience working in research collections (libraries, archives, museums, data centers), with a minimum of 3 years of progressive experience with digital resources."
This position seems perfect for a graduating PA, or a PA at the start of their career, since the posting does not specify whether the 3 years of experience had to be post-graduate or not. I think that a graduate from the Kilgarlin center, focusing on digital libraries, with additional experience at HRC or in another digital collection on campus, would qualify well. The plus side of being a recent graduate in a field like digital asset management, is that you are learning and absorbing a lot of new technological knowledge and getting familiar with the newest trends while at school.

Project Summary for the Middle Eastern Program Collections at PCL-Try 2

The Middle Eastern Studies Collection at the University of Texas at Austin Libraries is comprised of many volumes that were made with poor quality materials. The low quality of text block paper and unsympathetic bindings contribute to overall deterioration of the collection. There is a compelling need to establish a long-term preservation plan for the Middle Eastern Program Collection, so that deterioration of materials does not prohibit the use of the collection and does not threaten the survival of the objects along with the information they carry. The overall condition of the collection has to be assessed and, based on the results that that assessment, concrete preservation measures have to be taken to ensure the collection's longevity.

The Middle Eastern Collection is large and diverse. It includes many volumes that represent both a scholarly interest and a significant cultural resource. Although highly valuable and somewhat rare, these volumes do not circulate widely. Because of infrequent circulation, it has been difficult to assess the physical condition of the collection, since most condition problems are identified when a volumes is checked out and returned to the library.

We propose to conduct an item level survey of the Middle Eastern Studies Collection, starting with the Perry Castaneda Library, where the majority of the volumes in the collection are housed. The survey would be conducted by a dedicated part-time staff of Preservation Administration graduate students enrolled at the School of Information, University of Texas at Austin. The goal of the assessment would be to determine what kind of preservation action is appropriate for items in the collection. Some of the options would be reformatting for brittle materials, de-acidification as preventative action for qualifying items, construction of phase boxes for light sensitive materials and repair of bindings at an in-house book conservation facility. Other approaches aimed at preservation of the collection may be determined as a result of the item-level survey.

We believe that this preservation initiative is timely and appropriate not just because of the needs of this particular collection, but also because of the broader cultural and political implication of preserving materials from the Middle East. The unstable political situation in many nations of the Middle East and destruction of war in Iraq have made preservation of Middle Eastern cultural heritage a priority worldwide. Funding agencies in the United States have taken a leadership role in targeting this problem. We believe that the Middle Eastern Collection at the University of Texas at Austin Libraries fits under the category of culturally significant collections of Middle Eastern materials in need of preservation attention.

At a more local level, the Middle Eastern Studies Collection is an integral and unique part of the University of Texas at Austin Libraries. The collection includes more that 300,000 volumes of monographs and bound periodicals, including works in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Tajiki and Kurdish, as well as in western languages. The Middle Eastern Collection serves as an irreplaceable resource for students and faculty at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, as well as for heritage speakers at the University of Texas at Austin. Many of the volumes from the collection get requested through the Inter-Library Loan system.
Ensuring long-term preservation of the Middle Eastern Studies Collection will benefit the students and faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as the scholarly community at other research universities. The collection also offers cultural public value to heritage speakers of the languages that are represented in the collection.

We believe that as Preservation Administration and Conservation graduate students of the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin, we are uniquely qualified to conduct the survey and coordinate the proposed preservation initiative, The Kilgarlin Center for the Preservation of the Cultural Record, which is the home base of our graduate program, is at the forefront of preservation education for library and archive professionals. Graduate students at the Kilgarlin Center are motivated to gain practical real-world knowledge of working in the fields of preservation and conservation, possess the support system of the School of Information faculty and University of Texas Libraries staff, and have access to new technology and scholarly resources through the University of Texas Library system. We believe that these factors will enable our graduate students to come up with the most thoughtful preservation strategy and to effectively implement the assessment recommendations.

Positive and Negative Management Traits

I believe that there is more than one trait that characterizes a successful manager. The trait that I hold in particularly high esteem is being in touch with concerns of the staff that the manager supervises. As mentioned in chapter 1 of "The Knowing-Doing Gap", managers would greatly improve their relationship with staff and the accuracy of their assessment of the workplace productivity and dynamic, if there is a continual loop of communication, feedback and adjustment that happens between the levels of workplace hierarchy. David Sun, the manager of the successful company Kingston Technology, says that as a manager he follows the following simple motto:"Just do what they tell you they want." If the staff perceives that that management is receptive to their feedback, a certain level of trust is developed. The challenge of encouraging productivity and staff dedication is then to deliver what the staff needs to achieve excellent work performance.

Another important factor in being a good manager is recognizing that the vast majority of people learn effective work practices on the job, thus the success of co-op education programs, apprenticeships and internships that offer job-related skills. For a manager, it is important to fully understand what his/her staff does and how they do it. I think it is very important to have the technical expertise to, if not do, then certainly to understand the nature of employees' daily tasks and to clearly see these concrete tasks in a larger context of organizational mission and its goals. Most of the time heads of labs in conservation laboratories are conservators who have had several or many years of work experience in the type of institution, where they are fulfilling the management role. In this way, they have the technical competencies to recognize issues and dilemmas that the staff might be experiencing in their daily work. In addition to technical expertise, it is crucial for a manager and his/her staff to participate in activities that carry embedded tacit knowledge, such as meetings, mentoring, training, informal interactions at break time and outside of work, interaction with patrons and professionals from other departments.

The third quality of a good manager that I want to talk about is the continued effort to see situations and staff members with fresh eyes. All people are susceptible to forming instant stereotypes about co-workers, based on clothes, accents, hobbies, the kind of movies and books they like, what their husband is like, or whatever seems to capture our immediate attention. This is quite normal, but when you are responsible for evaluating and promoting or demoting staff members, it becomes more important to make efforts to neutralize these stereotype-driven assessments.

Normally managers have a lot of previous experience, which is great in some ways and less great in other ways. As mentioned in "The Mind and Heart of a Negotiator", things like "set effect" and "negative transfer" can undermine a manager's performance. This happens when a solution that had worked previously in a separate environment is applied to a different situation without due consideration of the specifics of the new context. The flip side of the coin is what the book calls "inert knowledge", which refers to a manager's inability to transfer their knowledge of problem solving from one context to another. So, it seems that a great manager has to be able to think holistically, and yet not to succumb to generic cookie-cutter solutions. The manager has to possess constant awareness of the major philosophies and dilemmas of their field in general, and then be able to apply their knowledge and insight in a specific, concrete way that fits their "on the ground" workplace situation.

As a manager, I try to see what the needs of my subordinates are and I try to offer them what they need in the most interesting way. However, in return I expect certain things like timeliness, a strong work ethic, general friendliness and the willingness to communicate. I think that trying to see the workplace through the eyes of the person you are supervising is a very valuable exercise. I find that I need to demonstrate that I am secure and confident in the tasks that I am asking my subordinates to do, which in turn gives them confidence. I am always available for questions and I go over and check on them, as how they are doing, engage with them about the process. I definitely try to impart that the work is important and that I care about the work, that we are not just here to slack off and cut corners, but I also try to be warm and friendly and try to find out more about how the person is outside of work. This usually gives me insight into how their work performance is effected by what is going on in other parts of their lives. I try to make my own work and work-related struggles visible to them because it makes me more relatable, characterizes me as an open person and shows that I trust them to see me when everything is not perfect.

Project Summary for the Middle Eastern Program Collection Preservation Initiatiative

The Middle Eastern Studies Collection at the University of Texas at Austin Libraries is comprised of many volumes that were made with poor quality materials. The low quality of text block paper and unsympathetic bindings contribute to overall deterioration of the collection. Because of lack of resources and dedicated staff, no action has been taken to assess the general physical condition of the collection. No long-term preservation plan, with specific needs of the Middle Eastern Studies collection in mind, has been established.

The Middle Eastern Collection includes many volumes that represent a narrow scholarly interest. The reading of these works demands a high level of language proficiency. Although highly valuable and somewhat rare, these volumes do not circulate widely. Because of infrequent circulation, it has been difficult to assess the physical condition of the collection, since most condition problems are identified when a volumes is checked out and returned to the library.

We propose to conduct an item level survey of the Middle Eastern Studies Collection, starting with the Perry Castaneda Library, where the majority of the volumes in the collection are housed. The survey would be conducted by a dedicated part-time staff of Preservation Administration graduate students enrolled at the School of Information, University of Texas at Austin. The goal of the assessment would be to determine what kind of preservation action is appropriate for items in the collection. Some of the options would be reformatting for brittle materials, de-acidification as preventative action for qualifying items, construction of phase boxes for light sensitive materials and repair of bindings at an in-house book conservation facility. Other approaches aimed at preservation of the collection may be determined as a result of the item-level survey.

We believe that this preservation initiative is timely and appropriate not just because of the needs of this particular collection, but also because of the broader cultural and political implication of preserving materials from the Middle East. The unstable political situation in many nations of the Middle East and destruction of war in Iraq have made preservation of Middle Eastern cultural heritage a priority worldwide. Funding agencies in the United States have taken a leadership role in targeting this problem. We believe that the Middle Eastern Collection at the University of Texas at Austin Libraries fits under the category of culturally significant collections of Middle Eastern materials in need of preservation attention.

At a more local level, the Middle Eastern Studies Collection is an integral and unique part of the University of Texas at Austin Libraries. The collection includes more that 300,000 volumes of monographs and bound periodicals, including works in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Tajiki and Kurdish, as well as in western languages. The Middle Eastern Collection serves as an irreplaceable resource for students and faculty at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, as well as for heritage speakers at the University of Texas at Austin. Many of the volumes from the collection get requested through the Inter-Library Loan system.
Ensuring long-term preservation of the Middle Eastern Studies Collection will benefit the students and faculty at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as the scholarly community at other research universities. The collection also offers cultural public value to heritage speakers of the languages that are represented in the collection.

We believe that as Preservation Administration and Conservation graduate students of the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin, we are uniquely qualified to conduct the survey and coordinate the proposed preservation initiative, The Kilgarlin Center for the Preservation of the Cultural Record, which is the home base of our graduate program, is at the forefront of preservation education for library and archive professionals. Graduate students at the Kilgarlin Center are motivated to gain practical real-world knowledge of working in the fields of preservation and conservation, possess the support system of the School of Information faculty and University of Texas Libraries staff, and have access to new technology and scholarly resources through the University of Texas Library system. We believe that these factors will enable our graduate students to come up with the most thoughtful preservation strategy and to effectively implement the assessment recommendations.

NCPTT-funded grants

Link to NCPTT site:
http://www.ncptt.nps.gov/index.php/grants/call-for-proposals-2009/

The National Center for Preservation Technology and Training offers funding for innovative projects in the fields of preservation education in the form of workshops and cirriculum development, documentation using new methods and development of web material that disseminates new preservation technologies. The grants are not very large, the maximum amount being $25,000. The areas of research that they provide funding for, which are relevant to libraries and museums, are collections management and materials research.

The topis of most interest to the agency are:

-conserve cultural resources of the "recent past"

-monitor and evaluate preservation treatments

-investigate minimally invasive techniques to inventory and assess cultural resources
protect cultural resources against natural and human threats

-preserve cemeteries and places of worship

-safeguard resources from effects of pollution and climate

The funding is available to U.S. universties and colleges, U.S. non-for profit organizations, and government agencies.

When reviewing the proposals, NCPTT officials look for certain criteria:

-have a concrete goal and objectives
-employ innovate technologies
-coherent project design
-qualified PI
-disseminate project results effectively
-cost effectiveness
-use non-traditional disseminaton of educational information that summarizes grant results, such as online web based training, webinars, podcasts, videos, DVDs, electronic publishing, etc.

The NCPTT website provides detailed directions for compiling the grant proposal and application, including specific length of each application component.

The website also has a page that shows all the institutions that had received NCPTT grants in the last several years, the monetary amounts and the project topics.

Link to grants: http://www.ncptt.nps.gov/index.php/grants/

This has proved extremely facinating. Conservation-related projects include a FAIC wiki and a review of past conservation treatments and preservation strategies for the southwest pottery collection at the University of Arizona. This is a collection that I used to work with while at the Arizona State Mumseum (U of A). Many of the objects in the collection had undergone several treatment campaigns, which fell under different philosophical periods in archaeological reconstruction and later on archaelogical conservation. Work related to this grant began, when I left for graduate school, so it would be really interesting to find out what they found about the differet kinds of repairs.

Natural History Museum- a preservation policy

Here are some notes from class discussion about preservation strategies in different institutions.
Our group- Helen, Kathy and Sonya- discussed possible points for a preservation strategy at a Natural History Museum.

1) Re-housing
Proper housing for collections is very important because it facilitates better access practices. If the artifacts are well-labeled and housed in secure trays with cavity cuts or in zip-locked plastic bags, researchers would have an easy time identifying which objects they want to look at will replace the objects into their specific cavity cut or container, when they are finished.

2) Access and Education
Only staff members should take out trays or boxes. Researchers should receive a short tutorial in handling objects before allowed to proceed with their work. Gloves should be provided. Some objects in natural history collections have a risk of toxicity associated with them. These objects include taxidermy and artifacts treated with pesticides during their institutional life. Artifacts suspected of toxicity should be clearly labeled and handled with gloves and possibly a mask. Staff and researchers should be alerted to the health risks involved in interacting with these artifacts.

3) Outreach
The museum should encourage students from relevant departments to volunteer in order to gain practical experience handling, organizing and preserving artifacts. Some departments that a natural history museum could advertise itself to are Museum Studies, Science, Archaeology/Anthropology and Classics. Many rehousing projects can be greatly aided with the involvement of student volunteers. It is a hands-on educational opportunity for the students and a chance to cut costs for the museum institution.

4) New Collections.
A major source of new collection material bringing back artifacts from the field during excavation projects. Some requirements should be instituted for the condition of these incoming collections. The artifacts should be clearly labeled so that they might be cataloged in a timely manner. The artifacts should not contain biological growth or pests. The artifacts should be cleaned in the gentlest possible way.

Analysis of 2 digitization programs

1) Library of Congress: National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program:

http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/library/program_back.html
once on this page, click on the link Preserving Our Digital Heritage: Plan for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
Reading the "Executive Summary" section of the document should be sufficient to get enough information.

2) British Library Digital Preservation Strategy:

www.bl.uk/aboutus/stratpolprog/ccare/introduction/digital/digpresstrat.pdf

Both documents are very complex and cover a broad spectrum of issues. The documents are structured in different ways: the British Library strategy document is written in bullet points, like a brief business agenda document. In the end there is a table that juxtaposes possible risks to digital material with appropriate actions taken as a part of the British Library digitization program. This section of the document is helpful in summarizing the main points of the program and embedding these points in the reader's memory.

The document published at the beginning of the LOC digitization program is a whole brochure, which is written in a narrative style of a grant proposal. This document was published in the very beginning of the digitization program and it outlines what the program will do in the long term future.

Aside from differences in style and format, there are many key points that cross over from one digitization program to the other. Here are some of the shared points for both programs.

1) Selection of appropriate materials to be digitized.
Both plans talk about the importance of prioritizing what gets digitized based on demand of collections for public access and ease of digitizing a particular format.

2) Communication with software vendors and technology specialists.
Gaining knowledge from the industry about proprietary file formats and new ways of preserving/migrating data.

3) Saving digital objects in several locations.
Safeguarding against loss of information caused by disc failure.

4) Saving the relevant incarnations of the file.
Making sure that the digital files that are being preserved can be considered preservation maters.

5) Automating preservation preservation procedures.
To make the preservation programs more cost effective, as many functions as possible should be automated. Automated actions can be guided by reminders that are based one: tracking the last time a file was updated, the kind of file it is and the inherent longevity properties of that file.

6) Long term retention as a priority.
Both programs, but especially LOC, makes long term retention a priority. Reassessment and evaluation of criteria for retention is built into the process of preservation.

Some differences
The LOC digitization initiative document had in it a few points that were not detailed in the British Library strategic digitization plan. As a part of the national digitization initiative, the Library of Congress would work with other federal agencies, state governments and private entities in a comprehensive program, in which it would funciton as a leader. The digitization strategy is not limited to the collections housed at the Library of Congress, but is extended to relevant cultural heritage material across the United States. The Library of Congress document also stresses the importance of rights protected access to the public. The manner of public access the issue of copyright law is a major consideration for this program.

Digitization dilema - NYT article

I was struck by one of the recurring points made in the article - that the new generation of researchers are not willing to travel and study original source material. The author of the article believes that unless the material is digitized, researchers are not going to make the effort to access it. It is true that a document or a film reel that is digitized will get a huge bump in exposure, as illustrated by the example of WWII and NASA film reels digitized at NARA and the library of Congress. But I still think that researchers who are only willing to access materials online are amateurs. I mean, we are not talking about looking up movie times or restaurant reviews. This is scholarly work we are talking about, our intellectual wealth. Yeah, while we are in college we all write papers using Wikipedia for our main reference because we don't have the time to search out books and articles on our own. But if you are a professional and you call yourself a researcher, the limitations of the Web as a research tools should be fairly obvious to you. If the scholarship pursuit is serious, the researcher will find a way to get a hold of as much of the story as possible, whether the sources have been digitized or not.

If you want to look up your aunt Betsy's birth certificate, fine go online, don't go to Minnesota. But if you want to write a new definitive chapter on race in America in 1770's.... you might have to spend some time in an archive. Toni Morrison spent 5 years researching historic documents from that time period in archives and libraries across the United States before writing her new novel A Mercy. This is how long it took her to become comfortable with the historic period she wanted to write about. A Mercy is a relatively short novel and it is a work of fiction. Yet she put in the effort, so that her characters might sound authentic, so that she is not perpetuating blatant historic untruths if she can help it. Why the effort? Because she is good at what she does!

Another point that struck me in the article is the point that is completely missing from it - how in the world are we going to preserve all this digital data? Who is going to organize the multitudes of scans? Who is going to be charged with the stewardship of the cultural heritage in digital
format? After all, the digitized information can only remain accessible by the public if the servers, or wherever the files are kept, are diligently maintained by dedicated professionals, and if the file formats are migrated, when they become technologically obsolete.

If the stewards of the electronic/digital resources are going to be the people, who had financed the digitization process in the first place, this could lead to some tricky issues. Do you really want the Church of the Latter Day Saints Genealogical Society or Google to be the main stakeholder in your digitization initiative? What if they have agendas other than preservation of the material? (aside from making a profit)

Less is more or more is more? Does access equal preservation?

The article is written in a lively opinionated tone, building an argument with each additional paragraph. This makes reading 30 pages of tightly spaced text, which could otherwise be an excruciatingly boring experience, go pretty fast.

To me, the issue of traditional preservation transitioning into a more access-oriented approach is an issue that begs for the middle ground, where both sides of the argument are presented along with the possible consequences of going in the direction of either extreme. But that might not have made for a very exciting article to read. Reactionary/revolutionary rhetoric of a bold vociferous minority speaking out against a less than lucid majority of old-timers is much more attractive on the page. Then again, "reactionary" might be an overstatement, we are talking about archives, the God's sake!

We all know what brittle, crumbling documents, punctured by rusty paper clips, look and feel like - they are unusable for research. So, in about 20 years most of the documents that had not received preventative preservation treatment, like refoldering and staple removal, are going to be extremely difficult for researchers to access. Just as gigantic backlogs are a consequence of inefficient processing practices, so is document deterioration and eventual disintegration a consequence of foregoing preservation treatment.

If broad quick description procedures, which target the maximum number of collections, are given priority over preventative conservation processing, then the researchers of today are significantly favored over the researchers of 20 years from now. The contemporary papers, plastics, transparencies, films and inks are usually of poor quality, permanence was not a goal in their production. These materials degrade quickly and in unpredictable ways, so they need all the preservation help that they can get.

I agree that archivists need to respond to the needs of the public in terms of access. It is a scary thought that if material is not available and is not described, it might as well be dead. But it seems unwise, to say the least, to abandon preservation efforts in order to increase descriptive processing productivity. The middle ground of balance and compromise has to be reached by each specific institution, taking into consideration their budget, their collection type and use, the mission of their institution and the core institutional beliefs. There is a great potential for variability of policies that may (and should, I think) be allowed to exist.

Mass Deacidification Initiative at New York University Libraries

It seems that New York University's Preservation division is following the same guidelines in their selection process as mentioned in the Pilette article.

NYU Libraries Link: http://library.nyu.edu/preservation/deacid/massdeacid.html

The books selected for deacidification must have flexible paper, most of the paper should not be coated or glossy, pH of the paper surface must be below 7, as indicated by a pH testing pen, and the bindings must be structurally strong. The policy is also to add a notation to each deacidified book's MARK record, entered into field 583:

$a mass deacidified $c 2007 $i MgO $2spt $5

The selection process and the records keeping system appears to be in complete agreement with the criteria offered by Pilette. The website article on mass deacidification on the NYU Libraries website is informative and to the point. The collection that was most recently selected for mass deacidification was the Russian literature collection. Although the rationale for this choice is not explained in the article, I could see a few reasons why this choice might have been made.

From what I know of Russian literature books (having grown up in Russia and having checked out more than one university library Slavic collection), the textblocks are typically made from medium-to-low quality paper that is a few grades above newsprint. The bindings and textblock quality for books published during the Soviet era are pretty high, as compared with contemporary bindings from the Middle East and from India. Nice cloth bindings with high quality textblocks and attractive, artistic illustrations are no longer produced in Russia. The books one can buy in Russia right now for a reasonable price are of much poorer quality and tend to be somewhat gaudy in the design department. It makes sense that there is a desire to preserve the older Russian literature volumes in usable condition for as long as possible, as replacing them would be very difficult.

It would be interesting to find out what kind of circulation demands exist for these books, as it is not mentioned in the article whether this collection is popular among the student body.

The article's authors are very confident about the benefits of deacidification (which would make sense, since this is a part of their preservation policy), and unequivocally state the following:

"An alkaline buffer neutralizes acids in the paper raising the pH to a range of 7.5 to 9.5 and leaving a buffer that is equivalent to about 1% by weight calcium carbonate. The process leaves no noticeable odor and independent testing has shown it to be a non-carcinogenic process. "

From reading up on deacidification, or just hearing differing opinions among conservators and preservation administrators, it seems that deacidification can be seen as a problematic mass treatment, which often creates side effects and leaves residues. The benefits of deacidification are difficult to quantify and trace through time, and the ambiguous nature of the treatment is not imparted in the NYU web description in any way.

First Impressions: first site visit at PCL Middle Eastern circulating collections

During our ffist visit with Roberta Dougherty (Robin), the Middle Eastern Collections librarian at PCL, we talked briefly about the history of the collection, where the various parts of the overall collection were located and specifically about the group of volumes housed on the 5th floor of

We started the visit in Robin's office area on the 3rd floor. There was a range of volumes there that she has recently received and was in the process of cataloging. Robin took this opportunity to introduce us to the types of bindings that were present in the collection. It quickly became clear that her main interest regarding the preservation assessment of the collection was to find out more about how the different classes of bindings fared over time and how they compared to each other in terms of the longevity of the materials they were made from.

The bindings in the collection can be divided into roughly 5 categories, each one representing unique structural and stylistic features. Some of the materials used in the bindings, like covering material and type of textblock paper, are shared between the categories, while others are particular to one specific category of bindings.

Even though the collection is a circulating one, damage from use was not the main concern, as most volumes do not get checked out very often. Taking into consideration the needs of the custodian, the defining features of the collection and the profile of use, we decided that it made sense to focus on the integrity and inherent vice of the materials in the various binding types, as well as the quality and structure of the bindings.

Below are the five types of bindings that we would like to examine in the course of the survey. There are volume in the Middle Eastern book collection that fall in between the categories specified, but most of the books fit one of these types. For the sake of keeping things simple, we decided that 5 categories was as much as we could deal with given our relative inexperience and the time allotted for the project.

1. Original binding=Books still in their original, unaltered Middle Eastern bindings.

2. Black and gold bindings = Books rebound by a contracted bindery in Egypt. Bindings are typically covered in black synthetic leather with raised bands and minimal gold tooling.

3. Library of Congress bindings = Books rebound by the Library of Congress.

4. Older bindings = Books bound in a quarter style binding with raised bands and minimal gold tooling usually on the spine. These books were usually bound in an earlier time period than the rest of the collection.

5. High-end bindings = Contemporary decorative bindings which feature gold embellishment and colorful covering material. These binding styles are typically found on religious or important editions of literary works.

Middle Eastern Book Collection-PCL

Management of Preservation Programs
Spring 2009
Sonya Issaeva & Kathy Lechuga


Letter of Commitment


As a part of the INF 392G Management of Preservation Programs course at the Kilgarlin Center, University of Texas at Austin, students are required to conduct a preservation assessment survey of a collection. The Middle Eastern Collection at the Perry Casteñeda Library was assigned to us by our instructor Dr. Maria Esteva. After meeting with the Middle Eastern Collection librarian Roberta Dougherty we decided that it would be appropriate to focus on modern and contemporary literary works housed on the sixth floor of the PCL building.

In this preservation assessment we will examine deterioration patterns of primary and secondary bindings. The binding types will be subdivided into five specific categories: original bindings, volumes rebound by a contracted Middle Eastern binder, older Library of Congress secondary bindings, high-end religious and literary set bindings, and volumes rebound earlier with false raised bands. Another binding category may be added after more careful examination of the collection. Within these sub-categories we will be looking at and documenting various aspects of damage and deterioration of paper, text block condition, and binding condition.

We will be working on site on the sixth floor of the PCL building during the course of several Saturday afternoons, gathering information for the survey and eventually conducting the survey, when our project design is complete. The preservation assessment document will be delivered on May 5th, 2009.The document will include a discussion of our observations regarding the preservation-related issues and possible needs within the collection, a summary of data gathered in the survey of volumes, our conclusions and possible recommendations.

We look forward to working with the Middle Eastern Collections material at the Perry Casteñeda Library and will maintain communication via email with the custodian of the collection, Roberta Dougherty, while working on the preservation assessment document. We would like to thank Roberta Dougherty for meeting with us on February 2nd, 2009 to answer our initial questions about the collection and for answering additional questions via email. She has provided extensive information on the types of bindings included in the Middle Eastern Collection, the overall profile of the collection and the pattern of patron use. She openly shared her preferences for what kind of information, mined by the survey, would be useful to her as the custodian of this collection. Without her input and guidance we would not be able to conduct this preservation assessment.

Sincerely,

Sonya Issaeva and Kathy Lechuga

Preservation in Flux

Article Citation:
Frost, Hannah. "Media Preservation in Libraries: A Profile". AIC News, Vol. 32, No. 4, July 2007


In W(H)ITHER PRESERVATION M.V. Cloonan speaks about the challenge of designing a preservation program that is appropriate for the social needs of the present. Such a program has to be able to adjust to the the lack of fixed parameters in cyber-generated documents, the ambiguous nature of the relationship between object and record, as exemplified in some works of contemporary art, and the changing priorities in selecting objects for preservation. Cloonan stresses the importance of social and historical context in defining a philosophical basis for a preservation program.
Cloonan states that in order for preservation to be effective and relevant as a field, there needs to be inter-disciplinary collaboration and discussion with scientists, scholars and stakeholders in the preservation process. She is weary of over-simplification and of going to extremes, stating that neither does preservation equal access, eliminating the need for preserving the original, nor does every physical copy of a book need to be preserved for the sake of its uniqueness.
A recent article in AIC News describes a relatively new audio/visual preservation initiative at NYU. The Head of Preservation, Paula de Stefano, talks at length about the premise of the new program, its focus, goals and challenges and the practical considerations of running it. I feel that the Media Preservation Program at NYU is modeled on Cloonan's ideas. The program was established at the same time as the graduate program in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, crating an opportunity for dynamic educational collaborations within the Media Preservation Lab environment and the assistance of graduate students in ongoing projects.
Paula de Stefano describes the challenges of harmonizing audio/visual preservation and book/archives preservation under the umbrella of the same program, while recognizing the unique, different needs of each one. Finally, the NYU Preservation Department involved the Special Collections departments of its library system by asking for feedback on the media preservation program. Currently, the Media Preservation lab staff is collaborating with the Preservation Department of Columbia University Libraries, funded by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The goal of the project is to develop and test a survey instrument to inventory and access audio/visual collections and ultimately to create a database that would serve as an inventory/assessment tool.