"Our heritage is all that we know of ourselves; what we preserve of it, our only record. That record is our beacon in the darkness of time; the light that guides our steps." 1This paper presents several definitions for the term preservation, highlights three core preservation elements, and suggests several areas for collaboration across libraries, archives, and other institutions with similar interests.
Only 3 years later, in 1993, this same Commission released another report, The Preservation of Archival Materials. This study reiterated the lack of a common and specific understanding of the meaning of preservation across institutions. The authors borrowed from O'Toole 3 who lists three meanings for preservation: (1) identifying and acquiring original documents, (2) providing conservation treatment to deal with chemical and/or physical problems;, and (3) transferring information to an alternative medium. The authors add a fourth meaning: providing a level of environmental control, housing, care, and maintenance to retard further chemical deterioration and protect material from physical damage. The theme of fostering cooperation and alliances to identify and preserve documentation is echoed in this report.
Morrow offers this provocative defining statement about preservation planning
"At their most basic, preservation programs seek to keep core materials in usable condition for the benefit of on-site users working in today's library environment at the same time as they seek to address the long-term retention of and access to information for the users of the future. In fact, preservation programs are designed to bring today's cumulative, linear, analog collections forward to meet the future where technology continues to transform the way libraries acquire, describe, and provide access to information resources, as well as change the way library users exploit those resources." 4In a frequently used text, Preserving Archives and Manuscripts, Ritzenthaler devotes the first chapter to tracing definitions for preservation over time and concludes with this observation:
"The challenge of archives preservation is most fully met in institutions that emphasize the interdependence of sound archival management with sound preservation programs and practices." 5Distilling points from all of these definitions leads me to conclude that preservation is an activity that takes place at the macro 10,000 foot level with thoughtful policy development, planning, and collaboration, and that is also an activity that takes place at the ground level with hands-on selection decisions, treatment practices, and implementation of migration and access procedures so that items can be used now and in the future.
Advocacy for Preservation of the Entire Collection
Advocacy includes developing the mission, strategies, goals, and policies that create the philosophical infrastructure necessary to guide staff and promote adequate funding for continuation of the institution's preservation program. Construction of this infrastructure is an iterative process that involves detailed, thoughtful, and collaborative planning to define issues, set and limit priorities, and develop written documents that clearly articulate the intentions and commitment of the institution and its leadership for sound preservation programming. The process of developing these infrastructure tools positions the institution to successfully defend its preservation practices, define boundaries so that collaboration to avoid expensive duplication of effort can take place, measure performance, and justify the cost of the preservation program. As needs change, these documents must also change. These documents also provide important documentation for public relations and marketing efforts that promote the institution to the public and the leadership of the parent body of the library or archive.
Stabilizing Environmental Controls and Storage Conditions
This core element of preservation includes improving and then maintaining appropriate heat, humidity, light, and pest controls that can involve expensive changes to entire physical plant systems and building design. In some instances, less expensive measures such as staff training to institute systematic monitoring and adjustment of controls and activities already in place are all that is needed. Improving the storage environment for the collections retards the deterioration of materials and avoids the more expensive costs of item replacement, item level conservation treatment, and even the loss of material to irreversible damage. This element is fundamental to sound preservation practice in all types of institutions.
Implementation of Preservation Activities by Knowledgeable and Trained Staff
This core element identifies and stops damaging practices by eliminating ignorance through proactive education. Staff members need to learn (1) how to recognize items that are in need of treatment or protection, (2) how to educate users in careful and appropriate materials handling procedures, and (3) how to monitor and examine current practices to assess their effectiveness on an ongoing basis. Staff members also need to be familiar with disaster recovery and preservation plans that document the institution's careful thinking about priorities and strategies for taking action in time of disaster.
"The perpetuation of society as we are accustomed to conceive or idealize it is dependent to a very large extent on the preservation en masse of our accumulated group memories and consciousness stored in the form of written, printed, and otherwise recorded word or symbol." 7The extreme importance of preservation activity is clear in this statement, but proactive preservation planning, programming, and implementation is expensive. To spread the cost, to avoid expensive duplication of effort, and to combine effort so that multiple institutions can benefit, collaboration across institutions of all types is recommended. Many types of institutions can collaborate in disaster recovery planning so that responsibilities can be shared at the very time quick action is needed. User training, beginning with students in elementary school libraries, is another area for collaboration. Students need to learn how to carefully handle materials of all types, and librarians and teachers can be invited to take advantage of local archival resources to excite students about using primary research materials. Now that processes for making electronic surrogates of archival materials are more readily available, institutions can begin to collaborate with curriculum planners and school librarians to select materials for electronic access that will be useful in the classroom. Inter-institutional cooperation for appropriate placement of records is another area for collaboration. Today, perhaps more than at any other time before, technologies enable facile communication between institutions and the sharing of collection development plans, preservation plans, disaster plans, imaging plans, and finding aids. This ability to easily communicate and share helps libraries of all types, archives of all sizes, and institutions in other allied fields, tackle the difficult and still new and undefined boundaries that will insure the integrity and authenticity of the content and structures of the materials we strive to preserve so that future users will have the guidance and documentation that has come before available to them. Communication between different types of institutions leads to new approaches and the discovery that even though the materials and methodologies may vary across institutions, the program goals, preservation concerns, and management issues are very similar.
Binkley, Robert C. "Strategic Objectives in Archival Policy." The American Archivist 2 (1939, July): 162-68.
Boomgaarden, Wesley. "Prospective Preservation." Meeting the Preservation Challenge. Ed. Jan Merrill-Oldham. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, 1988. 31-37.
Commission on Preservation and Access. Preservation Education Institute Final Report. Prepared by Deanna B. Marcum. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America, 1990, August.
The Preservation of Archival Materials: A Report of the Task Force on Archival Selection. Washington, DC: Commission on Preservation and Access, 1993, April.
Commission on Preservation and Access and Research Libraries Group, Inc. Preserving Digital Information: Report of the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information. Task Force Co-Chairs Donald Waters and John Garrett. Washington, DC: Commission on Preservation and Access and the Research Libraries Group, 1996, May 1.
Conway, Paul. Preservation in the Digital World. Washington, DC: Commission on Preservation and Access, 1996, March.
Darling, Pamela W., and Sherelyn Ogden. "From Problems Perceived to Programs in Practice: The Preservation of Library Resources in the USA, 1956-1980." Library Resources and Technical Services 25 (1981): 9-29.
"Preservation Microfilming: A Guide for Librarians and Archivists. Ed. Lisa L. Fox. 2nd ed. Chicago: American Library Association.
Morrow, Carolyn Clark. "Defining the Library Preservation Program: Policies and Organization." Preservation: Issues and Planning. Eds. Paul N. Banks and Roberta Pilette. Chicago: American Library Association, 2000.
Northeast Document Conservation Center. Preservation of Library and Archival Materials. Andover, MA: Northeast Document Conservation Center, 1999.
O'Toole, James M. "On the Idea of Permanence." The American Archivist 52 (1989, Winter): 10-25.
Petherbridge, Guy, Ed. Conservation of Library and Archive Material and the Graphic Arts. London: Butterworths, 1987.
Ritzenthaler, Mary Lynn. Preserving Archives and Manuscripts. Archival Fundamentals Series. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1993.
Ward, Philip. The Nature of Conservation: A Race Against Time. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 1986.
Watson, Duane. "The Divine Library Function: Preservation." School Library Journal 33 (1986, November): 41-45.
1 Philip Ward, The Nature of Conservation: A Race Against Time (Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 1986).
2 Commission on Preservation and Access, Preservation Education Institute Final Report (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America, August, 1990). Available online: http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byauth/marcum/educinst.html
3 James M. O'Toole, "On the Idea of Permanence," The American Archivist 52, no.1 (Winter 1989): 11-25.
4 Carolyn Clark Morrow, "Defining the Library Preservation Program: Policies and Organization," In. Preservation: Issues and Planning, Eds. Paul N. Banks and Roberta Pilette, Eds., (Chicago: American Library Association, 2000), 2.
5 Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, Preserving Archives and Manuscripts, (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 1993), 3.
6 Paul Conway. Preservation in the Digital World, (Washington, DC: Commission on Preservation and Access, March, 1996), 6.
7 Guy Petherbridge, Ed., Conservation of Library and Archive Materials and the Graphic Arts, (London: Butterworths, 1987), 1.
8 Robert C. Binkley, "Strategic Objectives in Archival Policy." The American Archivist 2 (July 1939): 162-168.
