The History Channel explores Life After People

The History Channel has recently aired Life After People , an exploration of what would happen to the Earth if all humans suddenly left. There is no comment on why or what happened to the people; no stories of disasters, wars, or disease. It is as if they left home and never returned.

The two-hour show outlines what would happen in the first hours, days, weeks, and months, finally taking year increments - 10 years, 20 years, ... 150 years, 200 years, etc. The show discusses how quickly our modern conveniences, like electricity, would fail without human maintenance, contemplates the fate of family pets, and demonstrates how plants would overtake our industrial centers.

As Mother Nature and the ravages of time wear on, viewers are left to contemplate what would be left of the human legacy. Images of the Lincoln Memorial looking much like a forgotten Mayan ruin flash before us. We are left to consider how permanent our structures are and in what form our historical record will survive -- if it will survive.

We often envisage that we will have more to leave behind than our ancient ancestors. Surely archaeologists in the future will have more to go on than we have with pictures on buildings and inscriptions in stone. Even buildings crumble without maintenance in harsh climates. Just how permanent is our legacy? Books and acetate film are specifically considered. Without humans to implement and maintain the climate controls at places like the Getty Institute, these temporary vessels of our knowledge and experience are left to warp, mold, and be reduced to nothing. Our digital items are also not so long lasting, even before considering the availability of playback systems.

Preservation is a constant maintenance task. Time and nature are not our best friends. Therefore it is crucial to consider how important people -- preservation librarians, archivists, etc. -- are to making sure our legacy is saved. These items will not last on their own.

You have to wear the gloves

In the last post I mentioned that getting closer to your ideal preservation conditions and processes involves one step at a time and suggested buying white gloves as a first inexpensive step to dealing with your items, such as photographs or slides. The second step is, obviously enough, that you have to wear the gloves.

This may seem to simple, but it's often the harder part of taking that first step. Not wearing the gloves is like starting an exercise program by buying the gym membership and then never going. It's easy to do, but not very effective and won't get you any closer to your goals. Get into the habit. Set an example for your staff by wearing the gloves when you work with the items. Create a habit. Let's say working with the photographs is something you only do once a week. Instead, try to make a schedule to work with the photographs every day for an hour (if you don't already) and make sure you wear the gloves as part of your ritual.

Still resisting? Perhaps there is something else going on. The gloves aren't the right size. Or you need to use lotion after wearing them for a while. See if there are other problems that can be resolved so that you can master this step. Maybe white gloves were not the place to start. The whole point of the previous post was to start somewhere, not to boost glove sales; the whole point of this post is that once you do start, follow through. Wear your gloves - whatever form they take.

Preservation is Compromise

We would all like to have the best equipment, the best space, the ideal climate conditions for our collections, but sometimes it's just not feasible. This isn't about giving up altogether, or complaining about the library world, being underfunding, the lack of professionalism, etc. It's about realizing that these compromises and priority-making are a part of the work. It is what makes librarianship, museum curation, and preservation a challenging job - one that should require a masters degree to do.

Celebrate the small victories, and move forward even if you don't think you're "at that stage yet." For example, buying gloves for handling photographs. The gloves are inexpensive and a good place to make one small step forward. The environment may not be the cleanest, many of the photographs may already be dusty, water damaged, ripped and bent, and you may not be putting them into the proper archival boxes right away, however, it's a start. Donning the gloves is a constant reminder of how the space is supposed to be a clean area. It will get you into the mindset to make other small changes and decisions.

It may also open your eyes to the long way you have to go to get to your ideal preservation set up, but don't let it overwhelm you. Next month, maybe you'll be able to ensure you have a few of those archival boxes.

Digital preservation?

Preservation is Access
Digitization is Access
Therefore...

Now, wait a minute. Digitization is not preservation. It's not clear why many people think this way, but digitization does not save everything.

The National Museum of American History has been closed since 2006 and will not reopen until summer 2008. During this time, The Treasures of American History, which includes Dorothy's Ruby Red Slippers from The Wizard of Oz, as well as Archie Bunker's chair from All in the Family, will be housed at the National Air and Space Museum. This summer, there happened to be an event in that area of the NASM on one particular day and the Treasures of American History exhibit was closed until 2:3o p.m. At 3:00 p.m., the doors finally opened to the public and a burst of people rushed it. There were numerous 8-12 year-olds with cameras who practically ran from exhibit to exhibit taking quick snapshots of each of the items.

As I stood looking at a large table with lots of small squares of colors and read the description, I realized that it was decorated with detailed inlaid wood, not merely painted, as I first thought. A young girl slipped alongside me, snapped a picture and left, not pausing for a second. I'm sure she had less time than originally planned since the exhibit was open for a third of the time on that particular day, but I wonder how much she really got out of the exhibit. When she gets home will she look at the pictures? Will she realize the stories behind them or the detail that went into them? Will she be able to walk around the pieces and realize how they are put together? Finally, why did she come to the museum in the first place? The Ruby Red Slippers are online here.

And here's the table.
Don't you wish you could see it close up?

Three Ring Binders for Slides

Three-ring binders can be so helpful in organizing things that they even make three-ring binders with pockets for slides and photographs. Have you ever tried to organize slides with three-ring binders? There are several pros and cons to doing so.

First the pros...

• There are many labeling options. You can label an entire page as well as each slide. Labeling can be done on the slide or on the pockets or both. You can insert scraps of paper with additional metadata in one of the pockets (instead of a slide). You can also add pieces of paper in the binder with additional explanation, e.g. an explanation of abbreviations used on the slides, organization information, numbering techniques, general information about the entire collection, etc.
• The sheets are easy to remove as a whole sheet and clear pockets allow for viewing several slides at once by holding up to a light or putting against a light table.
• If the slides have a specific order (e.g. a presentation), is easier to keep them properly arranged since you are only ordering several pages, instead of tens or hundreds of slides.
  
• It is easier to compare duplicates or similar slides if you can hold about 20 of them at once.
• It can be easy to expand a slide collection located in a binder since you would just need to add an additional page.
  
• These type of slide covers keep most dust and bugs off of the image.
• As long as the slides are kept out of high humidity, they are relatively safe from mold in these slide pockets.
• As long as you pay attention to the type of material the slide pockets are made out of, it is a recommended preservation options by Wilhelm Imaging Research
  

And the cons...

• Like any physical holder, you must make a determination of how you will handle placement. Putting only slides from one designation on a page may be helpful (e.g. from one event, of one person, of one botanical species, etc.).
• Binders can take a lot of room. If you are placing only slides from one event/person/place, etc. on a page, you may have many pages that are not full. This adds to the bulk of a collection that could be very efficiently stored (but not as easily accessed) in boxes or some other fashion.
• Binders can still make expansion difficult. Sometimes it is unreasonable to put one type of slide on a page, e.g. when there are typically less than 10 of one type or quite often only 2-3 of one type. In this case, it is necessary to combine types on pages. If new slides need to fit between these types, it might be time consuming to fit them in. It also limits the amount of permanent writing you would be able to do on the slide pockets -- as slides may be moving to different pockets over the course of time.
  
• Binders tend to get top heavy. Because those putting together the collection is most likely to start storing slides at the upper-left-most part of the page, the right side and bottom of each slide pocket sheet may not be filled. After 50-100 pages, there is a noticeable bulge at the top of the binder -- much like a stack of stapled packets.
• The slide pockets can also be clingy and static-y. Information marked with pencil may rub off the slide and onto the pocket. Depending on where the markings were, the pencil marks could dirty up the entire pocket making it hard to see the slides through. It can also cause difficulty in reading information on the slide -- as not only the slide will be smudged, but the additional graphite will obscure even new slides with permanent writing.
• Some of these three-hole slide pockets aren't as clear and easy to see through as others. And some don't wear as well as others. It's worth investigating some options before investing in this type of organization for your collection.

Minimizing the cons...

• You can minimize most of the cons with careful planning, especially in how you will label images. Keeping most of the labeling on each slide is always helpful to allow moving the slides to different pockets or pages, and guard against losing slides that may be taken out of the binder during use.
• If you have an expanding collection, planning carefully the spacing between current slides in the collection and how additional slides will be added can avoid headaches later. Both keeping space on each page of slide pockets and space in each binder for additional pages can help.
  
• Another option to minimize the headaches of an expanding collection is using cross reference stickers to direct users to separate binders with later additions to the collection.
  
• Using smaller binders (e.g. 1 to 1.5 inch binders instead of 4 or 6 inch binders) can minimize the problem of top heavy binders. While it may mean more binders, they are easier to handle. If they are labeled well, they will be easy to organize. In addition, in a heavily used collection, more people will be able to simultaneously use different parts of the collection than if all the slides were in only one or two binders.
  

How have you organized slides or seen them organized? What are some issues you've seen with slides in binders or how have you minimized some of these problems?

Abbreviations in Metadata

Acronyms and abbreviations are very helpful especially in the case of having metadata on small object such as slides. While you can have a catalog pointing to the object's location, the slide itself still needs to be labeled so that it can be organized. Slides have a limited amount of space on them, and while you can attach papers to them, or put papers next to them in a slide binder or box, eventually the paper and slide will get separated. For a slide to be viewed it must be able to stand alone.

It is, therefore, important to have certain basic information on the slide itself. The most obvious information is what's in the picture. However, even if the picture is self-explanatory, -- e.g. taken in a zoo, with the zebra sign in the foreground and a zebra in the background -- it's only labeled as to what it is, not its context within the collection. For example, without a categorization number or some sort of accession number, how would we differentiate it from other zebra images? How would we shelve it or organize it? And how would we find it again, in a book or box of other slides?

Besides having some basic information of what is in the picture, an accession number and a classification designation will also be needed. If the slide as been added to a digital database, it probably has an additional reference number for that. Some slides may also have a year and a photographer and a location note. All very helpful in case a database, catalog, or other metadata tool is lost, outdated or corrupted.

Think about what this slide might now look like. Let's take an example slide of a flower. Numbers 8983, 1990, and 02-2156 appear on the slide. Letter-type writing included: Lily F., Aletris lutea, L12, and FL. On the back was a stamp of a photographer. Confused? I was too. In fact, I had seen a slide similar to this and assumed the Lily F. refered to a photographer -- which unfortunately was different than the photographer mentioned on the back. Not until looking at several similar slides and then seeing one labeled Rose F. in the same way, did I realize that the F. stood for "family" (as in belonging to the Lily Family and the Rose Family) not a last name. Most of the slides in this collection had the scientific names Liliaceae and Rosaceae. This deviation was confusing. It made me think twice about the types of abbreviations on slides and their consistency.

While just having all the relevant information on the slide is helpful, it is not always enough. The best scenario would be to label each piece of metadata, e.g. accession: xxxx, photographer: xxx, year: xxx, location: xxx, etc. On a slide, with little space, however, that is not feasible. Sometimes it's a challenge to fit the scientific name alone!

Tips to cut the confusion

• A consistent location on the slide can be helpful. If the accession number is always in the bottom left, it will be easier to identify. The family name can always appear on the left side. And so on.
  
• Abbreviations can help. If the accession number always begins with an A, or the year always begins with a Y, it might make it clearer what each piece of information is.
• Formatting can also be a clue. The 2-digit-hyphen-4-digit accession number, if always formatted that way, can be a clue. Consciously selecting special formats for different information types can be a helpful clue.
  
• Finally, having a table to cross reference abbreviations is also necessary. BBNP is a much more helpful location note than TX because it designates Big Bend National Park -- which gives a specific part of TX, a specific city, and perhaps almost geographic coordinates. It's not as obvious as TX = Texas, however, and without a cross reference, may be less helpful in the long run if it can never be decoded.

Metadata is important in preservation, because if there is no information about when, where, or what the image is of, it is almost as if we were unable to preserve the image in the first place.

If we are...

• unable to organize it and give it a place in the collection
• unable to talk about it in relation to the work it was intended for (e.g. botanical images intended for botanical research)
• unable talk about how old it is, who made it, where it was made, or put it into a historical context
  

...then we have not been stewards of the item. We cannot provide adequate access to it. And we have not preserved it.


Have you had to do a bit of decoding in your work to determine what something is, how old it is, or other information about it? Were you able to discover the "answer" you were looking for? What additional tools may have been helpful in your quest?

Be My Preserved Valentine

Ah, Valentine's Day. What Valentines cards do you remember from your past? Valentines with Precious Moments figures, Snoopy characters, or your favorite comics? How about those cute (cheesy?) cards with sayings such as "we make a great pair" and a drawing of a pair of socks? Perhaps you remember your first valentine from your first crush.

Old Valentines
You may treasure valentines from your sweetheart and keep them tucked away in a "safe spot," but Katherine Kreider looks at valentines throughout the ages. Not just Valentine's Day cards, but also toys, advertising, and other ephemera. Her three books show photographs and descriptions of Valentine's Day items throughout the ages from the 1800s to the late twentieth century.

Back here in the twenty-first century, many of you are wondering about Valentine's Day 2007. Whether for friends or that special someone, those of you looking for an antique Valentine, Kingsbury Antiques, Krieder's store in Pennsylvania, sells them. For e-cards, you can find vintage valentine clip art on About.com.

Storing Your Valentines
Others may be wondering how best to store their personal collection of old valentines. If you have something of high sentimental value, rare or very old, consult a professional conservator. Otherwise, you can use these general guidelines for some minimal preservation you can do at home.

Treat valentines like you would other paper materials you want to preserve. They are best kept protected - in an envelope or box. They should not be bent, folded unnecessarily (original folds are okay), or rolled to fit a certain space. Lie flat in a box with like sizes together, largest valentines on the bottom, smaller on the top, to prevent bending. Valentines you suspect are made with acidic papers should be separated from the rest. Minimal preservation on these can include interleaving with alkaline paper (most printer paper is alkaline or non-acidic, check the packaging and just put a sheet between each valentine during storage). You may want to change the alkaline paper every few years.

Make sure you label your box or envelope with enough detail so someone knows what it is (and knows not to discard it). Keep it in a cool dry place -- avoid bathrooms, laundry rooms, basements, and attics. Take a look at your valentines. If they were created or signed with an acidic pen, the writing may have faded. If this occurs, it is likely the writing could fade completely. You may wish to take a picture of the valentine before your sweethearts sweet nothings fade to... nothing. Consult a professional for items with mold or other options for acidity.

Valentines can also involve materials other than paper. Cloth or metals may be attached, the item might be a toy or stuffed animal. Consider that cloth and other materials all have different preservation techniques.

Creating Valentines that Last
What if you're creating a special valentine this year for your special someone? What precautions can you take in making the card that will help along the preservation path? Use acid free paper and pens/markers. Make sure your glue or paste is acid free. You can even make your own paste. The Northeast Document Conservation Center has a couple of
easy recipes to follow.

Acid-free materials are important because acidic ink will fade over time and acidic paper will become brittle. Any vibrant colors of acidic papers will fade, and anything touching your card that is acidic can "bleed" its pH level onto your valentine. Even the envelope should be acid-free.

Have a lovely Valentine's Day!

Eye of the Beholder, Part II

Preservation is Beautiful...

You see the care that went into book binding of a different era and sometimes a different place.

You find typography of works from other places and times.

You discover the differences in how a subject was treated over time.

You save something that people really value, either for its usefulness or its beauty.

You get to be in the middle of controversial topics and you determine what future generations will see of our past -- should they see all the sordid details? you decide!

You work with a variety of materials -- leather, book cloth, sewing needles, thread, hand made pastes, glue, beautiful papers, etc.

You champion free speech and are an active part of the democratic process by ensuring important items are not lost -- voices that were heard once can be heard again and again.

You contemplate how to best preserve beautiful artwork.

Eye of the Beholder, Part I

Preservation is ugly...

You see ...
...mold
...bugs
...rodents
...dirt
...dust
...goo

You find residue from ...
...gum
...food
...spills

You discover beautiful pages marred by ...
...foxing/mold
...tears
...water
...fire
...poor repairs

You identify useful text, charts, maps, photographs, etc. rendered almost unusable due to ...
...tears
...vandalism
...brittle pages/acidic paper

You think...
...if only we had caught this before
...if only we had known how to prevent this
...if only we had more security or a better emergency plan
...if only we had the money to attend to all we wanted to

Culinary Archives

U.S. News and World Report, as part of their 50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2007 issue, recommends creating a family cookbook to save family memories. While the story does not have much to say about how to store the recipes it does say a lot about not only the importance of a small scale preservation project, but also the management of the collection stage of such a project.

Importance
Author Linda Kulman notes that the memories of the taste of the food and the company who shared it are strong reasons to create collection such as a family cookbook. Like scrapbooks and photographs, recipe collections tell about the history of a family and a time. They also connect people.

Management
Kulman also gives suggestions for managing a family's recipe collection project, which we can use for our own families, but these concepts are helpful for managing the beginning stages of any archival project. Some lessons learned include:

• not all items in the collection will conform to the same format - be flexible to accept differences
• it will take time, even with technology
• it may be emotional
  
• one person should be the project manager, setting deadlines and encouraging participation
• people who wouldn't normally be involved can help and add different perspectives
• for collections that are ongoing (such as recipes) you can start with today and collect moving forward instead of doing research to collect items of the past
• the project can vary in scope, e.g. a family cookbook can include family photos, birth certificates, and handwritten items, in addition to the recipes

A large scale version of the family cookbook would be a culinary archive, such as the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive at the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, which contains thousands of items from the 1500s through the present, including menus, magazines, diaries, letters, advertisements, reference items, among other works.

Why and how do you save your and your family's recipes? Have you been involved in a family cookbook project - how was it organized? Does a family cookbook make it to your top 50 New Year's Resolutions for 2007? Why or why not?

Sources
Kulman, Linda. "Write Your Family Cookbook." U.S. News & World Report 141.24 (Dec 25, 2006): 68. Accessed 28 Dec. 2006 via http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/061217/25cookbook.family.htm

The horrors of... cellophane tape?

It's everywhere. In books from public libraries to academic institutions. It's in your used textbooks. You may have even put some in your own text books or children's books. Cellophane tape -- that clear tape that allows you to stop that rip but see through to the text below.

After all, nothing can be worse than a torn page, except one that evolves into a larger and larger rip. Why not mend it now with that ubiquitous clear adhesive tape? It's in your desk, in your drawer at home, in every grocery, drug and convenience store. It's practically a cure-all for paper.

In a recent preservation class at UIUC, a gasp filled the room as one student admitted to using cellophane tape before being enlightened by the course (of which cellophane tape has its 20 seconds of fame, a mere mention in the vastness of preservation). Come now, fess up, we've all done it -- well meaning, yet ill-advised beginners in book preservation and we can understand why others would tape their pages too.

What's the big deal about cellophane tape? It's not only terrible for the paper (it's acidic and causes pages to break down, it creates a ridge where a new rip can -- and usually does -- form, it yellows and the cellophane falls off leaving a sticky residue, etc.). But it's more than that.

Cellophane tape is the representation of how little is known about preservation in the wider community. Even many libraries use tape to repair tears. It shows how far we need to go in educating others about preservation -- not only in people's individual collections, but in libraries and archives.

I don't want to admonish current and previous cellophane tape users. They've (we've) all meant well, so let's admit we've all done it, but now that we know more, we can move on to other forms of repair.

Please share your tape stories or pictures below.


Additional Reading
NYU Library on Scotch Tape
Stamps & Scotch Tape
Penn State Special Collections Library: Rare Books & Manuscripts: FAQs on Preservation
Cons Dist List Post on "Preservation" Scotch Tape

Images from Getty Images. Image #BU006989

Should We Preserve That?

Preservation of murals sanctioned by communities or created by noted artists is something that fits into the preservation concern. A recent article in American Way shows murals in the subways of New York City. The murals are clearly works of art in a place which has usually been known for its graffiti. However, there are several books on the subject, which take a look at graffiti as art, and certainly there is a fine line in some cases between graffiti and a spray painted mural. In doing preservation, do we need to concern ourselves with such esoteric questions as "what is art?"

Graffiti has been called street art, urban art, subway art, spray paint art, urban calligraphy, and urban communication; it's also been called vandalism and crime. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book The Tipping Point, linked graffiti on subways in New York to urban crime. It has been associated with gangs, hip-hop, and pop culture. Still many consider there to be a "graffiti culture" and consider graffiti to be art.

If we do decide that graffiti is indeed worth saving, either as a form of art, communication, or of culture, we will have an additional challenge - social norms. Graffiti is considered unacceptable in many places, a social disgrace to a neighborhood, and something to be removed. Any number of actions have attempted to deter graffiti artists, including the preemptive ban on 18-22 year olds to buy certain spray paints and markers in New York City in early 2006; graffiti removal attempts have also been popular, either by chemical processes, painting over, resurfacing, removal, or replacement.


Logistically, graffiti is also usually outside - either on a wall or an automobile (train, subway train car, bus, truck, etc.). Therefore, it is usually exposed to a variety of weather conditions (changing temperature, humidity, perhaps direct sunlight) and therefore susceptible to mold, fading, wear, etc. In addition, the media used may not be easy to preserve -- trucks, subway cars, etc. are too large to bring to conservation labs, walls are inconvenient to move, and it may be difficult to do some preservation techniques outside.

Ironically there is some hope for some of the graffiti that we may want to preserve. Many graffiti artists "thoughtfully" choose media that will last, including paint that is difficult to remove and surfaces that accept that material, although the "buff" a solvent created in 1977 was able to clean subway cars and stamp out much of the enthusiasm of the graffiti subculture. However, other forms of preservation include photographs, art books of graffiti, and biographies on graffiti/graffiti subculture as another way of preserving this art in some form.


While most preservationists will probably not need to consider graffiti, they may be asked to preserve other things that do not comfortably fit with all members of society; or they may need to justify preserving those items. Banned books, pornographic magazines, racist propaganda, and other such controversial items come to mind. At this point librarians can reconsider questions that were perhaps asked during collection development -- a true opportunity to determine access of items that some people would deliberately destroy and stamp out of our culture, given the opportunity. We cannot think that if we don't preserve these items someone else will. In many cases someone else won't. But should they be preserved? What is the role of the preservationist? How do we balance these items and prioritize them?


Sources

ART. (2006). New York, Retrieved Friday, December 01, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.

Burg, J. (2006). Beauty, INTERRUPTED. Parks & Recreation, 41(9), 104-107. Retrieved Friday, December 01, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.

Galdwell, Malcolm. (2000). The Tipping Point: How little things can make a big difference. Boston : Little, Brown & Company, 2000.

Doherty, B. (2006). Free to Paint. Reason, 38(4), 8-8. Retrieved Friday, December 01, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.

Powers, L. (1996). Whatever Happened to the Graffiti Art Movement?. Journal of Popular Culture, 29(4), 137-142. Retrieved Friday, December 01, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.

Schnuer, Jenna. (2006). Line Art: Some of New York City's best artwork is underfoot -- literally. American Way. November 15, 2006.

Images from Getty Images. Image 71055513, 55992363, E006453.

Preservation Education

Preservation is not always the focus of today's library education. Many library schools are focusing on the technology aspects of information science, leaving some library activities behind. When looking through the listings provided by ALCTS in their Preservation Education Directory, the majority of library and information schools only have a a course or two dedicated to preservation and a few courses that touch on preservation. While GSLIS at UIUC has a dedicated Preservation course, it is not unlike many of the library and information science schools accredited by the American Library Association.

GSLIS seems, at first glance, to only have one dedicated preservation course, Preservation of Information Resources. However, eighteen courses in the course catalog mention preservation, conservation, archives, or rare books. Only five were offered this semester, only two of which preservation or archives was the focus; ten are offered in the spring, with two having a main focus on preservation. Preservation is integrated into the curriculum, even if it is not the entire focus of numerous courses.

The University of Texas at Austin, on the other hand, happens to have a focus on preservation and conservation. The School of Information program at Texas lists over twenty-five courses dedicated to preservation and conservation. To get an idea of how often they are offered, thirteen were offered this fall and twelve are scheduled to be offered in the spring. The UT course descriptions page lists not only introductory courses, but also classes on digital preservation, conservation, laboratory work and fieldwork. The number of courses allows for specializations, for example, one class focuses on photography and cinema archives.

Students who want more preservation experience than their schools can offer can gain some experience through other means. Workshops, such as the Book Arts Workshop, this past October at UIUC: Organization and Preservation of Your Family Treasures or workshops offered by ALCTS can provide some specialized information and experience. It is also possible to do an assistantship, practicum or volunteer in a local conservation lab, archive, or museum. Student groups and professional organizations, such as Society of American Archivists or ALCTS, can also offer possibilities to meet others in the field and to discuss mutual interests.

In what ways does your school spend time on preservation, either through courses or other opportunities? Is it enough for your purposes? What types of opportunities would you like to see more widely available? What opportunities are there in your area (e.g. volunteering, assistantships, workshops)?

ALCTS's Digiblog

The Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) has created a web log to discuss digital preservation; Digiblog: The ACLTS Blog was created to discuss controversial issues in digital preservation that will be addressed at the ALCTS Midwinter Symposium. The symposium is part of the ALA Midwinter Conference in Seattle in January 2007 and is entitled Definitely Digital: An Exploration of the Future of Knowledge on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of ALCTS.

As libraries "go digital" ALCTS seeks to examine the changed in services, collections, staffing, scholarship, and communication. The blog purposefully highlights controversial statements to incite discussion and deliberation of topics before the symposium and for the panelists to discuss at the symposium. The first controversial statement mentions preservation specifically, discussing the costs of digitization, and assuming that means digital preservation only an option for large universities.

While the entire blog is not about digital preservation, per se, it is about a change in the landscape which preservationists will have to understand and cope with. As our larger society values digital, or distrusts it as the case may be, preservationists will need to determine how to cope with the idea of "digital preservation" or with items that are born digital. For example, the second controversial statement is about how digital forms are so varied that they will change collection development, acquisition and cataloging patterns beyond recognition. While this may not on the surface seem to relate to preservation, any change in the choices made in the materials brought into the library or how they are accessed will affect preservation decisions as well. The largest consideration perhaps is whether or not the materials are owned by the library can impact whether we have the ability (e.g. copyright, etc.) to preserve them the way we want to. However, other handling can impact preservation, for example, different cataloging for digital can affect access and also the ability to assess preservation needs.

Take a look at the Digiblog.

Stradivarius Instruments at the U of I

Four Stradivarius instruments, some of the most prized musical instruments in the world, are visiting the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign this month. About 650 of the famed Stradivarius instruments survive, four of which are currently on display in Krannert Art Museum and Kinkaed Pavilion (KAM).

The four visiting instruments -- the Greffuhle Violin (1709), Ole Bull Violin (1687), Axelrod Viola (1695), and Maryleborn cello (1688) -- are on loan from the Smithsonian; they were all designed by Antonio Stradivari, of Cremonia, Italy, who has influenced violin-making for over 250 years. While he was famous in his time, it was in the late 1700s and 1800s that his instruments became prized for their sound quality and gained popularity among virtuosos. In fact, the instruments tend to be named after famous performers who owned and played them. There is still much mystery around the design of the instruments and they have been the subject of chemical and physical investigations to determine how Stradivari created such masterpieces.

Besides being on display in the museum, there were performances at KAM and the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Some may be surprised and shocked that instruments over 300 years old, with such a rich history, are allowed to be removed from secure cases, let alone played. However, others consider periodic performances to be a type of "preservation in action." By playing and listening to these instruments, we are preserving not just the artifact itself, but the Stradivarius sound -- ephemeral and unique.

A brief introduction of the instruments at the KAM performance revealed that they have had some major repairs over the years, including neck replacement. The instruments have also been restrung with metal strings, forgoing their original material. There is no way to know how similar they sound to their younger 17th century days; it is known that the sound quality has changed with repairs to the instruments, however, they are still considered among the most vibrant in the world.

If you missed it, hear the KAM concert on WILL 90.9 FM on Sunday, November 26th, 2006 at 7:06 p.m.

How do you feel about the changes/repairs to these instruments over the years and that they are still occasionally played? What is the balance between hearing the music and saving the instruments from the stress of use? Would a sound recording be a sufficient alternative?



Sources

Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. "Smithsonian Chamber Players." Marquee Chamber Music Series. Performance Announcement.
http://www.krannertcenter.com/performances/details.asp?elementID=20937

La France, Robert and Scott W. Schwartz. "A Quartet of Ornamented String
Instruments by Antonio Stradivari" in the program for Stradivarius Concert at the Krannert Center entitled "Smithsonian Chamber Players" http://www.krannertcenter.com/shared/uploads/21621_smithsonian_prgm_cond.pdf

Lynn, Andrea. Famed Stradivari instruments coming to U. of I. for display and performances. News Bureau: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign News Index. http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/06/1011music.html

Smithsonian. Stradivarius Violins. http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmah/stradv.htm

Image from Getty Images. Image# 57443053. http://creative.gettyimages.com/

Welcome to Beginning Preservation

Beginning Preservation is a forum for those interested in preservation and conservation. It is intended for sharing information, discussing ideas, and expressing opinions about different aspects of preservation. It is specifically a place for those beginning preservation efforts, starting to learn about preservation, or amateurs to have a place to exchange information and ideas.

The blog was created as part of a class project for the class Preserving Information Resources in the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was intended as a starting point to stimulate discussion, connect a community of people who are concerned about preservation, and build an awareness of different aspects of preservation.

Comments and discussion are encouraged!