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.

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.

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