Preservation and Archiving: Challenges & Solutions

305 Pages·2011·4.13 MB·English

by  Joyce McIntosh

PRESERVATION AND
ARCHIVING
Challenges and Solutions
PRESERVATION AND
ARCHIVING
Challenges and Solutions
Joyce McIntosh
Outreach and Assistive Technology Librarian,
Elmhurst Public Library, Elmhurst, Illinois, U.S.A.

Apple Academic Press
Preservation and Archiving: Challenges and Solutions
© Copyright 2011*
Apple Academic Press Inc.
This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. A wide variety of refer-
ences are listed. Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the editors and
the publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or for the consequences of their use.
First Published in the Canada, 2011
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Joyce McIntosh
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*To the best of the publisher's knowledge, all articles in this book are copyrighted to the individual authors and are
licensed and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribu-
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CONTENTS
Inroduction 9
1. Historical Air Photo Digitization Project University of 13
Waterloo Map Library
Eva Dodsworth
2. Building Preservation Partnerships: The Library of Congress 23
National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
William Lefurgy
3. Archon: A Unified Information Storage and Retrieval System for 35
Lone Archivists, Special Collections Librarians and Curators
Scott W. Schwartz, Christopher J. Prom, Christopher A. Rishel
and Kyle J. Fox
4. Capitalize on Collections Care 50

Heritage Preservation and the Institute of Museum and
Library Services
5. Canadiana.org: One of Canada’s Oldest and Newest Digitization 64
Initiatives
Brian Bell
6 Preservation and Archiving: Challenges and Solutions
6. Preservation Activities at the Library of Congress Project Summary 67
Tom Delsey
7. Digital Preservation and Permanent Access to Scientific 76
Information: The State of the Practice
Gail Hodge and Evelyn Frangakis
8. Self-Archiving to Institutional Repositories is Improved by 168
Assisted and Mandated Deposit; Disciplinary Culture is not a Factor
Gaby Haddow
9. Space Technology for Book Preservation 173
Nasa
10. Digital Archiving of Primary Research Data 176
A. James Bothmer, Robert P. Heaney, MD and
Ramon M. Fusaro, MD, PhD
11. Care and Security of Rare Books 183
NPS
12. Salvaging Acidic or Damaged Museum Accession Books 189
Donald R. Cumberland, Jr. and Diane Vogt-O’Connor
13. Preserving Works on Paper: Manuscripts, Drawings, Prints, 193
Posters, Maps, Documents
Library of Congress
14. The Deterioration and Preservation of Paper: Some Essential Facts 196
Library of Congress
15. Preserving Newspapers 202
Library of Congress
16. Preservation of Scrapbooks and Albums 211
Barbara Fleisher Zucker
17. Emergency Salvage of Flood Damaged Family Papers 217

National Archives and Records Administration
18. Salvage of Water Damaged Library Materials 222
Peter Waters
19. Mold and Mildew: Prevention of Microorganism Growth in 246
Museum Collections
Jane Merritt
Contents 77
20. Effect of Some Deacidification Agents on Copper-Catalyzed 250
Degradation of Paper
Chandru J. Shahani, F. H. Hengemihle and Diane Kresh
21. The Jigsaw Puzzle of Digital Preservation—An Overview 262
Barbara Sierman
22. Curating Research: e-Merging New Roles and Responsibilities 270
in the European Landscape (Conference Report)
Inge Angevaare
23. Taking Care of Digital Collections and Data: ‘Curation’ and 281
Organisational Choices for Research Libraries
Inge Angevaare
Index 293
INTRODUCTION
Humans have always been on a quest for greater knowledge, and for that reason,
every period of history has been an exciting and important time for libraries. One
of the most famous libraries in the world, the Library of Alexandria in Egypt was
launched as a philosophical and cultural center around 288 BC. At that time it
housed numerous volumes of text. Today, the new Bibliotheca Alexandria fills the
same needs, holds much more information, and has excelled with 2300 years of
technological advances.
Since their inception, libraries have been places where information is collect-
ed, preserved, and shared with readers. At many libraries, academic and public,
rural and city, people also go to meet one another, find entertainment, and to
learn new skills. It doesn’t matter whether information is written in the dirt with a
stick, handwritten on a chalk board and passed around a classroom, picked up in
a book like the one you are reading, or downloaded from a computer and listened
to in a digital format. Information, and the people who help others obtain it, will
always play an important role in moving civilization forward.
Libraries and librarians are everywhere. You may be familiar with academic
and public libraries. In addition to those, libraries are located at corporations such
as McDonalds, in law offices, hospitals, churches, music organizations, newspa-
pers, radio and television stations, museums, government branches, and prisons.
Patrons at any form of library may ask for any type of information. A grade
school librarian may help a student learn to do research on a computer, a public
10 Preservation and Archiving: Challenges and Solutions
librarian may help someone learn about a medical condition or find a local law,
and a librarian in a technology firm may create tools to help people learn another
language.
Librarians can be found doing many things: reference and research, teach-
ing, collection development, computer technology, cataloging, archiving text or
digital records, or suggesting a good book. Some key components of librarianship
are to collect and organize information so that it can be used and disseminated.
If a student uses a search engine such as Google, he or she may receive 30,000 (or
more) hits to a query. A librarian can help determine which results apply to the
original question, identify credible websites, and then organize the information.
Anyone considering a job in the field should enjoy problem solving, working with
people, and learning and using technology.
Librarians must stay at the cutting edge in this digital age. In some libraries,
there is more information housed on the library website through databases than
in physical books. Access to information, and the cost of access, will continue
to be critical. Libraries are supported through taxes or private funds. Access to
materials is free, and it is often a challenge to determine what materials are most
needed and to manage the budget in a way so that those materials are always avail-
able. Libraries are a great cultural equalizer. Information at many libraries is avail-
able to anyone, regardless of their age, education, economic status, or skin color.
Mohandas Gandhi said, “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just
get people to stop reading them”. Another crucial role of librarians is to maintain
their patrons’ privacy and provide them with open access to the materials they
want to read or view.
Archiving books allows civilization to preserve its accumulated centuries of
knowledge. Preservation is a branch of library and information science concerned
with maintaining or restoring access to artifacts, documents and records through
the study, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of decay and damage.
Indexing, on the other hand, is a classification system of coding and organizing
library materials (books, serials, audiovisual materials, computer files, maps, man-
uscripts, etc.) according to their subject and allocating a call number to that in-
formation resource. Similar to classification systems used in biology, bibliographic
classification systems group entities together that are similar, typically arranged
in a hierarchical tree structure. A different kind of classification system, called a
faceted classification system, is also widely used which allows the assignment of
multiple classifications to an object, enabling the classifications to be ordered in
multiple ways. There are different indexing methods but they all serve a common
purpose: they allow the library patron to find the books she is seeking.
Introduction 1 1
In this volume you’ll learn about many aspects of libraries and librarianship.
Some you may be familiar with; others will be a surprise. As you read along, if you
have any questions, keep in mind that you can always ask a librarian.
— Joyce McIntosh
Historical Air Photo
Digitization Project University
of Waterloo Map Library
Eva Dodsworth
ABSTRACT
The University Map Library (UML) at the University of Waterloo devel-
oped an online collection of digitized and georeferenced aerial photography
of the Kitchener-Waterloo area from the 1930s and 1940s. Using GIS tech-
nology, the air photos were digitized with geographical coordinate tags for
use in GIS software programs including online mapping applications such as
Google Earth (GE). By creating and offering downloadable georeferenced im-
ages compatible with popular mapping tools, the air photos have gained sig-
nificant popularity and utilization by not only regular library users but by
community groups, organizations and corporations who have never used li-
brary resources before. The integration of modern technology with traditional
paper mapping has proven to be both a method of preservation and a means
of increasing and varying utilization of the collection.