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PRESERVATION NEWS

C&RL News, July/August 2005
Vol. 66, No. 7

by Jane Hedberg

NARA conference
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) 19th Annual Preservation Conference, “Parchment and Titanium: Preserving the Charters of Freedom,” will be held September 22, 2005, at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. The conference will describe in detail NARA’s multiyear project to preserve and re-encase for public display the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

Speakers will report on the history of the documents and former preservation encasements, development and testing of the new encasements, conservation methods for the documents, renovation of the Rotunda, new display criteria, special challenges inherent in treating such historically important documents, and what other institutions can learn from this project.

The conference costs $75. For more information, contact Richard Schneider, Conference Coordinator (NWT), National Archives at College Park, 8601 Adelphi Road, Room B-815, College Park, MD 20740-6001; phone: (301) 837-3617; e-mail: richard.schneider@nara.gov; URL: www.archives.gov/preservation/conference-2005.html. Pre-registration is encouraged.

ALA publication
ALA recently published Preservation and Conservation for Libraries and Archives by Nelly Balloffet and Jenny Hille. It is a 240-page manual intended for both administrators who make preservation decisions and practitioners who do hands-on collections conservation. The section about the basics of preservation covers environment, education, disaster planning and response, and storage. The four sections about collections conservation cover building and furnishing work areas, rehousing, enclosures, challenging formats (scrapbooks, albums, photographs, maps, posters, architectural photo reproductions), paper conservation, and book conservation.

The final section about exhibits covers design with conservation in mind, cases, preparation of items for exhibit, and removal of items at the close of an exhibit. The appendices contain information about the care of photographs, a list of suppliers and library binders, sources of help and advice, a glossary, and a bibliography.

The book costs $112.50 for ALA members and $125.00 for nonmembers. It is available through the ALA online store at www.alastore.ala.org/ or book vendors. ISBN: 0-8389-0879-9.

IFLA bibliography
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) has published First, do no harm: A register of standards, codes of practice, guidelines recommendations and similar works relating to preservation and conservation in libraries and archives.

Compiled by John McIlwaine on behalf of the IFLA Preservation and Conservation Section, this 79-page online publication lists works that provide guidance and advice for preservation professionals. It is divided into ten chapters: standards in general, dictionaries, preservation and conservation in general, education and training, environmental management, security, emergency planning/disaster preparedness, preventive conservation and storage, preservation treatment/restoration and repair, and reformatting/creation of surrogates. There is a deliberate emphasis on current information, so most of the works cited were published within the last ten years.

This bibliography is available as a free PDF at www.ifla.org/VII/s19/index.htm. 

Jane Hedberg is preservation program officer at Harvard University Library, e-mail: jane_hedberg@harvard.edu; fax: (617) 496-8344