Fire, flood, earthquake, vandalism, a terrorist attack-the issues of safety measures, emergency response, and disaster recovery have now become an important part of the planning strategies for most organizations. For the information organization, such as a library, archives, or record center, this responsibility has taken on new dimensions with the proliferation of various forms of electronic media. The authors take the approach that disaster recovery planning must touch every department of an organization and that emergency response must be a carefully mapped strategy. This broad-based approach to "integrated disaster planning" explains each phase of disaster planning, with chapters covering prevention planning, protection planning, preparedness planning, response planning, and recovery planning. The authors consider collections, records, facilities, and systems and include a chapter on post-disaster planning as well. The authors also cover federal and local assistance programs and list other sources for financial assistance. Although the main thrust of the book is the protection of documents, human safety in case of disaster is stressed explicitly and implicitly throughout. Indispensible for every information organization.

Digital technologies have transformed archives in every area of their form and function, and as technologies mature so does their capacity to change our understanding and experience of material and performative cultural production. There has been an exponential explosion in the production and consumption of video online and yet there is a scarcity of knowledge and cases about video and the digital archive. This book seeks to address that through the lens of the project Circus Oz Living Archive. This project provides the case study foundation for the articulation of the issues, challenges and possibilities that the design and development of digital archives afford. Drawn from eight different disciplines and professions, the authors explore what it means to embrace the possibilities of digital technologies to transform contemporary cultural institutions and their archives into new methods of performance, representation and history.

This open access book offers a comprehensive overview of the role and potential of microorganisms in the degradation and preservation of cultural materials (e.g. stone, metals, graphic documents, textiles, paintings, glass, etc.). Microorganisms are a major cause of deterioration in cultural artefacts, both in the case of outdoor monuments and archaeological finds. This book covers the microorganisms involved in biodeterioration and control methods used to reduce their impact on cultural artefacts. Additionally, the reader will learn more about how microorganisms can be used for the preservation and protection of cultural artefacts through bio-based and eco-friendly materials. New avenues for developing methods and materials for the conservation of cultural artefacts are discussed, together with concrete advances in terms of sustainability, effectiveness and toxicity, making the book essential reading for anyone interested in microbiology and the preservation of cultural heritage.

The museum today faces complex questions of definition, representation, ethics, aspiration and economic survival. Alongside this we see burgeoning use of an array of new media including increasingly dynamic web portals and content, digital archives, social networks, blogs and online games. At the heart of this are changes to the idea of 'visitor' and 'audience' and their participation and representation in the new cultural sphere. This insightful book unpacks a number of contradictions that help to frame and articulate digital media work in the museum and questions what constitutes authentic participation. Based on original empirical research and a range of case studies the author explores questions about the museum as media from a number of different disciplines and shows that across museums and the study of them, the cultural logic is changing.

In recent years, libraries and archives all around the world have increased their efforts to digitize historical manuscripts. To integrate the manuscripts into digital libraries, pattern recognition and machine learning methods are needed to extract and index the contents of the scanned images.The unique compendium describes the outcome of the HisDoc research project, a pioneering attempt to study the whole processing chain of layout analysis, handwriting recognition, and retrieval of historical manuscripts. This description is complemented with an overview of other related research projects, in order to convey the current state of the art in the field and outline future trends.This must-have volume is a relevant reference work for librarians, archivists and computer scientists.

New in paperback! This book fills a need for a selective bibliography focusing on design that will not only house collections appropriately, but also be comfortable for readers and staff. The books and articles cited here provoke thought about new technologies and materials and will enable information professionals to feel comfortable when they communicate with the various other professionals involved in the actual work of construction or renovation. Contents: Part One: The Design of Libraries and the Preservation of Books-A Summary History. Part Two: A Guide to the Literature, with chapters on planning, design, the interior, the environment, safety, and preservation. Appendixes include case studies, bibliographies of bibliographies and of journals, and a directory of organizations. With index. Cloth version previously published in 1991.

The Bloomsbury Handbook to the Digital Humanities reconsiders key debates, methods, possibilities, and failings from across the digital humanities, offering a timely interrogation of the present and future of the arts and humanities in the digital age. Comprising 43 essays from some of the field's leading scholars and practitioners, this comprehensive collection examines, among its many subjects, the emergence and ongoing development of DH, postcolonial digital humanities, feminist digital humanities, race and DH, multilingual digital humanities, media studies as DH, the failings of DH, critical digital humanities, the future of text encoding, cultural analytics, natural language processing, open access and digital publishing, digital cultural heritage, archiving and editing, sustainability, DH pedagogy, labour, artificial intelligence, the cultural economy, and the role of the digital humanities in climate change. The Bloomsbury Handbook to the Digital Humanities: Surveys key contemporary debates within DH, focusing on pressing issues of perspective, methodology, access, capacity, and sustainability. Reconsiders and reimagines the past, present, and future of the digital humanities. Features an intuitive structure which divides topics across five sections: "Perspectives & Polemics", "Methods, Tools & Techniques", "Public Digital Humanities", "Institutional Contexts", and "DH Futures". Comprehensive in scope and accessibility written, this book is essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners working across the digital humanities and wider arts and humanities. Featuring contributions from pre-eminent scholars and radical thinkers both established and emerging, The Bloomsbury Handbook to the Digital Humanities should long serve as a roadmap through the myriad formulations, methodologies, opportunities, and limitations of DH. Comprehensive in its scope, pithy in style yet forensic in its scholarship, this book is essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners working across the digital humanities, whatever DH might be, and whatever DH might become.

In the last decade, data science has generated new fields of study and transformed existing disciplines. As data science reshapes academia, how can libraries and librarians engage with this rapidly evolving, dynamic form of research? Can libraries leverage their existing strengths in information management, instruction, and research support to advance data science? Data Science in the Library: Tools and Strategies for Supporting Data-Driven Research and Instruction brings together an international group of librarians and faculty to consider the opportunities afforded by data science for research libraries. Using practical examples, each chapter focuses on data science instruction, reproducible research, establishing data science services and key data science partnerships. This book will be invaluable to library and information professionals interested in building or expanding data science services. It is a practical, useful tool for researchers, students, and instructors interested in implementing models for data science service that build community and advance the discipline.

The preservation of library and archival materials can encompass everything from bookbinding and paper repair to new techniques for maintaining and exploiting digital text, sound or images. Managing Preservation for Libraries and Archives brings together an international team of contributors presenting the latest findings on key areas of preservation and addressing the most common storage and retrieval problems for different types of media. The authors also revisit traditional preservation and conservation approaches and suggest how to develop policies for the future. First summarising historical developments, the book sets out key preservation principles, rationales for selecting materials for preservation, and how to choose the best methods. Different contributors report on state-of-the-art preservation techniques for paper media and sound archives, explain how the appropriate techniques can be applied and how storage and access can best be managed in the long term. Later chapters analyse the benefits and problems of digitising different types of materials; the long-term viability of digital media; issues of access to digital surrogate documents as opposed to the original medium; and the challenges in the digital context of bibliographical control, cataloguing, metadata, distribution and copyright protection. An extensive chapter on international information sources provides signposting to a wealth of guidance on the latest techniques. Managing Preservation for Libraries and Archives will guide readers working in the library, archives, museum and heritage sectors through the choices between digital and traditional preservation techniques, and prepare them for likely future developments in managing both preservation and access.

Examines the essential elements of planning a move, and offers practical guidance to ensure minimum disruption to service.
Topics covered include: planning; resources, equipment and furniture, staff, security, safety and insurance. Examines the opportunities for service review and development.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415112842

Series Information:
Leicester Readers in Museum Studies

Sponsored by the Museum Education Rountable

Originally published in 1986. Here is a valuable and engaging overview of the cataloging aspects of the United States Newspaper Program, the most extensive and comprehensive original cataloging enterprise undertaken in America. The importance of newspapers for purposes of historical research is obvious. The USNP was a cooperative national effort among the states and the federal government to locate, catalog, and preserve on microfilm newspapers published in the United States from the eighteenth century to the present. Running until 2007, the USNP was an essential program of preserving journalism history as well as records of historical events. This book talks through the cataloging process in Pennsylvania as an example.

Preservation encompasses both the prevention of damage and conservation - the physical treatment of damaged objects. Deteriorating books, environmental control, building maintenance, housekeeping and storage, electronic systems, security, and disaster planning and recovery are some of the concerns faced by preservation managers. Consequently, collaboration between collection management, conservators, and scientists is essential to successfully safeguarding materials. The Bibliography of Preservation Literature, 1983-1996, highlights the organizations and other resources that will assist in all aspects of collection preservation; from protective wrappers to magnetic media to acquisition and organization. Professional organizations such as the American Library Association, the Society of American Archivists, the Guild Book Workers, and the Association of Moving Image Archivists are cited. While not shying away from controversial issues, the comprehensive volume addresses the pragmatic concerns of modern collection preservation. Provides access to the best strategies and advice available today in an organized, easily accessible format.

In-House Bookbinding and Repair is a working document that contains information on setting up both a basic bookbindery and repair lab (i.e. the design, equipment, tools, and supplies needed) and instructions on rebinding and repairing cloth-bound books. Highly illustrated to greater enhance its usefulness, this manual also covers various aspects of book repair and conservation, and contains appendixes on manufacturers and suppliers of materials and products discussed in the text, an extensive Glossary of terms, a separate section on World Wide Web Resources, and a helpful bibliography. This manual will prove valuable to libraries of all sizes and locations. Library managers and administrators will find it a worthwhile resource as they contemplate the utility of an in-house lab. Library staff charged with various aspects of bookbinding and book repair will find the manual to be a practical reference tool. The volume is also designed to be used as a primer for related courses in Library and Information Science Studies programs and may be of interest to individuals interested in private practice.

While librarianship in general has had to respond to constant revolutionary change, technical services have faced much more immediate challenges, having nearly been completely reimagined in the 21st century. By showcasing the work of technical services, and the ground-breaking changes they have encountered, this edited collection provides readers with an opportunity to re-assess the opportunities and challenges for library administration, and to understand how libraries should be managed in the future. Including thirteen chapters from a variety of libraries, this collection examines several aspects of technical services work in the 21st century. The authors offer thoughtful applied theoretical solutions to practical problems encountered by library administrators and managers in four broad categories: planning and assessment, workflows, data, and acquisitions. Geared at library managers and administrators, readers of this volume may understand new trends in technical services work, how previous structures and workflows fit in and are evolving, and the new ways that in which we might describe, assess and carry out what we do in libraries.

Disaster planning might not seem a pressing concern - until disaster strikes. Recent events have reminded us that any collection or service may be at risk, and libraries and archives must have prevention and recovery measures in place. Written by academics and practitioners, drawing on firsthand experience and research worldwide, including Australia, Scandinavia and the USA, Disaster Management for Libraries and Archives reviews and explains the importance and scope of disaster management planning, and what can be done before, during and after incidents. The book begins by explaining how to develop a disaster control plan, outlining the different phases from prevention to recovery, and goes on to provide guidance on risk assessment and management methods which should underpin disaster planning. Individual chapters then focus on fire and flooding, bringing together lessons learned from recent disasters in the UK with case study material including information on prevention systems and reaction and recovery measures. A chapter on cooperative projects in the USA follows, providing examples of how collaborative partnerships and networks can be organized so that help, expertise and resources can be shared to facilitate management of disasters. The effect on people, both employees and users, must never be overlooked; this is the emphasis of the second half of the book. Research on the impact of a major library fire in Sweden forms the basis of the next chapter, which explains how the psychological impact of disasters on both staff and the local community can be managed. The following chapter describes the devastating effects on cultural institutions and their staff of war in Croatia in the early 1990s and extraordinary achievements against the odds. Ways of maintaining immediate, temporary service continuity along with planning for long-term restoration of services are exemplified by a case study of the fire at the Central Library of Norwich. Disaster Management for Libraries and Archives offers advice and insight for managers beginning to work on or reviewing disaster management within their organizations. The accounts of actual events highlight the real-life challenges faced and the effectiveness of appropriate solutions, while the guide to information sources at the end of the book signposts readers to a wealth of other useful material.

Keep your cultural resources safe for generations to come! Culled from papers presented at a Library of Congress symposium in October 2000, The Strategic Stewardship of Cultural Resources: To Preserve and Protect examines the challenges you face in preserving and safeguarding your library's resources. Twenty-two leading library and archival professionals address critical issues on the preservation and security of collections in cultural property institutions, including libraries, museums, and archives. The book explores the connections between physical security and the preservation of our cultural heritage. The Strategic Stewardship of Cultural Resources identifies the risks involved in preserving cultural resources and presents effective strategies for security. The book guides you through the process of evaluating preservation and security programs, budgeting costs, determining the right amount of facilities security, meeting the challenge of preserving digital information, and coping with the negative effects of theft and vandalism. The Strategic Stewardship of Cultural Resources focuses on four keys that are central to safeguarding your heritage assets: physical securityprotection from theft, mutilation, damage by water, fire, etc., with strategies used by the Library of Congress and other major libraries preservationprotection from deterioration through conservation and reformatting, using examples from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Library of Congress, and other institutions bibliographic controlknowing what your library has inventory controlknowing where your collections are The Strategic Stewardship of Cultural Resources: To Preserve and Protect also examines the FBI's Art Theft Program, national and institutional requirements for preservation funding, and measuring the effect of environmental elements (temperature, humidity, etc.) on your collection. The book is an essential resource for library, archive, and museum directors, preservation officers, security professionals, curators, and archivists.

Keep your cultural resources safe for generations to come! Culled from papers presented at a Library of Congress symposium in October 2000, The Strategic Stewardship of Cultural Resources: To Preserve and Protect examines the challenges you face in preserving and safeguarding your library's resources. Twenty-two leading library and archival professionals address critical issues on the preservation and security of collections in cultural property institutions, including libraries, museums, and archives. The book explores the connections between physical security and the preservation of our cultural heritage. The Strategic Stewardship of Cultural Resources identifies the risks involved in preserving cultural resources and presents effective strategies for security. The book guides you through the process of evaluating preservation and security programs, budgeting costs, determining the right amount of facilities security, meeting the challenge of preserving digital information, and coping with the negative effects of theft and vandalism. The Strategic Stewardship of Cultural Resources focuses on four keys that are central to safeguarding your heritage assets: physical securityprotection from theft, mutilation, damage by water, fire, etc., with strategies used by the Library of Congress and other major libraries preservationprotection from deterioration through conservation and reformatting, using examples from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Library of Congress, and other institutions bibliographic controlknowing what your library has inventory controlknowing where your collections are The Strategic Stewardship of Cultural Resources: To Preserve and Protect also examines the FBI's Art Theft Program, national and institutional requirements for preservation funding, and measuring the effect of environmental elements (temperature, humidity, etc.) on your collection. The book is an essential resource for library, archive, and museum directors, preservation officers, security professionals, curators, and archivists.

Here are the stories of how music archives are preserving independent music and saving a part of our cultural heritage. Music Preservation and Archiving Today moves beyond the how-to and assembles the work currently being done to preserve music and "scenes" via essays, case studies, and overviews of work by academic archives as well as communitydriven preservation projects.

Providing a substantive approach to the issue, Management of Library and Archival Security: From the Outside Looking In gives librarians and collection directors practical and helpful suggestions for developing policies and procedures to minimize theft. In addition, this text prepares you to deal with the aftermath of a robbery or natural disaster that destroys priceless materials. Through expert opinions and advice, Management of Library and Archival Security will teach you how to protect and secure invaluable collections and the finances invested in them.In addition, Management of Library and Archival Security offers numerous suggestions for preserving collections from environmental hazards and natural disasters. Contributors discuss several possible scenarios leading to the loss or destruction of library or archive materials and offer numerous measures of protection, including: implementing timely inventory standards, using approved marketing practices, keeping good user records, and having knowledge of insurance coverage making a recovery plan that deals with the impact of a theft and how it may affect staff and the actual workings of a department or archive knowing who to contact after a theft, such as local enforcement agencies, federal officials, and listing the theft on the Library Security Officer Listserv (LSO) to alert local and national libraries and collectors to the crime incorporating internal audits in a university setting to prevent crime and ensure accounting and administration controls are effective and efficient instituting a preservation program for collections, which includes temperature control of the indoor environment, studying the building design for weaknesses or potential dangers, reformatting deteriorating materials, and limiting the handling of materials making plans for the aftermath of a disaster, such as creating methods for risk assessment, developing collection priorities, and making rehabilitation policies for materialsThe chapters in Management of Library and Archival Security offer unique insight from a former F.B.I. agent with extensive experience in library thefts, a preservation specialist, and an archivist with extensive conservation experience in order to provide you with all of the information you need to safeguard library and archive collections against theft, environmental conditions, natural disasters, and resultant financial loss.

Here is a concise guide to the nuts and bolts of converting flat media (books, papers, maps, posters, slides, micro formats, etc) into digital files. It provides librarians and archivists with the practical knowledge to understand the process and decision making in the digitization of flat media. Instead of having to learn by trial and error, they will get a well-rounded education of the practical aspects of digitization and have a better understanding of their options. This is the stuff they don't teach you in school. People can be lured into thinking that all it takes to digitize something is a scanner and some metadata. This guide illustrates the practical aspects of digitization such as: *the physical challenges of scanning books without cutting the spine, *the differences between a "scanner" that uses a scanning head vs a "scanner" that uses a camera, *the different options for workflow for digitized items, and *the reasons for choosing one scanner over another for reasons other than price. Digitizing Flat Media: Principles and Practices is intended to give librarians and archivists the benefit a seasoned digitization professional guiding them and helping them figure out exactly what needs to be done when.

A sweeping exploration of the shaping role of animal skins in written culture and human imagination over three millennia "Richly detailed and illustrated. . . . An engaging exploration of book history."-Kirkus Reviews For centuries, premodern societies recorded and preserved much of their written cultures on parchment: the rendered skins of sheep, cows, goats, camels, deer, gazelles, and other creatures. These remains make up a significant portion of the era's surviving historical record. In a study spanning three millennia and twenty languages, Bruce Holsinger explores this animal archive as it shaped the inheritance of the Euro-Mediterranean world, from the leather rolls of ancient Egypt to the Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom. Holsinger discusses the making of parchment past and present, the nature of the medium as a biomolecular record of faunal life and environmental history, the knotty question of "uterine vellum," and the imaginative role of parchment in the works of St. Augustine, William Shakespeare, and a range of Jewish rabbinic writers of the medieval era. Closely informed by the handicraft of contemporary makers, painters, and sculptors, the book draws on a vast array of sources-codices and scrolls, documents and ephemera, works of craft and art-that speak to the vitality of parchment across epochs and continents. At the center of On Parchment is the vexed relationship of human beings to the myriad slaughtered beasts whose remains make up this vast record: a relationship of dominion and compassion, of brutality and empathy.

Repositories for low use books have long existed for the larger cultural institutions across the globe. Libraries have long been strong developers of off-site storage. This need has evolved for libraries because of their continuous collection of print materials as a record of the intellectual and cultural output of different cultures. Libraries have had this role described neatly and executed as a clear professional role. This new book will primarily examine two aspects of this role: Firstly, the organisational and technological responses to this evolving role will be explored and secondly, the wide breadth of strategic responses to challenges of 'digital' will be detailed. In this authors to this edited volume will describe their work for libraries but increasingly for Galleries, Archives and Museums. The papers are drawn from Europe, United Kingdom, the United States and Australasia. The organisational models discussed in the book provide clear illustration of imaginative responses to the plight of the individual institutional library. New organisational models are shaping the way in which business can be done in times of change. The pressures today on all cultural institutions are similar and so there is a new convergence of similar need and similar solutions. This book is an acknowledgment that there are a wide variety of strategic, organisational and technological responses to the retention of cultural objects whether they be books, art, records or other cultural objects. It is illustrative of the power of good lateral thinking and planning by professionals, of the power of international networks and of convergence in response to need. The book will be an edited with a future perspective by Pentti Vattulainen and Steve O'Connor who have had significant experience in this area internationally.