Michèle V. Cloonan

W(H)ITHER Preservation

Current approaches to preservation are being influenced by new technologies that are eliciting a disproportionate amount of emphasis on technical problems. At the same time, new modes of collaboration among cultural heritage institutions provide a perfect opportunity to look at the core meaning of preservation from a broad cultural perspective. Preservation must be approached not only as a set of technical solutions to technical problems but also as a more complex concept that includes social dimensions. Preservationists must be responsible for expanding their fields of influence, not allowing these fields to wither, as they seem to be doing in some institutions. Whither will preservation go? This article expatiates on the issues of the past and future worlds of preservation, focusing on definitions of preservation, components that can be found across disciplines, possible research agendas, and the difference between preservation and access.

The Paradox of Preservation

Abstract This article explores historical, political, and professional paradoxes that underlie efforts to preserve cultural heritage. These paradoxes are illustrated through five case studies: the discovery of the Nag Hammadi bindings, approaches to the preservation of Auschwitz, the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and the creation of a protective structure for the Hamar Cathedral ruins. Although it is not possible to preserve everything, it is suggested that the shift from the traditional custodial model of caring for collections to one with greater community input may lead to new preservation strategies—and to new ways of defining preservation. Through our attempts to preserve under highly complex circumstances and equally complex issues, our standard notions of what constitutes preservation come into question, and some aspects of preservation remain paradoxical.

The Moral Imperative to Preserve

This article introduces the concept of monumental preservation, which the author defines as the preservation of all cultural phenomena, because from the smallest item to the greatest monument all things emanate from and reflect culture. The imperative to preserve monuments is the imperative to preserve our cultural heritage. Whether there is a moral responsibility to preserve cultural heritage may be considered from philosophical, political, and legal perspectives.

From Teacher to Learner to User: Developing a Digital Stewardship Pedagogy

Addressing how the education of library, archival, and museum professionals influences the ways in which practitioners incorporate technology into user service environments, this article focuses on digital stewardship as a developing pedagogy. Digital stewardship encompasses, but is not limited to, the creation, maintenance, preservation, dissemination, and exhibition of a trusted body of digital information for current and future use. Pedagogy in this emerging area offers opportunities for experimentation and innovation that should have an impact on the ability of practitioners to interact with users and on the ways that users can become involved with and integrated into the construction of digital stewardship activities. The authors explore how this pedagogy can be applied in the classroom, in the laboratory, and in internships.

Comparing preservation strategies and practices for electronic records

This presentation reports on a study we conducted on behalf of the Preservation Task Force of the International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems, known as the InterPARES Project. InterPARES is an international research initiative that involves national archives, university archives, and a team of academic researchers in archival science, preservation, and computer science to address issues related to the permanent preservation of authentic electronic records. The Project is investigating and developing theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and prototype systems required for the permanent preservation of authentic electronic records. In this paper we will focus on our study, and not on the InterPARES Project as a whole.

Preservation Education in American Library Schools: Recounting the Ways.

The preservation education Special Interest Group (SIG) was formed at the 1989 ALISE meeting, but its first program took place at the 1990 Chicago meeting. The introduction to the program as well as excerpts from and summaries of the presentations are included here. The program is divided into five parts: (1) degree programs for preservation and conservation, (2) preservation education for library school students not intending to specialize in preservation, (3) preservation as incorporated into other parts of the curriculum, (4) preservation and continiung education, and (5) future directions of preservation education

Preserving Cultural Heritage: Introduction

When Library Trends devoted its first issue to preservation (Tauber, 1956), the state-of-the-art term was conservation, and the articles dealt with binding, treatments, stack maintenance, and “discarding” (weeding). The focus was almost entirely on libraries, except for an article by Hummel and Barrow on treatment for library and archival material (Hummel & Barrow, 1956). The next Library Trends issue devoted to preservation was published twenty-five years later (Lundeen, 1981), and although conservation was still the preferred term, the range of topics was broader. To binding and treatment were added new areas: administration, education, paper chemistry, disaster preparedness and prevention, microforms, and the conservation and preservation of sound recording and photographic collections. The focus was still squarely on libraries, with little mention of archives. This 1981 issue does, however, show the first signs of an interest in international collaboration and some cross-fertilization of ideas in Buchanan’s article on disaster prevention (Buchanan, 1981). In the last twenty-five years, “preservation” scholarship has evolved to a dual pursuit: the idea that we need to preserve and the theoretical issues concerning preservation—what to save, how to save it, and how such decisions are made. Also, preservation is now equated with history and memory, thus cultural heritage preservation is currently a subject of considerable interest to a wide range of stakeholders. It is increasingly being perceived that the issues of the archives, library, art, and historic preservation fields have much in common, certainly more than was apparent in the past, and each field can learn from the others. Some of these issues emerge from the attempt to define from varying perspectives the concepts of cultural property ownership that were developed in colonial times; from the expropriation of cultural heritage for political and ideological aims; from changing understandings about intellectual property rights in an

The preservation of moving images

Moving images represent a category of material which has historically received short shrift in most libraries and archives. Film, video, and now digital images form a significant part of many library and archival collections, however, and can be found in many formats and genres. Despite the ubiquity of such media in cultural institutions, the majority of libraries and archives owning collections of moving images have neglected these holdings—with the specific exception of those few archives devoted primarily to the care and preservation of moving images.

Libraries, Archives, and the Pursuit of Access

Libraries and archives are the repositories of civilization. The history of these institutions abounds with examples of their plunder or, in a few notable cases, complete destruction because libraries and archives are not just repositories of information; they contain the records—and embody the values—of particular cultures at particular times. To vanquish a country fully, an enemy must destroy its memory. What more apt symbol to destroy than a national library or archive? The arson of the Bosnian National and University Library in Sarajevo in 1992 that destroyed some 1.5 million books, approximately 90 percent of its collection, is one recent example of libricide—a form of cultural genocide.1 Libricide is just one way of limiting access. In this digital age other limits to privacy and access exist, such as the censoring of the Internet (in many countries) or the enactment of the USA Patriot Act in the United States. The Patriot Act expands the power of the government to conduct electronic surveillance and gain immediate access to “any tangible things” including books, records, papers, documents, and other items that the government may seek as “relevant to an investigation of international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”2 These acts are less visible than the burning of libraries but are insidious because they may become more pervasive than the destruction of bricks and mortar.