Word: preservationism
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Sitting a few weeks ago at a table in the librarian's office in the front corner of Widener Library, Harvard College Librarian Nancy Cline pulls out a piece of delicate, yellowing paper from a folder containing presentation materials she uses when pitching the library's preservation needs. The sheet...
"If you don't have these books in good environmental conditions, nothing else you do to preserve them matters," says Malloy-Rabinowitz Preservation Librarian Jan Merrill-Oldam, who directs the University's preservation program.
To estimate the extent of the problem, Harvard's Preservation Center has begun sample studies of many of Harvard's libraries to tell what percentage of each collection is in serious jeopardy. Though a complete study of Widener has not been completed, a sample survey of Widener's folios found...
The long-term solution, which Merrill-Oldam and her staff at the Preservation Center are working on, is preserving the information within the books by scanning and microfiching those that are nearly destroyed-but to do so takes years.
"Climate control is obviously very important for the preservation of artwork," said Porter Mansfield, director of the Harvard Art Museums.