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 Apple Academic Press Inc. 3333 Mistwell Crescent Oakville, ON L6L 0A2 Tel. : (888) 241-2035 Fax: (866) 222-9549 E-mail: [email protected] www.appleacademicpress.com The full-color tables, figures, diagrams, and images in this book may be viewed at www.appleacademicpress.com ISBN 978-1-926692-75-3 Joyce McIntosh Printed at Thomson Press (I) Ltd. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Cover Design: Psqua Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data CIP Data on file with the Library and Archives Canada *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- tion, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 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.