A cutting-edge reference guide from a blue-ribbon team of experts, this books covers the repair, maintenance, and preservation of library or archive collections. Edited by two of the most experienced library conservators, Issues and Planning provides a definitive and authoritative analysis of how to plan for and ensure the long-term health of an institution's collection in this digital age.Preservation, according to the editors, must become an integral activity to every library, not just managed by specialists, but understood and supported by all. Discover and explore all aspects of this “technical problem that requires managerial solutions.” Detailing a wide range of conservation issues, Issues and Planning will help * Define and activate an appropriate preservation program, whether in a high-use collection or for archives and historical records. * Understand and begin to take action on issues in digital archiving. * Prepare a game plan for emergencies that put collections at risk. * Determine exhibit policies that showcase collection highlights without harming the materials. * Make tough selection decisions for materials to be preserved, including microfilm and photocopying. * Select materials for digitization to enhance preservation and access. * Preserve information in non-paper formats.
Could use some updating (as much as technology has changed in the last ten years!) but most of the principles are still the same. It would be interesting to see the authors' current recommendations for digitization, for example, but the principles of environmental control would probably be unchanged.
For the content, this book was fine. It's still very much a textbook, and wouldn't be my first reading choice. That said, I did learn a lot about library preservation and conservation.