A wide range of institutions and individuals are responsible for the care of cultural collections. Libraries, archives, record centers, museums, historical societies, and private collectors hold a variety of materials in different formats and media types—virtually all of which are prone to deterioration over time.

Cultural collections may include bound volumes, documents, scrapbooks, photographic prints and negatives, newspapers, maps, works on art on paper, motion picture film, sound and video recordings, and computer media. How should these materials be preserved? What preservation strategies are the most effective? What is the role of new technologies in preservation? Preservation 101 will explore these issues and more, providing a basic overview of preservation issues for paper-based and related media collections, and giving you the tools to begin building an effective preservation program for your institution.

Learning Objectives

This session will help you:

• define preservation and understand the components of a preservation program;
• explore the historical context of preservation activities and the impact of new technologies;
• identify strategies for devising a mission statement, developing a collecting policy, and organizing collections;
• learn about methods for selecting collections for preservation and assessing your institution's preservation needs; and
• discover additional resources that will further your knowledge of preservation.