Putting It Into Practice

Managing Reformatting

Selecting Paper Collections

Identifying Collections in Need of Reformatting

Reformatting can provide preservation copies of collections that have only informational value, service copies to lessen handling of valuable originals, and/or security copies to guard against loss of information.

To identify collections that are good candidates for reformatting, consider the following:

• Is the collection extremely deteriorated?
• Does the collection have informational or artifactual value?
• How important is the collection to the institutional mission?
• Is the collection frequently used?
• Is the collection important in the context of other local, regional, or national collections? Is it a good candidate for a cooperative reformatting project?
• Have the materials been reformatted elsewhere?
• Is the collection a particularly good candidate for grant funding (perhaps because of its format or subject matter)?
• Does the collection have copyright or donor restrictions?
• Are there a variety of formats within the collection, and how easily can the materials be filmed, scanned, or copied?

Choosing a Reformatting Method

Once you have prioritized a particular collection or collections for reformatting, the next step is to decide which of the various options for preservation reformatting is the most appropriate. Keep in mind your overall goals of ensuring continued access to the information, protecting the original from additional damage, copying originals in poor condition only once, and creating a copy or copies that will last as long as possible.

In general, it is best to start by thinking about the end results of the project. Is microfilm needed for security or preservation purposes? Is a hard copy also needed? Is an exact reproduction needed (e.g., do images need to be color, or is black and white sufficient)? Is an enhanced version of the material, such as online searchable text, needed? In many cases, a combination of more than one reformatting method will be appropriate, such as preservation photocopying and microfilming, digital imaging and microfilming, or digital imaging and creation of a bound copy on permanent paper.