Putting It Into Practice

Preparing a Preservation Plan

Assessing Needs

The Preservation Survey Report

See Session 1: Introduction to Preservation for a general description of preservation planning surveys. Once a survey has been completed, it is essential to summarize the preservation needs that have been identified by preparing a written survey report. This report should list observations and recommendations for each preservation component (e.g., environmental control, disaster planning, security, housekeeping, collection storage and housing, reformatting, conservation treatment). If your survey was done by an outside consultant, the consultant will provide this report. If you did a survey in house (or as part of this course), you will need to produce a written report.

  See Sample Survey Report Observations and Recommendations (PDF, 464k) for emergency preparedness in a public library with a local history collection. In a full survey report, observations and recommendations like these would be provided for each major preservation category (environment, storage, handling, etc.).

It is also very important to prepare an executive summary for the survey report that sets forth short-term, medium-term, and long-term preservation priorities. Short-term priorities are problems requiring immediate action and/or projects that can be undertaken with existing staffing and funding. Medium-term priorities are projects that will require additional funding, planning, and/or staff time. Long-term priorities include steps to be taken once short- and medium-term goals have been accomplished, as well as large-scale activities (e.g., new environmental systems, installation of sprinklers) that must be planned over a longer period of time.

  See Sample Survey Report Executive Summary (PDF, 452k) for a college library with a special collections and archives. This type of document summarizes the most important recommendations within a survey report.