Putting It Into Practice

Preparing a Preservation Plan

The Preservation Planning Team

The preparation of a preservation plan must be supported by your institution's administration and board of trustees, since drafting an effective plan will consume a significant amount of staff time. It is crucial to gain support from both the administration and from staff members, as it will be difficult to implement the plan's recommendations without this commitment. A team approach is generally recommended when writing a preservation plan, to facilitate collaboration and maintain support for the plan.

Members of the Team

The preservation planning team should include a wide range of staff members who are responsible for collections care within the institution. This includes maintenance, housekeeping, and security staff in addition to collections care staff. Representatives from the board of trustees or advisory committee should also be included. A leader of the team must be appointed, who will be responsible for keeping the project on schedule. The team must prepare a realistic timetable for completion of each task or goal.

The team may be large or small, depending on the size of the institution. In a small institution, almost all staff might be involved, while in a large institution representatives from various departments would participate. In a large institution, input from other staff should be solicited and communicated to the planning team by the designated representative from each department.

Assigning Tasks

Each member of the team should be assigned responsibility for a specific category or part of the plan (e.g., description of collections, summary of needs and required actions, listing of preservation actions to date, and the action plan and timetable). It may be appropriate for more than one team member to work together on each section. It is usually a good idea to assign one person the responsibility of pulling together all the information gathered by the team into a written plan, or at least to edit the various sections that have been written to provide consistency.