Putting It Into Practice

Preparing a Preservation Plan

Writing a Preservation Plan

The process of writing a preservation plan is covered in detail in Sherelyn Ogden's Preservation Planning: Guidelines for Writing a Long-Range Plan (see Additional Resources). This publication includes many helpful worksheets for gathering information and drafting an action plan and timetable. It also includes a sample plan that may be helpful. The comments below about the preservation planning process and the structure of a plan have been summarized from this publication.

The Planning Process

The process of writing a preservation plan can be extremely complex and time consuming. While you cannot complete your plan as part of this course, you have already gathered a great deal of information that will help you during the planning process.

The basic components of the planning process are:

• set the groundwork (establish staff and administrative support and pull together a team)
• gather and review existing documents (e.g., the preservation planning survey, the institution's mission and goals, the institution's overall long-range plan, collection policies, the institution's disaster plan)
• write the plan (you must decide whether a lengthy and detailed plan will be most effective or a short and succinct plan)
• implement and update the plan

Structure of a Preservation Plan

The basic structure of a preservation plan should be as follows:

• Title Page
• Acknowledgements
• Executive Summary
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Description of Collections
• Preservation Needs and Required Actions
• Institutional Action Plan and Timetable
• Listing of Preservation Actions to Date

The key items in the plan are the list of high priority actions that are achievable and a timetable for implementing them. Once you have completed your preservation planning survey, your primary goal should be to produce this timetable, using the recommendations in the survey report as a starting point. Worksheets listing preservation actions, resources, steps required, and target completion dates may be helpful (either the ones in Preservation Planning: Guidelines for Writing a Long-Range Plan, worksheets that you create yourself, or those you find in the sessions in this course).

  See a Checklist for Writing a Preservation Plan (PDF, 232k).