Annual Report
July 1, 1994 – June 30, 1995
Introduction
Charles DarwinIn the long history of humankind (and animalkind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
The digital world requires libraries and institutions of higher learning to collaborate and improvise. It has become abundantly clear that no single institution will be able to develop a digital library that serves the comprehensive needs of its users, nor does it have to. The Commission on Preservation and Access, with its mission “to foster and support collaboration among libraries and allied organizations in order to ensure the preservation of the published and documentary record in all formats and provide enhanced access to scholarly information,” has been particularly mindful of the importance of collaboration and innovation during the past year. The activities of 1994-95 have brought libraries and their parent institutions into closer, and hopefully, more meaningful collaborative relationships. Improvisation is often called for as libraries enter uncharted, and often choppy, waters.
The programmatic focus–preservation of the historical record–has continued without interruption, while the past year has been marked by personnel and organizational changes. Patricia Battin retired on July 1, 1994, and M. Stuart Lynn was named as interim president. With the assistance of telecommunications technology, Lynn managed the Commission’s programs from his California office, with periodic visits to Washington. His focus on digital libraries was instrumental in giving shape and focus to two important Commission programs, the National Digital Library Federation and the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information, both of which are described more fully in the body of this report. Lynn’s knowledge of and experience with electronic information were critical at this moment in the Commission’s history.
On March 1, 1995, my appointment as president signaled another historic episode in the organization’s history. The Commission agreed to affiliate formally with the Council on Library Resources and to be led by a joint president. The affiliation is a return, in some aspects, to an earlier day when these two organizations worked under a cooperative agreement to share staff and expenses. Today, the need to reduce operating costs and achieve staff efficiencies has reunited the organizations at the operating level, although the boards and fiscal matters remain separate. The staff, fully committed to the Commission’s objectives, showed its finest qualities while carrying on the work.
The principles incorporated into the agreement to affiliate are:
- The missions of the Council and Commission will remain distinct but complementary.
- The independence and responsibility of the separate Boards of Directors will be preserved.
- The Council and Commission will retain financial independence and responsibility.
- The Council and Commission may undertake cooperative projects when so approved by both Boards of Directors.
- The Council and Commission will have a common president and treasurer.
- The president of the Council and Commission is authorized, empowered, and directed to implement, or cause to be implemented, such affiliation through all means deemed advisable.
The affiliation has helped each of the organizations to achieve some operational cost reductions and to streamline procedures. Just as libraries are making organizational changes to take full advantage of technology, the Commission and the Council are making similar adjustments.
The Commission’s Challenge
The activities noted in this annual report have been initiated in response to what the Board of Directors and staff believe to be the most important changes taking place in higher education. Every generation in modern history has viewed its time as one marked by rapid change, but the technological developments of recent years have greatly accelerated the evolutionary pace of libraries and universities. The Commission, in its efforts to preserve the intellectual record and to expand access to it, has an obligation to study the emerging technologies and to assist university officers and librarians in understanding their implications.
Historically, libraries have had two essential roles: to preserve the intellectual record and to promote discovery. Research libraries, particularly, have assumed primary responsibility for preserving the books, journals, and other library resources of interest to present and future scholars. Access has been an important concern, too, and unless counterindicated for preservation reasons, scholars and researchers have had access to the materials accumulated by research libraries. The infusion of digital technology into the environment allows for a different kind of thinking and new levels and forms of library service to the public.
Until recently, print-based resources have made up the large bulk of materials used by scholars. Digital technology, however, has made possible a shift in the library from a preoccupation with the written word to a new consideration of visual, audio, and multimedia materials as research resources. Faculty are adding these new materials into their classroom presentations, and libraries are obligated to collect and preserve these resources to support the curriculum.
Information technology is introducing new considerations for preservation as well. Text contained in crumbling volumes can be captured through digital scanning and stored for later use. Preservation issues can be addressed in this way, but new forms of access also are possible because the text is in digital form. It can be easily and readily made available to remote users, as well as to the on-campus community. Materials also can be made available to the general public, often for the first time.
These innovations are not without problems, however. We do not yet know enough about the proper preservation techniques for digital information. We have limited concrete information about the economics of conversion of print to digital form, of storage, or of dissemination. We know virtually nothing about users’ reactions to and utilization of digital information.
As the research library evolves from a place for discovering knowledge to an entry point to the world of information that is physically stored in many different locations in a great variety of formats, librarians are forced to consider these questions of use, cost, and organizational implications.
At the same time, we recognize that digital technology also erases national boundaries. Scholarship, even for the faculty member of small, isolated, or poorly funded institutions, promises to become a truly international endeavor. The ease with which technology allows us to distribute information to all parts of the world stands in stark contrast to the barriers of language and cultural differences that are not accommodated by technical fixes. These new realities must be added to the Commission’s agenda if the goal of expanded and enduring access is to be achieved.
The Commission’s investigations of the questions raised, as well as the opportunities offered, will frame future program directions. Answers to the questions will help shape how authors, teachers, researchers, publishers, librarians, and archivists do their work. There is one unarguable fact: new partnerships and collaborative arrangements will be critically important. Libraries and archives, which have forged numerous alliances in the past decade, will find these activities only a prelude to the collaboration and improvisation that lie ahead.
Deanna B. MarcumOrganization, Support and Initiatives
On July 1, 1994, upon the retirement of Patricia Battin, M. Stuart Lynn assumed the interim presidency of the Commission. Previously, Lynn had served on the Commission’s Technology Assessment Advisory Committee and was an active member of the Digital Preservation Consortium. In February, 1995, the Commission Board, in a statement with the Board of the Council on Library Resources (CLR), announced the affiliation of the two organizations, with the first step being a joint presidency. Deanna B. Marcum, who recently had been named President of CLR, was named the first joint president beginning March 1, 1995. In April the Commission announced that Lynn would serve the Commission in a part-time capacity as vice president, with primary responsibility for the coordination of the Digital Preservation Consortium and the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information during their startup phases.
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a charter supporter of the Commission in 1986, awarded a two-year grant to provide executive support for exploring new initiatives in technology, science research, scholarly participation, international affairs, communications, and shared resources. A computer network was installed at the Commission’s offices supported by donations from the Apple Corporation. The workstations expanded the Commission’s capabilities for communicating with constituents and for disseminating reports. The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation provided a grant in support of the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information. The Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation awarded a grant in support of general programs, to maintain the executive capacity and publications program and to continue professional advice from scholars about priorities for preservation and access in their respective fields.
Dr. Paul LeClerc, President of the New York Public Library (NYPL), joined the Board at the October 1994 annual meeting. The Board accepted the resignation of Barbara Goldsmith, an author and NYPL trustee, with thanks for her longtime advocacy of book preservation and acid-free paper. David Gracy, John L. Heilbron, Carole Huxley, and Sidney Verba were reelected to serve an additional three-year term. Elaine F. Sloan, Vice President for Information Services & University Librarian, Columbia University; and Stanley A. Chodorow, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, were elected to the Board in May 1995, with terms to begin at the annual meeting November 30, 1995.
Initiatives
- The Commission will strive to address the fullest definition of preservation and to do whatever is required to preserve all resources of value to all types of users, from the most traditional scholar to the most imaginative futurist. In emphasizing the users of information, the Commission will reactivate a scholarly advisory program.
- With the recent emphasis on digital technology, the Commission will seek to engage scholarly groups in discussions of digitizing materials for teaching purposes as well as long-term preservation needs and strategies. It is hoped that scholars will become involved, not only in selecting materials for preservation reformatting, but also in deciding how to provide access to materials for research and scholarship in a digital environment.
- Specifically, the management of digital archives will be addressed by the Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information. The questions of organizational structure, migration from format to format, intellectual property rights, and costs will be considered. Broader questions involving the transition from traditional library services to the digital environment will be explored by the National Digital Library Federation. Digitization as a preservation technique and digitization of text, text-and-image, and images will be explored in commissioned publications.
- Digital technology remains an important focus, although not the exclusive one. Within the science research initiative, preservation managers have asked for more investigation and analysis of scientific research in other fields that is directly applicable to the many types of large research collections at risk. The Commission expects to address preservation needs that can benefit from scientific investigation of environmental conditions and chemical deterioration as they affect paper, film, tape, and other media that support scholars.
- The International Program will be addressing priorities beyond those centered in Europe and developing a plan for involving additional areas of the world in collaborative preservation activities. Work in Latin America and Eastern Europe will be focused on developing new capacities for contributing records to international databases of preserved materials. Preservationists in these areas have identified training programs as an essential need.
- The Communication Program will integrate electronic access to information into its publication activities and will explore new collaborations with organizations to meet increasing demand for reports and newsletters.
The Brittle Books Program
The purpose of the brittle books program, managed by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Preservation and Access, is to safeguard access to essential materials for research and scholarship that have become embrittled due to acidic paper. In fiscal year 1995, the Division of Preservation and Access reported that it had provided grants to 70 institutions over the past seven years to preserve 697,000 at-risk volumes. Preservation reformatting as a long-term nationwide strategy was funded initially by the U.S. Congress in 1988, when NEH presented its 20year plan to rescue three million of the most important books, serials, and documents that were crumbling due to chemical deterioration. In 1994-95, museums, libraries, archives, and consortia were fully engaged in turning the plan into reality, with guidance and leveraging funds from NEH.
In late 1994, the House and Senate passed a flat budget for NEH for the fourth consecutive year. By mid1995, it appeared as if the Endowment might not survive, causing the National Humanities Alliance Board, in an urgent and unusual move, to issue a special call to its members to emphasize the “dire situation at hand.”
Since 1988, the Commission has cooperated with the National Humanities Alliance and the Association of Research Libraries in providing annual testimony before Congress in support of Endowment preservation programs. With the existence of the Endowment at stake and with impending drastic cuts predicted for all NEH programs, the three organizations were allowed an opportunity to present four pages of written testimony to House and Senate subcommittees on March 31, 1995. The testimony, in support of FY1996 appropriations, was prepared by Patricia Battin, founder and first president of the Commission. The following excerpts from the joint testimony indicate the level of success and support for the brittle books program.
- During the past seven years, the NEH-managed program has become a model for nations around the world. In an extraordinary partnership with libraries, archives, private foundations, publishers, and international agencies, NEH has conceived and now coordinates an unprecedented battle against the crumbling acidic paper that threatens our recorded knowledge stored in libraries and archives….
- Preservation programs are not entitlement programs. All institutions applying for grants must go through a rigorous review process and provide one-third of the project’s funding. Since the establishment of the Office of Preservation (now the Division of Preservation and Access) in 1986, the Endowment reports that its projects have leveraged over $6.4 million in gifts. Moreover, in FY1994, grants generated a level of cost-sharing totaling $19.4 million, equaling 84 percent of the Endowment’s investment of federal funds…. Only federal stimulus could make possible such a cooperative, sustained, and massive salvation effort….
- The Brittle Books program is an outstanding example of the use of federal resources to support the national interest in which the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts. The program was carefully crafted not only to preserve the holdings in our nation’s libraries but to make them accessible to all citizens in ways that were not possible before.
The testimony also voiced support for other Division of Preservation and Access programs: digital technology research and development; the U.S. Newspaper Program; the National Heritage Preservation Program for the stabilization of material culture collections; preservation education and training programs on a national and regional level; the cataloging, documentation, and preservation of archival and special collections of humanities materials; and statewide preservation planning projects.
Technology
Much of the programmatic focus of the Commission has been on digital technology, for it is the driving force in many of the changes occurring in higher education today. Preservation remains the primary focus, not because it provides an opportunity to experiment with technology, but because preserving the intellectual and cultural heritage is the unarguable responsibility of all who call themselves librarians and archivists. It is precisely because the technology leads us to new opportunities and tools for meeting that obligation that it has become a central concern.
New Initiatives
Two exciting digital projects began during the year. The National Digital Library Federation, composed of 14 libraries and archives plus the Commission on Preservation and Access, was established formally on May 1, 1995, with a signing at Harvard University’s Widener Library of the agreement to collaborate. The Federation has two groups at work. The directors of the 14 institutions comprise the policy and direction-giving group; designated upper-level managers of those same institutions comprise the planning task force that will concern itself with the day-to-day managerial and technical issues. By the end of 1995, the Federation expects to produce a written plan for incorporating local digital library initiatives into a larger whole that will open up a new body of library and archival resources to a wide range of audiences.
The Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information was established to investigate the means of ensuring “continuous access indefinitely into the future of records stored in digital form.” The Commission and the Research Libraries Group formed this task force of 21 representatives of archives, libraries, technology companies, publishers, museums, scholarly societies, and government in recognition of the limitations of refreshing digital data as a preservation technique. As the cultural record is increasingly found in digital form, all who are responsible for preservation must understand the alternative techniques and their costs. The task force will produce an interim report by the end of the summer, 1995, for wide distribution to relevant communities for comment. A final report is expected in early 1996.
Contracts
The Commission awarded several contracts to find answers to some of the more perplexing questions posed by the technology. Lacking large sums to invest in pure research, the Commission instead identified institutions with a well-established record of work in the digital arena and asked them to pursue specific questions of interest to the broader community.
In 1994-95, Columbia University Libraries undertook two such projects. The first experimented with large-scale color images. The objective of the project was to identify the acceptable preservation and digital access techniques for dealing with oversize, color images associated with text. By scanning a limited number of maps from brittle volumes and comparing the scanned images to single-frame color microfiche of the same maps, conclusions about image quality, in terms of both capture and display, could be answered. The results of the study demonstrated that fine details that are generally found on maps can be captured successfully from all three media (paper original, microfiche, transparency). The project investigators concluded, however, that the ability to capture information outstrips capacity for easy access and display with average equipment, so that immediate online use of high resolution files is somewhat limited.
In the second project, Columbia was asked to investigate the best practices to be employed in digital scanning and storage of papyri. Fragments of the ancient writing material known as papyrus exist in at least a hundred collections in the United States, and even more worldwide. Papyri pose significant challenges for both preservation and access because of their damaged and fragmentary condition and because almost all research in papyrology involves studying pieces in many scattered collections. Digital imaging seems to offer solutions to both problems, but before large-scale imaging projects are started, it is important to answer several questions. Columbia attempted to discover whether electronic imaging is capable of serving as the main means of capturing the images of papyri and similar objects for preservation and research access, what technical standards would be necessary to meet preservation goals, and the limits of present technology. The study resulted in a publication that outlines the best practices for the capture and storage of digitized images for papyri.
The University of California at Berkeley agreed to host an invitational conference to inform the archival and library communities about the Berkeley Finding Aid Project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The Berkeley Finding Aid Project began as a collaborative endeavor to test the feasibility and desirability of developing an encoding standard for archives, museum, and library finding aids. The standard was applied to 500 finding aids from Berkeley’s collections and an equal number from collaborators around the country. Since there had been so much interest in the project, the Commission contracted with Berkeley to plan a conference limited to approximately 50 people to build a consensus to advance the encoding scheme developed in the project from a prototype standard to a working standard. In addition, the conference participants were expected to develop an agenda for further action, including: translating the prototype Document Type Definition into a national standard, defining additional areas in which standards need to be developed, and identifying further collaborative research and demonstration projects to be carried out.
A contract with Cornell University partially funded the development of four workshops on the use of digital imaging technology for preservation and access. As Cornell has been one of the most active universities in experimenting with digital technology, many other institutions have looked to it for answers about how to design and implement scanning projects. The preservation staff designed these introductory workshops to provide information and hands-on training. The four scheduled workshops generated great interest in the library, archives, and vendor communities, resulting in waiting lists for future sessions.
Vision 2010
Discussions of the technology and its potential led the Board to the realization that fundamental change is required in higher education’s traditional organizational structures. With support from the Carnegie Corporation, the Commission, in partnership with the University of Michigan School of Information and Library Studies, launched Project 2010. The project aims to explore the productive uses of digital technology to shape 21st-century information services in support of the basic intellectual values of higher education, rather than to accept passively a technology environment dominated by commercial and industrial interests.
The University of Michigan project director, with advice from the project’s steering committee, developed several scenarios to frame discussions among university presidents, provosts, teaching faculty, publishers, technology experts, and intellectual property specialists. By presenting alternative outcomes for technology’s influence on the academy, it is hoped that members of the academic community will be better prepared to influence the future of the enterprise.
Two of the three phases of the project have been completed. There has been practically unanimous agreement that the significant driving forces affecting society as a whole are likely to bring substantive changes in the way we organize and carry out learning, teaching, scholarly communication, and research between now and 2010. There are healthy differences of opinion about matters of timing, the extent of institutional diversity of approach, the rate at which digital technology will be adopted and used, and the extent of commercial competition.
How institutions of higher learning can proceed to fulfill their missions within a fast-paced and multi-faceted landscape will be the subject of the third phase of the project.
Scholarly Involvement
Scholarly committees on art history and medieval studies completed their work and provided final reports to the Commission in August 1994. The art history committee first met in the spring of 1989 after participants in a September 1988 planning conference at Spring Hill, MN, recommended that informed scholarly opinion should be brought to bear on the establishment of priorities for the preservation of published materials in art history. The committee determined that the criteria for preservation should be based upon the assessment of three primary considerations: rarity, wide usefulness, and historiographic significance to the entire discipline regardless of content, as well as brittleness. The committee also decided that periodicals, ranked in importance of use by a wide variety of scholars, would be a crucial first target of concern. The summary of the final report includes a list of the 100 most essential periodicals chosen from a list of 2,000 serials in the collection of the Art and Architecture Library of Stanford University.
The committee on medieval studies first met in October 1990 following a colloquium jointly sponsored by the Medieval Institute at Notre Dame, the Medieval Academy of America, and the Commission. Its summary report includes a list of the group’s tasks and accomplishments and a series of recommendations, including one that the Medieval Academy continue the life of a Committee on Libraries to encourage and review preservation efforts and to study new forms of information technology and their consequences for the scholarship of medievalists.
In April 1995, the Commission concluded an 18-month schedule of demonstrations, exhibits and programs funded by grants from the H.W. Wilson and Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundations. A primary goal was to reach faculty, researchers, and scholars through exhibits, workshops, and talks at professional society meetings. During this period, 250 faculty members and researchers asked to be added to the mailing list and a number of scholarly societies developed panel discussions and educational events on preservation and access issues.
Faculty were particularly interested in selection of materials for preservation and in access to endangered materials through new technologies. Professional societies were interested in becoming more visible advocates of preservation, encouraging their members to work on preservation needs, and exploring preservation issues related to electronic publishing. The grants supported construction of new convention exhibits, publication of expanded newsletters with special sections, creation of new brochures and informational materials, and–as a culminating activity–development of a substantive paper on scholarly involvement.
In keeping with the Commission’s overall mission to foster collaboration, many of these accomplishments involved the participation of other organizations, which in turn have conducted their own preservation awareness programs. As examples, the American Studies Association sponsored a scholars’ roundtable discussion on preservation of records in an electronic age, the Society for the History of Technology passed a resolution supporting preservation efforts and urging members to become involved, and the American Political Science Association addressed preservation concerns at committee meetings.
The American Council of Learned Societies was instrumental in identifying contacts in the scholarly arena. It first provided 4,000 names and addresses for a special distribution of publications and then identified primary targets from hundreds of scholarly disciplines as initial contacts for further collaboration. From this pool, the Commission arranged with the following societies to develop exhibits and educational programs: American Historical Association, American Political Science Association, Society for the History of Technology, American Society for Legal History, American Studies Association, American Philological Association, American Economic Association, and Organization of American Historians. Using additional contacts, the Commission arranged for programs with AMIGOS Preservation Service (Dallas); American Library Association Library-Vendor Relations Committee; Association of American Publishers-Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division; Association of American University Presses, Inc.; Society of American Archivists; Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives; and the Defense Technical Information Center. Arrangements were made to exchange information, articles, and publications with the Association of American Publishers and the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.
In conjunction with the exhibits, the Commission invited libraries, archives, and museums to cooperate in developing technology demonstrations that provided scholars and publishers with hands-on experience in new preservation and access formats. The demonstrations illustrate digital options for providing access to text and image, while underscoring the importance of preserving the original integrity of scholarly materials. Demonstration partners were: Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Pennsylvania State University, University of Southern California, and Johns Hopkins University Library and Press. A number of brochures, demonstration disks, question-and-answer sheets, and a CDROM continue to be distributed by the Commission and others.
The paper scheduled for August 1995 on the status of scholarly involvement in preservation and access takes into account activities of scholarly advisory committees since 1988 and suggests the types of involvement that might be most useful in future years. For example, two primary issues are scholar involvement in selection of materials for preservation and scholar preference for formats and methods of access to digitally captured and stored materials.
International Program
The International Program, with continued support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, brings together countries and institutions from around the globe in collaborative preservation and access ventures. The program seizes upon opportunities created by political and economic changes to encourage broad-scale cooperation and fosters a sense of community by linking preservation research and activities in the U.S. to similar work abroad. In sum, its goals remain focused on bridge-building between countries and regions, as well as between what is already in place and what can be set in place.
In general, preservation activities worldwide increased in the past year. Developing countries were particularly eager to join the preservation movement and to obtain as much information as possible. In developed countries, however, the magnitude of the task, the relatively slow development of processes such as deacidification, the uncertainty about new technologies, and the financial burdens of safeguarding the intellectual heritage sometimes fostered a resigned acceptance that much will be lost. “One gets used to it, the way one gets used to dying forests,” one German librarian observed. Such discouragement has been a prime motivation for the Commission to help sustain efforts by creating a sense of worldwide community, establishing common ground, avoiding duplication of effort, and emphasizing the broader context during temporary regional and national setbacks.
Bibliographic Control
The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF) reached a milestone when it completed a large-scale project to convert to machine-readable, U.S.compatible format its entire retrospective register of microforms. The project, conducted under contract to the Commission, began in 1991. The more than 120,000 records cover microforms produced by the BNF between 1975 and 1989, mostly monographs of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century French literature. Another substantial part of the register includes microforms of items pertaining to French history, particularly regional and local history. Of special interest are almost 10,000 references to legal deposit items published or printed in Indochina from 1922 to 1954. Under the terms of the Commission contract, the BNF supplied the register to the U.S. bibliographic networks for use by scholarly and library communities. The register also will be provided to the European Register of Microform Masters (EROMM), thereby assuring a wide distribution of information about the BNF’s microform holdings.
Since 1990, the International Program has worked with the Commission of the European Union (CEU) to create a European register of microfilms. Last year, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, and Switzerland joined EROMM’s original partners, Germany, England, Portugal, and France. Other countries that expressed interest in joining included Austria, Hungary, and Poland. It is estimated that the EROMM database, now also available online through the Research Libraries Information Network, will offer almost 300,000 records by the end of 1995. According to the Commission’s contract with EROMM, these records will be made available to the U.S. library and scholarly communities.
Poland continued to convert and enhance bibliographical records of microfilmed Polish imprints, serial titles, music scores, and the most precious manuscript collections in that nation’s libraries. The National Library of Poland, where this work is in progress under a contract with the Commission, has established contact with EROMM with a view to joining the European register when a substantial number of records are available.
Continuing a proven strategy–to enable one country in a region to provide guidance to its neighbors–the Commission signed a contract with the National Library of Venezuela. Based on the Venezuelan proposal, “Infrastructure for Automated Processing of Microform Holdings in Latin America and the Caribbean,” the contract calls for the creation of a register of microform masters held by Venezuelan libraries. It is expected that Venezuela will eventually have the capacity to receive records of filmed items from other Latin American countries and to share these records with libraries in the United States and elsewhere.
Scholarly Involvement
The European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA) was officially established less than two years after the scholars’ conference in Bellagio (see Preserving the Intellectual Heritage, A Report of The Bellagio Conference…, October 1993). The new organization was incorporated in Amsterdam with a secretariat at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. The ECPA Board and staff began to develop a communications program and to launch European preservation initiatives. Financial support was provided by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science; the Council of Europe in Strasbourg; the Commission of the European Union in Brussels (Directorate X); the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences; and the Commission on Preservation and Access in the U.S. The two Commissions continue to work closely together and to explore joint initiatives.
Collaboration
With ECPA taking the initiative in Europe, focus shifted to other areas while maintaining contact with longstanding relationships and commitments. Examples of cooperation and new alliances follow.
UNESCO moved ahead on an ambitious program entitled “Memory of the World,” intended to promote awareness of the endangered world documentary heritage while taking specific measures to safeguard that heritage. As described in Commission newsletters (April 1994 and July/August 1995), the program plans a list of documentary heritage of world significance in a “Memory of the World” Register; it is hoped that the list will call attention to deteriorating collections and prove useful in obtaining funds from governments and sponsors. The “General Guidelines to Safeguard Documentary Heritage,” which formed the basis for an advisory committee meeting in Paris in early May 1995, will be published later this year and distributed widely in all UNESCO official languages. Although the U.S. is not a member of UNESCO, the participation of the Commission has been welcomed by the program’s coordinators.
The Commission continued to work with CEU and in July 1994 took part in the European Conference on Conservation of the European Cultural Heritage, organized jointly by the CEU Directorate X (Culture) and XII (Research) in Delft. CEU invited the Commission to present an overview of the U.S. situation at a September 1994 symposium in Brussels (MICROLIB) that focused on European microfilming projects and the problems of access to microforms.
Supported by the International Research and Exchanges Board, the International Program participated in a seminar, “American Libraries: Experience and Possibilities,” in Moscow (February 1995) that contained a considerable preservation component. The event provided an opportunity to exchange information with librarians from Russia and the newly independent republic. A following preservation symposium in Kiev was attended by more than 200 librarians from Ukraine, Russia, and the republics. The concerns in Kiev (and in Moscow) centered on conservation and restoration, with an emphasis on rare books, and contacts were established with the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and the Ukrainian Library Association.
Closer to home, the International Program was invited to address a national preservation conference organized by the National Library of Canada (October 1994). All Canadian provinces were represented, and conference participants were particularly interested in learning about the principles that guided the formation of the Commission in the U.S. and in Europe. Participants agreed that Canada should “develop a coordinating body that will articulate, coordinate, and promote the preservation interests of the Canadian library community.”
Much emphasis was on Latin America, starting with a visit to the National Library of Venezuela (July 1994). The visit was followed by a fact-finding mission by Dan C. Hazen, Librarian for Latin America, Spain, and Portugal at Harvard University, during the 60th International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) Congress in Havana. The Commission then was invited to meet with the Association of Iberoamerican National Libraries (ABINIA) in Santo Domingo (August 1994). Several initiatives are under discussion and on the agenda of the September 1995 ABINIA assembly in Mexico City.
Education
The need for preservation education and training continued to be cited frequently abroad, and there was considerable interest in preservation management seminars based on the seminar developed by the College Libraries Committee for colleges with part-time preservation administrators. The International Program agreed to sponsor the attendance of librarians from Russia and Venezuela at the U.S.based seminar in July 1995. Initiatives to offer seminars abroad and to translate preservation literature from English to other languages are being discussed.
Preservation Science Research
The first management tools identified as high priorities by the preservation science research initiative were distributed in the past year. This initiative, first organized in 1992, investigates key problems of prolonging the useful life of library and archival collections that can be addressed by scientific research. Initial concerns focused on paper-based collections, but there was growing concern about other types of media used for scholarly reference. In 1994, a Preservation Science Council (PSC) composed of 20 preservation administrators and scientists put forward an agenda of research projects that would contribute to the effective management of environments in which collections are stored and to the understanding of the chemical nature of materials in collections so as to minimize their deterioration. Key criteria for the projects were: (1) they must relate to materials that exist in large quantities and contain information of cultural significance; (2) they must address preservation problems that are serious in the near and middle term; and (3) they must be practical and achievable given available research resources.
Lignin in Paper. The PSC described the need for a project to assess the influences of lignin on paper permanence. Last year, the American Society for Testing and Materials Institute for Standards Research (ASTM) in Philadelphia, PA, launched a multi-year global project for research on paper aging focused on lignin content. Scientists from the PSC assisted in initial planning, and the Commission newsletter reported regularly on ASTM research, which is funded primarily by the paper industry. The interest of preservation managers remains centered on the need for scientifically valid information that can help prolong the useful life of materials with lignin content. To foster international sharing of information, one PSC scientist developed an ad hoc lignin group of scientists from the U.S., France, the Netherlands, and Canada to informally share research results.
Temperature and Relative Humidity. The PSC was concerned with the effects of changes in temperature and relative humidity (RH) on the life expectancy of various types of paper commonly found in research collections. As a foundation for future investigations of this concern, the Commission distributed a June 1994 report, Isoperms–an Environmental Management Tool, at regional and national workshops to promote a wider understanding of how environmental conditions affect longevity. Building on the isoperms report, the Image Permanence Institute (IPI) received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities Division of Preservation and Access to develop a management tool to measure the preservation quality of a storage environment. The new tool is a general measure that applies to all organic materials and can be used to measure temperature and RH in dynamic environments, allowing an entire period of changing conditions to be characterized in a single value. The Commission and IPI agreed to publish jointly a management report describing the tool.
Film Storage Enclosures. The PSC asked for research that would yield recommendations for the types of storage enclosures best suited for film, so as to minimize acetate base degradation. Citing the PSC’s project description, the Image Permanence Institute received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities Division of Preservation and Access for this research, to be completed in July 1997. When the management tool is available, the Commission expects to assist with education and dissemination.
Magnetic Media. The PSC’s interest in tools for extending the longevity and durability of magnetic media captured the interest of the National Media Laboratory (NML, St. Paul, MN), which joined with the Commission to pursue the development of management tools for tape storage and life prediction. NML brought to the collaboration an extensive program of experimental research and mathematical modeling on a range of magnetic media types. A report, Magnetic Tape Storage and Handling–A Guide for Libraries and Archives, published jointly by NML and the Commission, provides the rationale behind recommended procedures, using knowledge from industry and media stability studies conducted for the U.S. Government data recording community.
Committees and Institutional Initiatives
College Libraries Committee
The College Libraries Committee (CLC) was established by the Commission in 1989 to consider the role of college libraries in the national preservation agenda and to serve as a communication link between the Commission and college libraries. In past years, the committee has instituted a regular library journal column about college preservation, developed a management seminar for college librarians, encouraged grant proposals by college libraries seeking preservation funds, and investigated the use of scanning and on-demand printing services for out-of-print materials. Committee activities are supported in part by the Charles E. Culpeper Foundation.
In 1994-95, the committee distributed a survey to approximately 200 colleges listed as liberal arts I and II or comprehensive I and II in the Carnegie classification, and members of the Oberlin Group, to collect information on preservation activities and needs. Results will be used to help develop benchmarks for college library preservation programs and to help determine the committee’s agenda for the next two to three years.
The third in a series of preservation management seminars for college libraries with part-time preservation administrators was developed in cooperation with AMIGOS Preservation Services, Dallas, TX. The seminar was originally designed by the committee and preservation experts who have continued to serve as teaching faculty. Earlier seminars have led to follow-up events, such as a book repair workshop at Reed College in mid1994. The 1995 seminar was planned for July at St. John’s College, Santa Fe, NM, the first time the event has been held in the southwest.
The CLC identified scanning for preservation and access as a primary interest of their colleagues and decided to develop and offer a scanning institute for college library administrators. An institute planned for spring 1996 will focus on helping college libraries benefit from and contribute to the new digital technology environment.
Preservation Managers Council
The Preservation Managers Council (PMC) met once during the year to deliberate and provide recommendations on a range of preservation and access activities. The council agenda reflects the close relationship between preservation programs and the need to ensure long-term access to information in a digital environment. The PMC was convened in 1992 to provide a forum for managers of large preservation programs and to serve as a communication link to scores of preservation administrators in libraries and archives. Last year, the PMC endorsed the Commission’s contract with Cornell University Department of Preservation and Conservation to develop a series of workshops on digital imaging for preservation reformatting.
Communication
The Communication Program reaches out to diverse audiences in order to extend awareness of preservation and access goals and to broaden support for nationwide and international initiatives. In its communications, the Commission advocates for widespread participation in collaborative programs; provides information to support planning and management; and ensures that preservation and access needs are addressed at the outset as new approaches to scholarly communication, research, and education are developed.
Joint Ventures and Non-Print Media
A joint report on magnetic tape storage and handling as a guide for libraries and archives was published in collaboration with the National Media Laboratory (NML, St. Paul, MN). The report was produced both in paper copy (by the Commission) and as a World Wide Web document (by NML). Cooperative conceptualization, development, and dissemination created a report useful for diverse audiences.
Scholarly involvement activities included the cooperative development of brochures and media presentations for annual meetings and disciplinary conferences. A brochure from the Johns Hopkins University focused on preservation aspects of Project Muse, an initiative of the university library and press to provide networked access to scholarly journals. A brochure from the Pennsylvania State University library described a demonstration project to test the feasibility of digital imaging technology for scanning and storing archival materials. The Henry Ford Museum created a multimedia CDROM illustrating new access to its collections; the Smithsonian Institution Libraries developed a CDROM of photographs from special collections; and Johns Hopkins produced a computer disk demonstrating Internet access to its journals. Photographic displays of preserved materials were produced by the University of Southern California and Pennsylvania State University. The above materials were provided to scholarly associations as part of communications activities funded by the H.W. Wilson and Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundations.
The Commission established a presence on the Internet as cpa.org and mounted a test version of a World Wide Web home page. In cooperation with Stanford University, the Commission provided online access to newsletters and out-of-print publications. Other Internet access was developed by CAUSE (The Association for Managing and Using Information Technology in Higher Education), which in May 1995 announced the availability of selected Commission publications through its Gopher and Web servers.
The Commission made arrangements to provide out-of-print reports through a scanning and on-demand printing service. The arrangement ensures continued print-format access to older reports and publications. Publications and newsletters were submitted to the Educational Resources Information Clearinghouse system.
The film and video Slow Fires was loaned to institutions throughout the world in English, Spanish, and French versions. When the video was made available to the Library of Foreign Literature in Moscow, library staff developed a written translation of the script to be read by a live narrator. The Russian script premiered at a conference on preservation in Moscow and then circulated throughout that nation’s libraries during 1994-95.
Reports and Publications
Reports listed in the appendix provided the findings of technology demonstration projects, the results of scholarly committee deliberations, and a management tool from the science research initiative. The increasing recognition of preservation issues throughout the world led the Commission to inaugurate a new series on international efforts to preserve library and archival materials. An introductory report, The International Program and Its Global Mission (January 1995), set the stage for the series, and following reports described situations in Bulgaria, Latin America, and Europe. All publications were distributed at no charge to approximately 1,700 organizations and individuals in the U.S. and internationally; Commission sponsors receive multiple copies at no cost.
Newsletters
Newsletters reported on Commission initiatives and other organizations’ activities that affected preservation and access issues. Recurring themes were research regarding permanent and recycled papers; demonstrations of digital scanning; mass deacidification; state, federal, and international support for preservation initiatives; and information about support for the brittle books program and the National Endowment for the Humanities Division of Preservation and Access.
To reach growing audiences more effectively, the Commission reorganized and updated the mailing list and refined categories of museums, conference contacts, library directors, library department heads, and faculty and university administrators. Several hundred scholars and publishers joined the list as a result of Commission exhibits and presentations at disciplinary annual meetings.
Appendix
Publications and Reports
July 1, 1994 June 30, 1995
Commission on Preservation and Access. Annual Report, 1993-1994.
Commission on Preservation and Access. The International Program and Its Global Mission.
Introduction to Report Series (January 1995).
Commission on Preservation and Access. Newsletter: nos. 6980 (July 1994-June 1995).
Hazen, Dan C. Preservation Priorities in Latin America: A Report from the Sixtieth IFLA Meeting, Havana, Cuba (July 1995).
Jordan, Sonja. Preservation Activities in Bulgaria: The State of Affairs and Possibilities for Cooperation (February 1995).
Kenney, Anne R. and Stephen Chapman. Tutorial. Digital Resolution Requirements for Replacing Text-Based Material: Methods for Benchmarking Image Quality (April 1995). $10.00.
Schwartz, Werner. The European Register of Microform Masters–Supporting International Cooperation (May 1995).
Van Bogart, John. Magnetic Tape Storage and Handling: A Guide for Libraries and Archives (June 1995).
Newsletter Inserts
National Humanities Alliance memorandum: NEH Appropriations Campaign: An Urgent Request for Action. July-August 1995.
Mission and Goals for a National Digital Library Federation. June 1995.
“>Paper Splitting Tested in Germany. May 1995.
“>Joint Testimony Supports The National Endowment for the Humanities. May 1995.
“>European Commission on Preservation and Access Aims and Activities. March 1995.
Complex Project on Microfiching and Establishment of the Preservation Database of Rare Publications and Manuscripts from Depositories of Libraries, Museums, Archives and Private Holdings in the Urals. Submitted in conjunction with the Moscow Seminar, Library of Foreign Literature. October 1994.
A Science Review: Research on Paper Aging. September 1994.
Summary of the Final Report of the Scholarly Advisory Committee on Art History, June 1994. August 1994.
Medieval Academy of America Committee on Library Preservation & Scholarly Advisory Group on Medieval Studies Summary Report–October 1990 February 1994. August 1994.
Commission sponsors receive all publications on a complimentary basis.
College Libraries Committee
Willis E. Bridegam
Librarian of the College
Amherst College
Barbara J. Brown
University Librarian
Washington and Lee University
David J. Cohen
Dean of Libraries and Special Collections
College of Charleston
Caroline M. Coughlin
Consultant
Michael J. Haeuser
Head Librarian
Gustavus Adolphus College
Victoria L. Hanawalt
College Librarian
Reed College
Kathleen Moretto Spencer (Chair)
Associate Vice President for Information Systems and Library Services
Franklin & Marshall College
National Digital Library Federation
Scott Bennett
University Librarian
Yale University
James H. Billington
Librarian of Congress
Library of Congress
Nancy Cline
Dean of University Libraries
Pennsylvania State University
Richard De Gennaro
Roy E. Larsen Librarian of Harvard College
Harvard University
Joan I. Gotwals
Vice Provost and Director of Libraries
Emory University
Paula Kaufman
Dean of Libraries
University of Tennessee
Michael A. Keller
University Librarian and Director of Academic Information Resources
Stanford University
Nancy S. Klath
Acting University Librarian
Princeton University
Paul LeClerc
President
New York Public Library
Peter Lyman
University Librarian
University of California, Berkeley
Deanna B. Marcum
President
Commission on Preservation and Access
Trudy Huskamp Peterson
Acting Archivist of the United States
National Archives and Records Administration
Donald E. Riggs
Dean of University Library
University of Michigan
Alain Seznec
University Librarian
Cornell University
Lynn F. Sipe
Associate University Librarian and Acting Director of the University Libraries
University of Southern California
Elaine Sloan
Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian
Columbia University
National Digital Library Federation Planning Task Force
Anthony M. Angiletta
Assistant University Librarian for Collections
Stanford University
Jean Aroeste
Deputy University Librarian
Princeton University
Ross Atkinson
Associate University Librarian
Cornell University
Lynn Bellardo
Director, Policy & Information Division
National Archives and Records Administration
Mark Brown
Associate Dean for Information Technology
University Computing Services
University of Southern California
Selden Deemer
Library Systems Administrator
Emory University
Dale Flecker
Associate Director for Planning and Systems
Office for Information Systems, University Library
Harvard University
Heike Kordish
Deputy Director of the Research Libraries
New York Public Library
Wendy Lougee
Director, Digital Library Program
University of Michigan
Carol Mandel
Deputy University Librarian
Columbia University
Deanna B. Marcum (Chair)
President
Commission on Preservation and Access
Joe C. Rader
Head, University Archives
University of Tennessee
Susan F. Rosenblatt
Deputy University Librarian
University of California, Berkeley
Gloriana St. Clair
Associate Dean for Information and Access Services, University Libraries
Pennsylvania State University
Winston Tabb
Associate Librarian for Collections Services
Library of Congress
Donald J. Waters
Associate University Librarian
Yale University
Preservation Managers Council
Margaret M. Byrnes
Head, Preservation Section
National Library of Medicine
Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa
Preservation Officer, General Libraries
University of Texas at Austin
Richard Frieder
Head, Preservation Department, University Library
Northwestern University
Anne R. Kenney (Appointed)
Assistant Director, Department of Preservation and Conservation, University Library
Cornell University
Diane Nester Kresh
Director for Preservation
Library of Congress
Deanna B. Marcum (Chair)
President
Commission on Preservation and Access
Carolyn Clark Morrow (Resigned)
Consultant
Barclay Ogden (Resigned)
Head, Conservation Department, University Library
University of California, Berkeley
Christine Ward
Chief, Bureau of Archival Services
New York State Archives and Records Administration
Preservation Science Council
Wes Boomgaarden
Preservation Officer, University Libraries
Ohio State University
Connie Brooks
Head, Preservation Department, University Libraries
Stanford University
Sherry Byrne
Preservation Librarian
University of Chicago
Margaret M. Byrnes
Head, Preservation Section
National Library of Medicine
Paul Conway
Head, Preservation Department, University Library
Yale University
Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa
Preservation Officer, General Libraries
University of Texas at Austin
James R. Druzik
Conservation Scientist
Getty Conservation Institute
Richard Frieder
Head, Preservation Department, University Library
Northwestern University
Janet Gertz
Assistant Director for Preservation, University Libraries
Columbia University
Diane Nester Kresh
Director for Preservation
Library of Congress
Jan Merrill-Oldham
Malloy-Rabinowitz Preservation Librarian
Harvard University
Carla Montori
Preservation Officer, University Library
University of Michigan
Carolyn Clark Morrow (Resigned)
Consultant
Barclay Ogden
Head, Conservation Department, University Library
University of California, Berkeley
James M. Reilly
Director, Image Permanence Institute
Rochester Institute of Technology
Donald K. Sebera
Consultant
Peter Sparks
Consultant
James Stroud
Chief Conservation Office
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
University of Texas at Austin
Karen Turko
Head, Preservation Services, University Libraries
University of Toronto
Christine Ward
Chief, Bureau of Archival Services
New York State Archives and Records Administration
Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information
Pamela Q. J. André
Director
National Agricultural Library
Howard Besser
Visiting Associate Professor
School of Information and Library Studies
University of Michigan
Nancy Elkington
Assistant Director for Preservation Services
Research Libraries Group
John Garrett (Co-chair)
Director, Information Resources
Corporation for National Research Initiatives
Henry Gladney
Research Staff Member
IBM Almaden Research Center
Margaret Hedstrom
Chief of State Records Advisory Services
New York State Archives and Records Administration
Peter B. Hirtle
Policy and IRM Services
National Archives and Records Administration
Karen Hunter
Vice President and Assistant to the Chairman
Elsevier Science
Robert Kelly
Director, Journal Information Systems
American Physical Society
Diane Nester Kresh
Director for Preservation
Library of Congress
Michael E. Lesk
Executive Director, Computer Science Research
Bellcore
Mary Levering
Associate Registrar for National Copyright Programs
U.S. Copyright Office
Library of Congress
Wendy Lougee
Director, Digital Library Program
University of Michigan
Clifford Lynch
Director, Library Automation
University of California
Carol Mandel
Deputy University Librarian
Columbia University
Stephen P. Mooney, Esq.
Copyright Clearance Center
James G. Neal
Dean of University Libraries
Indiana University
Ann I. Okerson
Director, Office of Scientific and Academic Publishing
Association of Research Libraries
Susan F. Rosenblatt
Deputy University Librarian
University of California, Berkeley
Donald J. Waters (Co-chair)
Associate University Librarian
Yale University
Stuart Weibel
Senior Research Scientist
OCLC Technology Assessment Advisory Committee
Rowland C. W. Brown (Chair)
Consultant
Commission on Preservation and Access
Brian L. Hawkins
Vice President, Academic Planning and Administration
Brown University
Douglas E. Van Houweling
Vice Provost for Academic Outreach and Information Technology and Dean of Academic Outreach
University of Michigan
Michael Lesk
Executive Director, Computer Science Research
Bellcore
Peter Lyman
University Librarian
University of California, Berkeley
M. Stuart Lynn
Vice President for Technology
Commission on Preservation and Access
Robert Spinrad
Vice President, Technology Analysis and Development
Xerox Corporation
Board of Directors
Millicent D. Abell
University Librarian
Yale University
Betty G. Bengtson
Director of University Libraries
University of Washington
Billy E. Frye (Chair)
Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
Emory University
David B. Gracy II
Associate Dean and Governor Bill Daniel Professor in Archival Enterprise, Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Texas at Austin
J. L. Heilbron
Professor in the Graduate School
University of California, Berkeley
Carole Huxley
Deputy Commissioner for Cultural Education
New York State Education Department
Paul LeClerc
President
New York Public Library
Klaus-Dieter Lehmann
Director General
Die Deutsche Bibliothek
Deanna B. Marcum (Appointed)
President
Commission on Preservation and Access
Cornelius J. Pings
President
Association of American Universities
Winston Tabb
Associate Librarian for Collections Services
Library of Congress
Nicholas A. Veliotes
President
Association of American Publishers
Sidney Verba
Director
Harvard University Library
Staff
Patricia Battin (Retired)
President
Pamela M. Davis
Executive Assistant
Linda J. Hutter
Treasurer
William J. Koerner II (Resigned)
Communication Assistant
Deanna B. Marcum (Appointed)
President
Alex Mathews (Appointed)
Administrative Associate
Vanessa Lee Mueller (Appointed)
Administrative Assistant
Hans Rütimann
International Program Officer
Maxine K. Sitts
Communication Program Officer
Consultant
Rowland C. W. Brown
Technology Assessment