For Preservation Week 2018, the Preservation Directorate and the Veterans History Project presented a program on the work we do to collect and care for the history of people who served in the American armed forces. A video of the event is available as part of our Topics in Preservation series and my opening remarks follow:
Every spring, libraries across the U.S. celebrate Preservation Week, an event that started in 2010, as a joint effort between the Library and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, working in partnership with professional societies, like the American Library Association, American Institute for Conservation, and the Society of American Archivists.
Preservation Week is always a welcome opportunity to share both our technical knowledge and our sense of purpose. Every day, across all of the Library’s facilities, Preservation staff reshelve materials that were consulted the day before, and they ensure that everything is in its place, ready for the next researcher. Preservation staff perform the treatments that keep our collections usable, and when materials are too fragile for use or their formats become obsolete, they create new versions to ensure that information stays available. Preservation staff also do the scientific research required to ensure we understand the risks that face our collections and have strategies to bring them into the future.
We do that work to ensure that everything collected here in the Library has a pathway into the future. We have over 167 million items in the collection at last count, and we add thousands more each day. When I say my 180 staff is one in a million, I mean it from the heart and from the calculator.
From time to time, however, Congress gives the Library special direction to attend to preservation issues of concern for the American people. Because of that, I am especially glad that we can showcase the Veteran’s History Project.
Working on the Veteran’s History Project reminds us that preservation and Library collection building is not only a numbers game – one of us and a million more things to do – those treatment hours and inventory records need to add up to something that matters to people, as individuals and as a community.
During events like Preservation Week, and as I speak with colleagues from across the country, I am always inspired to see how libraries, archives, historical societies, and other institutions engage with people in their communities to bring the past into the present. I hope you will enjoy this example of our work and that it will inspire you to reflect on your own experiences and the history of the communities of which you are a part.