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Spem in alium: Orchestrating preservation
[These remarks were delivered to the Preservation Administration Interest Group at the American Library Association’s 2017 Annual Conference in Chicago, IL. By way of context, it was just announced that I was taking up the position of Director for Preservation at the Library of Congress. I spoke about preservation in libraries, but I believe that…
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Two Holes in the Wall
This is going to end up being a post about preservation management with an epilogue on equitable access and shared collections, but it starts with some rough building trades-work and a visit to a notable internet site’s headquarters. In planning the trip, I’d asked something about energy consumption for their data center. That led someone to mention a clever…
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Comprehensive Preservation Environments, IFLA 2016 Satellite Meeting.
I had the honor of presenting a paper for the International Federation of Library and Archives satellite meeting at the Library of Congress. This meeting of the Preservation and Conservation Section together with the Preservation and Conservation Strategic Programme focused on on high density storage for library materials. The paper, “Comprehensive Preservation Environments: Site-wide Resource Management and Conservation…
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Think Like a Computer
I gave a talk at ALA 2016, in Orlando, Florida, describing some of the approaches I’ve used in teaching digital preservation for libraries. My slides from the talk are posted here, and if the date is later than September 1, 2016 and you’re reading this, please do send me a reminder to post the edited…
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Commitment Day
Twenty-seven years ago today, March 7, 1989, a group of authors and publishers signed a Declaration of Book Preservation, saying “We, the undersigned authors and publishers, hereby declare our commitment to use acid-free paper for all first printings of quality hardcover trade books in order to preserve the printed word and safeguard our cultural heritage for future…
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The Destruction of Libraries: Book Reviews
[Written at the request of my alma mater for their project, “Books and Destruction: Honoring Banned Books Week,” during August 2015.] Libraries and archives are frequent targets in war and conflict. Institutions that support the rule of law, encourage the exploration of ideas and identity, and stand for intellectual freedom are a grace threat to regimes…
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UCLA Library Cooperative Library Services Talk
On September 18, 2015, I had the pleasure of spending the day at UCLA Library talking about the work we’re engaged in around cooperative print preservation and the ways that a shared service layers that can provide better access to research collections. I want to thank Sharon Farb and Dawn Aveline, particularly, for putting this event together. It was a…
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Setting the Stage: Creation, Curation, and Use
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Curatorial Libraries
I. The Rocky Mountain Land Library is on my mind today. It’s a library-in-progress, still in an aspirational phase, but darned if I don’t hope it works. As the New York Times describes it: Imagine a network of land-study centers stretching from the Headwaters of South Park to the metro-Denver plains. Each site will be…
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Endangered Species and Dangerous Metaphors
I gave a short presentation for the ALA Midwinter 2015 Print Archive Network Forum delving into the “endangered species” question for monographs. While the talk was light on formulas and specifics, it expands on some of the work from the UCLA scarcity case study that I worked on with Dawn Aveline and Annie Peterson, and continues to argue two…
