oct09b.indd


C&RL News October 2009  540

Jane Hedberg is senior preservation program offi  cer 
at Harvard University Library, e-mail: jane_hedberg@
harvard.edu; fax: (617) 496-8344

NARA conference papers
The National Archives and Records Admin-
istration (NARA) has made the PowerPoint 
presentations, and in some cases the pa-
pers, from its 2009 Annual Preservation 
Conference available online. The theme of 
this year’s conference was “Digitizing for 
Preservation and Access: Past is Prologue.” 

Paul Conway (School of Information at 
the University of Michigan) delivered the 
keynote address: “Digitization, Preserva-
tion and the Future of the Archive.” Doris 
Hamburg and James Hastings spoke about 
“Management of Digitization at NARA.” 
Anna Buelow reported about institutional 
approaches at The National Archives in 
the United Kingdom, and Carl Fleishhauer 
reported about the Library of Congress (LC). 
Michael Stelmach (LC) and Fynnette Eaton 
(NARA) spoke about “Guidelines, Long-term 
Management and Trusted Repositories.” Amy 
Lubick (NARA) and David Null (University of 
Wisconsin) spoke about “Archival and Pres-
ervation Preparation for Digitizing.” Daniel 
Santamaria (Princeton University), Suzanne 
Isaacs (National Archives Experience), Ed-
ward Papenfuse (Maryland State Archives), 
Mark Harvey (Archives of Michigan), Karen 
Weiss (Smithsonian Institution), and Greg 
Colati (University of Denver) spoke about 
providing access. The Web site also contains 
a copy of Paul Conway’s paper, “Best Prac-
tices for Digitizing Photographs: A Network 
Analysis of Infl uences.”

Copies of the slide shows and papers 
are available free-of-charge at www.ar-
chives.gov/preservation/conferences/2009
/presentations/.

Protecting personal documents
The Council of State Archivists (CoSA) has 
published the second edition of “Rescuing 

Family Records: A Disaster Planning Guide” 
by David Carmicheal (director of the Georgia 
Archives). 

The 24-page manual explains the value 
of records after an emergency and describes 
the records that are necessary to protect a 
family’s fi nances, health, civil rights, and his-
tory. It includes a checklist for recording the 
existence and location of essential records 
and their duplicate copies. It also covers the 
advantages and disadvantages of duplication 
methods, why certain records may need to 
be certifi ed, how to protect electronic fi les, 
and provides a brief overview of caring for 
family historical materials.

The manual costs $10, plus $3 postage and 
handling. For more information or to order a 
copy, go to www.statearchivists.org/prepare
/families.htm.

Environment presentation
The British Library has mounted the papers 
presented at the Advances in Paper Con-
servation Research Conference on its Web 
site. “Best Practice and Standards in Envi-
ronmental Preservation for Cultural Heritage 
Institutions: Goals, Knowledge and Gaps” 
by Fenella France (LC) calls for preservation 
professionals to balance the environmental 
recommendations for cultural materials with 
the expense and environmental impact of 
achieving them. 

She goes on to call for standards based 
on materials science research. LC is creat-
ing an open source reference database and 
repository for cultural materials that will 
allow international access to the scientifi c 
data collected in it. 

This data should support a better un-
derstanding of the tolerances of and causes 
of damage to specifi c types of materials, 
leading to more realistic and effective 
standards.

The text of the presentation is avail-
able free-of-charge at www.bl.uk/aboutus
/stratpolprog/ccare/events/France.pdf. 

P r e s e r v a t i o n  N e w sJane Hedberg