nov12_b.indd


November 2012 625 C&RL News

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

COSTEP MA
Coordinated Statewide Emergency Preparedness 
of Massachusetts (COSTEP MA) has launched 
a Web site to provide access to immediate as-
sistance, as well as, resources for emergency 
mitigation, planning, response, and recovery. 
COSTEP MA’s mission is to promote emer-
gency preparedness statewide and foster links 
between the emergency management and cul-
tural communities. For example, COSTEP MA 
coordinates meetings between local emergency 
managers and representatives of local cultural 
institutions in Massachusetts cities and towns. 
It also encourages public libraries to become 
prescreened Disaster Recovery Centers for the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency and 
the Massachusetts Emergency Management 
Agency. Partners in COSTEP MA come from a 
variety of state and federal agencies and private 
institutions.

The URL for the Web site is http://mblc.
state.ma.us/costepma/. For more information, 
contact Michael Comeau at the Massachusetts 
Archives, e-mail: michael.comeau@sec.state.
ma.us, or Gregor Trinkaus-Randall at the Mas-
sachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, 
e-mail: gregor.trinkaus-randall@state.ma.us.

Constructing conservation labs
The Association for Library Collections and 
Technical Services has published Planning 
and Constructing Book and Paper Conserva-
tion Laboratories: A Guidebook. The 230-page 
book, edited by Jennifer Hain Teper of the 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
and Eric Alstrom of Michigan State University, 
provides advice for planning a new lab or 
remodeling an existing one. It covers project 
management; space planning; designing labs 
for special, general, and hybrid collections; 
ergonomic considerations; fume hoods and 
ventilation systems; water purification; lighting; 

custom-built furniture design; and quarantine 
and segregation space planning.

The book costs $67.95 and is available from 
the ALA bookstore at www.alastore.ala.org 
/detail.aspx?ID=3982.

Light damage calculator
The Canadian Conservation Institute has 
mounted three Web pages that present the fad-
ing of colors that are exposed to light. These 
pages are intended to help in predicting the 
damage an object could sustain during exhibi-
tion. The first page estimates fading of a single 
colorant under a single set of conditions, the 
second provides side-by-side comparison of 
the fading of single colorant in three different 
exposure scenarios, and the third presents the 
fading of collections of colors.

The Web pages are available free-of-charge 
at www.cci-icc.gc.ca/tools-outils/ldc-cdl 
/index-eng.aspx.

Audio digitization guidelines
The Audio-Visual Working Group in the Fed-
eral Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative 
has published the Audio Analog-to-Digital 
Converter Performance Specification and 
Test Method: Guideline (High Level Perfor-
mance), version 1.0. The nine-page guide is 
accompanied by a 33-page introduction. The 
guide specifies a set of metrics and methods 
for the performance of the highest-quality 
audio analog to digital converters (ADCs), 
which are central to audio digitization system 
performance. It doesn’t cover interstitial errors 
(dropped or altered samples) or the impact 
of other devices, cables, or interfaces in the 
signal chain. Chris Lacinak of Audio Preserva-
tion Solutions is the principle investigator and 
primary author.

The guide and introduction are available 
as free PDFs at www.digitizationguidelines. 
g o v / a u d i o - v i s u a l / d o c u m e n t s / A D C 
_performGuide_20120820.pdf and www. 
digitizationguidelines.gov/audio-visual 
/documents/ADC_performIntro_20120820.pdf. 

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