National Preservation Week 2011

Protect Your Treasures: Preserving Personal Collections

Dartmouth College Library presents a personal treasures preservation event as part of the 2nd Annual ALA Preservation Week. This event is part of a national celebration initiated by the American Library Association to raise awareness of cultural heritage preservation within the community.

Special One-Day Event, Wednesday, April 27, 2011  11am-1pm

Baker-Berry Library, DCAL Conference Room

Dartmouth College Library’s Preservation Services department is hosting a two-hour personal treasures preservation event. Faculty, students, staff, and community members are invited to bring questions about personal documents, family photos, and memorabilia for advice on how to best preserve those treasured items.

If you have a sample item from your collection, please feel free to bring it along with your questions. Our experts will provide information about best practices in storage, handling, and general preservation guidelines for a wide range of materials:

•  Photographs: Beth Hetland and Elizabeth Rideout, Project Conservation Technicians
•  Books & Documents and art on paper: Deborah Howe, Collections Conservator
•  Film, video, audio material: Barb Sagraves, Head of Preservation Services
•  Digital items such as documents, photographs, and other files: Helen Bailey, Preservation Specialist
•  Textiles: Margaret Spicer, Adjunct Curator of Costumes, Hood Museum of Art, and Professor Emerita, Department of Theater

**Please note: we will not provide any monetary appraisal of items. If you are interested in assessing the value of your treasures, we recommend having them evaluated by a professional appraiser.

Links to Videos Shown During Preservation Week

• Bag-It: Transferring Content for Digital Preservation. Library of Congress.
• Preservation Faux Pas. Kansas State University Library.
• Team Digital Preservation. Preservation Europe.
• Why Digital Preservation is Important for Everyone. Library of Congress.

Links to ALCTS Free Webinars for Preservation Week

• Tuesday, April 26th, Accidents Happen: Protecting & Saving Family Treasures, Nancy E. Kraft will provide tips and tools for checking out possible hazards around the house, dealing with mold and salvaging keepsakes, documenting damage for insurance purposes, and keeping your family safe.

• Wednesday, April 27th, Protecting Future Access Now: Models for Preserving Digitized Books and Other Content at Cultural Heritage Organizations, Amy Kirchhoff speaks on helping the community understand the preservation needs of electronic books and other digital objects. She'll explore these findings as well as models for digital preservation that are available to cultural heritage organizations.

• Thursday, April 28th, Preserving Your Personal Digital Memories, learn about the nature of digital photos, electronic documents, and other new media from Bill LeFurgy and hear about some simple, practical tips and tools to help you keep your digital memories safe.

All webinars are one hour in length and begin at 11am Pacific, noon Mountain, 1pm Central, and 2pm Eastern Time, for more information and continued learning visit the ALA Preservation Webinars site.

For more information about Preservation Week, contact Barb Sagraves.