Infinity (Spring/Summer 2001 Volume 17 Number 1)

SAA Preservation Section Affinity Newsletter 17:1

INFINITY


The Newsletter of the SAA Preservation Section         Spring/Summer 2001 Volume 17, Number 1


In This Issue:


From the Chair

By Sarah Talley

Hello again! These messages always seem to be about the Annual Meeting. That's important, but the Preservation Section functions year-round to serve all its members and the rest of SAA, whether they attend meetings or not. The Steering Committee is responsible for maintaining the website, publishing Infinity, publishing Selected Readings in Preservation, and working with our SAA Council liaison (Tom Connors) to make sure preservation-related issues are being considered. We are also working with other groups within SAA and without, answering some questions from the public, and reviewing any relevant standards or guidelines that SAA sends our way. In addition to this regular work, there are special projects, such as setting up the website, creating a listserv for the section, and providing input on education initiatives. If any of these things sound interesting to you, let me know - we always need help!

And then there's the Annual Meeting. Only weeks after the 2000 Annual Meeting, we had to quickly submit proposals for program sessions for the 2001 meeting. There are a number of preservation-related program sessions and more on specific formats and digitization, so there should be plenty of interest. We're in the midst of setting up the business meeting, which I hope you can attend. You'll get a lot of news and information, and a chance to see me and the other members of the Steering Committee and to give us some feedback.

THANK YOU to all the committee folks for keeping everything together and making new efforts to serve the Section. It's been great to work with people who have such good ideas and the energy to follow up on them. It's been a privilege to be the Chair of this Section.

SEE YOU IN WASHINGTON !


Preservation Section leadership

  • Sarah Talley, Chair (Utah State Archives & Records Administration) stalley@das.state.ut.us
  • Diana Vogt-O'Connor, Vice Chair/Chair-Elect (National Park Service) diana_vogt_o'connor@nps.gov
  • Pamela Hackbart-Dean, Chair, Nominating Committee (Georgia State University) libphd@langate.gsu.edu
  • Glenda Stevens, Member-at-Large
    (Texas Christian University) g.stevens@tcu.edu
  • Clark Center, Member-at-Large (University of Alabama) ccenter@bama.ua.edu
  • Cathy Lynn Mundale, Chair, Education Committee (Atlanta University) cmundale@auctr.edu
  • Sheila McAlister, Chair, Outreach Committee (University of Georgia) mcalists@libris.libs.uga.edu
  • Julie Graham, Web Administrator (University of California, Los Angeles) jgraham@library.ucla.edu
  • Linda Overman, Chair, Program Committee (Alabama Department of Archives & History) loverman@archives.state.al.us
  • Elli Bambakidis, Co-Chair Publications Committee (Dayton & Montgomery County PublicLibrary) ads_elli@dayton.lib.oh.edu
  • Anke Voss-Hubbard, Co-Chair Publications Committee (Illinois Wesleyan University) ahubbard@titan.iwu.edu
  • Clark Center &Anke Voss-Hubbard, Newsletter Co-editors
  • Thomas Connors, Council Liaison (University of Maryland) tc65@umail.umd.edu

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THE SOCIETY OF AMERICAN ARCHIVISTS
65th ANNUAL MEETING

AUGUST 27-SEPTEMBER 2, 2001 WASHINGTON, D.C.
PRESERVATION SECTION MEETING SCHEDULE

Steering Committee Meeting
5:00-6:30 P.M., Thursday, August 30 - Section members are welcome to attend and observe or contribute.

Section Business Meeting
8: 00-10:00 A.M., Friday, August 31 - The meeting will include committee reports plus break-out discussions of various topics. Contact your Section committee chairs (see page 8 hardcopy) for meeting times of the various committees. All Section members are welcome.

Annual meeting program sessions related to preservation include the following (check your program for details): Archiving the Digital Age: Appraisal and Preservation of Web-based Communications - Real-World Strategies for the Management and Preservation of Digital Records - Photograph Albums and Scrapbooks: Wherefore and Whereto? - Emulation as a Digital Preservation Strategy: An Empirical Test - Teaching Internationally, Preserving Locally: Planning for Worldwide Archival Preservation - You Can Run But You Can't Hide: Meeting the Challenges of Access to Nontraditional Archival Records - Storage and Management of Color Slides and Transparencies - Moving Archival and Special Collections Materials - In Search of Labor's Lost Treasures: The Archivist's Collaborative Role in Documenting and Preserving Labor's Material Culture.

Program Committee Reminder!

The 2002 SAA Program Committee invites submissions of program proposals for the SAA annnual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, to be held August 19-25, 2002. Proposals must be postmarked no later than October 6, 2001. (The proposal form can be found on pages 53-54 of your annual meeting program and registration packet). Please contact Linda Overman, Chair, Preservation Section Program Committee, (loverman@archives.state.al.us) with your session ideas and suggestions.

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Preservation News & Announcements

New Technical Bulletin on Disaster Recovery. The Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) is pleased to announce the publication of its latest Technical Bulletin, Disaster Recovery: Salvaging Art on Paper, funded by the William Penn Foundation. The technical bulletin focuses on planning an efficient recovery from disaster affecting work of art on paper. The emphasis is on procedures for dealing with damage resulting from water, with a brief section on fire-related damage. Information is provided on disaster preparedness; salvage priorities; advantages and disadvantages of various disaster recovery options; steps in disaster recovery; and additional resources for information and advice. To order the bulletin, please call 215-545-0613, or see CCAHA's website at www.ccaha.org for an order form.


Digital Conference and Workshop Proceedings Available Online. The proceedings and papers of a workshop and conference held in York, England, in 2000, are now available on the Web. Information Infrastructures for Digital Preservation, a one-day workshop held on December 6, 2000, focusing on digital preservation metadata; and Preservation 2000: An International Conference on the Preservation and Long Term Accessibility of Digital Materials, a two-day conference held on December 7-8, 2000, focusing on: models for distributed digital archives, managing national digital collections, digital preservation, authenticity and authentication, and collaborative efforts in digital preservation. Both events were sponsored by the Cedars Project, the Research Libraries Group, and OCLC in association with the United Kingdom Office for Library Networking.The proceedings and papers are available at http://www.rlg.org/events/pres-2000/. A summary of both events is available in the December 2000 issue of RLG DigiNews: http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews.


New NISO Standards
The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has published two new standards: Environmental conditions for exhibiting library and archival materials, and Guidelines for information about preservation products. Free PDF versions of both standards are available at http://www.niso.org.Click on the NISO Press icon and then click on Standards, Books, and Software. You can search for the title you want or review a list of all the approved and published NISO standards and technical reports.


Abbey Publications Newsletter on Mold
Ellen McCrady of Abbey Publications is now publishing a newsletter called the Mold Reporter, a newsletter about the effects of exposure to mold on people. Annual subscription (six issues) costs $25.00. For more information contact: Abbey Publications, Inc., 7105 Geneva Drive, Austin, TX 78723; phone: 512-929-3992; fax: 512-929-3995; email: abbeypub@flash.net


The 19th Congress of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC) will be held in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 1-6, 2002, with the theme of Works of Art on Paper, Books, Documents, and Photographs: Techniques and Conservation. For more information contact: IIC, 6 Buckingham Street, London WC2N 6BA, England; phone: +44 (0)20-7839-5975 or fax: +44 (0)20 7976.


Bibliography of Preservation Literature, 1983-1996, available from Scarecrow Press. Robert E. Schnare has updated and augmented the bibliographic work of George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg. The publication contains over 5000 citations, a glossary, and name and subject indexes. The bibliography is available from Scarecrow Press, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, MD 20706; phone: 1-800-462-6420; http://scarecrowpress.com/ISBN/0810837129


United Kingdom Has New Digital Preservation Listserv
A new listserv, intended to carry announcements and information on activities relevant to the preservation and management of digital materials in the United Kingdom is now in operation. It will be used to disseminate information on the work of JISC Digital Preservation Focus, the Digital Preservation Coalition and related initiatives. It is a moderated low-traffic announcement and current awareness list of selected key initiatives and developments in the field of digital preservation of interest to archivists, curators, data creators, librarians and records managers both within higher education and related sectors. Topics will include: digital archiving, management and preservation; electronic records management; emulation; migration; long-term access; research projects; national, international and institutional initiatives in relevant areas. The archive and a joining the list web-form is available at: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/digital-preservation.html


SEPIA Workshop on Management of Photographic Collections — Amsterdam, 3-7 September 2001
Three workshops on management of photographic collections will be held in in 2001, 2002 and 2003. They will address the issue of combining digital imaging with established preservation methods in an integrated strategy to ensure optimal access today as well as in the future. The workshops will cover essentially the same topics and will be organized by the European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA). They are part of the SEPIA (`Safeguarding European Photographic Images for Access') project, subsidized by the Culture 2000 program of the European Union.

The workshops will cover the characteristics of various photographic processes and the different materials encountered in photographic collections. Specific requirements for their handling and preservation will be related to the nature and function of different types of photographic collections. The workshops will explore the different methods for capturing images, technical requirements in relation to image quality, and long-term management of digital files. Issues will be approached as management problems, and due attention will be given to aspects like needs assessment, setting priorities, planning, budgeting and outsourcing, and project management. The course will be in English.

The deadline is past for registration for the 2001 course, but for more information on future courses, contact the ECPA: P.O. Box 19121, 1000 GC Amsterdam, The Netherlands tel.: ++31 20 5510839 fax: ++31 20 6204941 e-mail: ecpa@bureau.knaw.nl


Western Archives Institute to Be Held in Salt Lake City
The Western Archives Institute-Utah will be held at Utah State Capitol Complex October 29-November 9, 2001. The Western Archives Institute-Utah marks the first time that the program will take place outside California. The program in Utah will be in addition to the scheduled 15th Western Archives Institute to be held in July.

The intensive, two-week program is designed to offer an introduction to modern archival theory and practice for a variety of participants, including those whose jobs require a fundamental understanding of archival skills, but have little or no previous archives education, those who have expanding responsibility for archival materials or for creation of an archival program, those who are practicing archivists but have not received formal instruction, and those who demonstrate a commitment to an archival career.

The program will feature site visits to major repositories, and a diverse curriculum, which includes development of the profession, manuscripts acquisition, reference and access, automation, arrangement and description, archives and the law, electronic records, preservation, outreach, care of photographs, appraisal, and records management.

Tuition for the program is $550. Housing and meal plans are available at additional cost. Enrollment for the program is limited. The application deadline is August 1, 2001.

While the program is intended for participants from Utah, applications from other states will be considered, if space is available. The Utah program will be co-sponsored by the Utah State Historical Society, Utah State Archives, and the Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists. The Western Archives Institute is sponsored by the Society of California Archivists and the California State Archives.

For additional information and n application form, contact Administrator, Western Archives Institute, 1020 O Street, Sacramento, CA 95814. T: 916/653-7715 FAX: 916/653-7134, E-mail: ArchivesWeb@ss.ca.gov


School for Scanning: Creating, Managing, and Preserving Digital Assets, Delray Beach, Florida Presented by the Northeast Document Conservation Center December 3-5, 2001 Delray Beach, Florida. The conference is funded in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. It is cosponsored by SEFLIN (Southeast Florida Library Information Network, Inc.) and SOLINET (Southeastern Library Network).

This conference provides current, essential information for managers of paper-based collections (including photographs) who are seeking to create, manage, and preserve digital assets. Participants will leave the conference better equipped to make informed choices regarding management of their digital projects. Although significant technical content will be presented, this is not a technician-training program. Conference content will include: Project Management Copyright and Other Legal Issues Content Selection for Digitization Standards Quality Control and Costs Collaborative Project Models Text and Image Digitization Descriptive, Structural, and Administrative Metadata Digital Longevity and Preservation.

The cost of the conference is $325 for early bird registration postmarked on or before October 19, 2001, and $400 for late registration, deadline November 9, 2001. For information about special hotel and airline fares, see the Registration Information section at < www.nedcc.org>. Registration applications will be accepted on a first-come-first-served basis.

For more information on registration for School for Scanning: Florida, and a detailed agenda, please visit the NEDCC Website at www.nedcc.org. Questions specifically concerning registration procedures should be directed to Ginny Hughes at ghughes@nedcc.org

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Society of American Archivists Preservation Section

Annual Election 2001

The Nominating Committee (Sarah Wagner, Evelyn Frangakis and Pam Hackbart-Dean) is pleased to present the slate of candidates for the following Preservation Section Steering Committee members:

  • Vice Chair/Chair Elect
  • Member-at-Large
  • Nominating Committee Member

Please review the biographical notes on each of the candidates, and indicate your selection on the ballot (page 7, hard copy). Please note that you may select only one candidate per office. Write-in candidates are welcome. Please mail this original ballot to: Pam Hackbart-Dean, Special Collections Department, Pullen Library, Georgia State University, 100 Decatur St., 8th Floor, Atlanta, GA 30303-3202. You may contact Pam at 404-651-2477 if you have questions about the submission of your ballot. Election results will be announced during the Preservation Section Business Meeting on Friday, August 31, 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. The Nominating Committee wishes to thank all the candidates for their willingness to serve the Preservation Section.

Your ballot must be mailed no later than August 17, 2001 for it to be counted.

For Vice-Chair/Chair Elect
Candidate—Clark Center
Position: Curator, W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library at The University of Alabama, including reference and technical archivist, archival access coordinator. Education: A.B. and M.A. in history from Samford University and an M.L.S. from the University of Alabama. Professional Activities: member, Academy of Certified Archivists; member, Society of Alabama Archivists, president and having served on various committees; the Society of American Archivists, having served on the Committee on Institutional Evaluation and Development and on the Preservation Section's Outreach and Education Committees. More recently he has served on the Section's Publication Committee and on the Steering Committee as the Member-at-Large. He is currently co-editor of the Section's newsletter, Infinity.

Candidate—Anke Voss-Hubbard
Position: Archivist/Special Collections Librarian, Illinois Wesleyan University. Previously, Instructor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, Eastern Illinois University, and the Palmer School of Library and Information Science; Project Archivist/Manager of Preservation Microfilming , Rockefeller Archive Center; Education: B. A. and M.A. in history from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and M.L.S. from the State University of New York at Albany. Professional Activities: member, Society of American Archivists; member, Midwest Archives Conference; member, American Library Association; member, Association of College and Research Libraries. She served on Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference Program Committee,1996, 1999, Local Arrangement Committee,1998, and Nominations and Elections Committee, 1998. She served as co-chair of the SAA Preservation Section Education Committee, 1997-1999, Editor of Infinity, 1997-2000 ( co-editor, 2000-), and co-chair, Publications Committee, 2000-.

For Member-at-Large
Candidate—Susan DuBois
Positions: Preservation Services epresentative, Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA), serves as liaison between CCAHA and its clients, and assists institutions with their preservation planning efforts through surveys and other forms of consultations. She has conducted dozens of preservation overview surveys of libraries, archives, museums, and institutions with historic collections. Previously, Manager of Special Collections and Preservation Services at the Presbyterian Historical Society. Education: B.A., history, Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, VA, 1985; M.L.S., Columbia University, 1987. Society of American Archivists Preservation Section, 1996-; MARAC and Delaware Valley Archivists Group, 1989-. Publications: "Environmental Monitoring Basics" in the Winter 2001 Regional Alliance for Preservation Newsletter.

Candidate—Sheila McAlister
Positions: Digital Metadata Coordinator, Digital Library of Georgia, University of Georgia Libraries, February 2001-; Electronic Access Coordinator, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, February 1999- January 2001. Education: M.A., Medieval and Byzantine Studies, Catholic University of America,1995; B.S.L.A., French, Georgetown University, 1991. Professional Activities: Academy of Certified Archivists, 2000-; Society of American Archivists: Preservation Section, 1999-, Chair, Outreach Committee, 1999-, Electronic Records Section, 1999-2000, Description Section, 2001-, Congressional Papers Roundtable, 1999-2000, EAD Roundtable, 1999-; Society of Georgia Archivists, 1998-, Membership Committee, 1998-, Member Profile Editor (newsletter), 1998-, Annual Meeting Local Arrangements Committee, 2000, Session moderator, SGA 2000 Scholarship Committee, 2001-.

For Nominating Committee
Candidate—Tom Clareson
Position: Imaging & Preservation Services Manager, AMIGOS since 1991. Previously, Membership and Cooperative Programs Administrator at OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Education: M.L.S. from Kent State University/Columbus Program, a MA in Journalism from The Ohio State University, and a B.A. in English Literature and Journalism from Ohio Wesleyan University. Professional Activities: Past Chair of the Preservation and Reformatting Section, American Library Association; member of Society of American Archivists and the Texas Library Association; Board of Trustees of Abbey Publications, the publisher of the leading periodicals on preservation. In 1994-95 and again in 1999-2000 instructor for the Preservation and Conservation Studies program at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Texas at Austin; instructor for the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California at Los Angeles (1999); From July 1996 _ June 1999, served as Consortial Relations Coordinator for AMIGOS.

Candidate—Steve Dalton
Positions: Director of Field Service at NEDCC, 1995-; Director of Reprographic Services at NEDCC, 1993-1995; Assistant Director at the Winthrop Public Library (Winthrop, MA), 1988-1993. Education: M.L.S., Simmons College, 1992; M.A., Religious Studies, Providence College, 1986; B.A., English, Salem State College, Salem, MA, 1981. Professional Activities: Member of SAA, Preservation Section; Member of American Library Association (ALA); Member of ALA's Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), Preservation and Reformatting Section (PARS); Member of ALCTS PARS Program Planning and Publications Committee, 1996-97 and 1998-99; Chair of ALCTS PARS Program Planning and Publications Committee, 1997-1998; PARS Liaison to the ALCTS Program Committee, 1998-present; Member of NELINET Preservation Advisory Committee from 1995-2000; Member of Massachusetts Cultural Resources Preservation (RAP); Organizer of NEDCC's "School for Scanning" Preservation related publications: "Microfilm and Microfiche" with Steve Dalton, in PRESERVATION OF LIBRARY & ARCHIVAL MATERIALS, 3rd edition, ed. by Sherelyn Ogden, Andover, MA: Northeast Document Conservation Center, pp.315-325, 1999.

SAA Preservation Section Annual Ballot

For Vice Chair/Chair Elect

( ) Clark Center
( ) Anke Voss-Hubbard
( ) Other:________________________

For Member-at-Large

( ) Susan DuBois
( ) Sheila McAlister
( ) Other:_________________________

For Nominating Committee Member

( ) Tom Clareson
( ) Steve Dalton
( ) Other:________________________

Please mail your ballot today to:

Pam Hackbart-Dean
Special Collections _ Pullen Library
Georgia State University
100 Decatur St., SE, 8th Floor
Atlanta, GA 30303-3202
(Pam must receive your ballot by Friday, August 17, 2001 for it to be counted)

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From the Co-Editors:

The newsletter is currently published bi-annually, and the submission deadline for the next issue (Fall/Winter 2001) is November 9, 2001. Please contact Co-Editors Clark Center, University of Alabama, P.O. Box 870266, Tuscaloosa, AL 354487-0266, phone: (205) 348-0513, email: ccenter@bama.us.edu, or Anke Voss-Hubbard, Sheean Library, Illinois Wesleyan University, 303 East Emerson, Bloomington, Illinois 61701, phone: (309) 556-3559 fax: (309) 556-3706 email: ahubbard@titan.iwu.edu.


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Society of American Archivists Preservation Section. Created 29 July 2001