An archivist friend of my just wrote with some additional thoughts on running a small collection and useful comments about my previous blog post. I don't think it negates my "quick and dirty" overview, but it presents additional context, detail, and other issues to consider. It definitely seemed worth sharing with everyone:.
"First and foremost: encourage [people] to have a plan, if one doesn't already have one. This strategic plan can include collection priorities, especially those that concern preservation.
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"As of now, there are no environmental 'standards' in the field. As wonderful as it would be to say, 'This is the definitive number,' there isn’t consensus in the profession because there are so many contributing factors that cause an institution or organization to choose what their set point is going to be. However, most professionals would say no higher than 70 degrees F and between 30-50% relative humidity.
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"There are other factors, though, that one needs to consider: most collections (paper, textiles, photographs, magnetic tape, wood) are all hygroscopic, which means that they absorb water, and fluctuations in temperature and humidity can cause tremendous damage to these items. What one is attempting to [do is create] a STABLE environment, that is, a target temperature and RH with little, if any, variation, and then monitoring to make sure it’s maintained. Decisions about temperature and RH really depend on the type of collections one has -- and of course what the organization can manage in terms of cost.
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"Because we know that all of these materials will eventually degrade, decompose, disintegrate, decay, we’re simply trying to slow that down. The Image Permanence Institute has done all kinds of tests to determine what this rate might be given certain climatic conditions. (You can download their preservation calculator from their website). For example, they’ve demonstrated that an item's 'shelf life' can be doubled, simply by lowering the temperature from 72 to 62. This should also be a part of one's decision-making process in terms of deciding where to set your temperature and humidity.
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"In terms of scanning, most places don't have the resources (staff, expertise, or funding) to scan EVERYTHING. Moreover, digitizing, itself, is not a definitive preservation action (i.e., digital files are not particularly stable nor are CDs or DVDs). Digitization allows for 1) using surrogate copies rather than the originals, which does contribute to the "preservation" of the original), but, as you've mentioned, multiple copies can then be stored off-site. In addition, decides need to be made about what to digitize; scanning newspaper articles that can already be found at several other archives or libraries would be a waste of resources.
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"And, the thing about CDs...CDs were/are manufactured as portable storage devices, despite what people have read about a 500 year shelf life. (Additional testing has been done and while one's mileage may vary, how long CDs may last is anywhere from 10-100 years.) Without warning, there can be bit rot or a CD can be defective right out of the box. They're a temporary fix. These days, digital storage is much less expensive than it was even five years ago. Consider external hard drives as a back-up to saving these documents on a local server. Redundancy is important, as is remote storage. In addition, once one goes digital, one is committed in perpetuity to refreshment and migration. There's a much greater probability that obsolescence will be more of an issue than CD one can't read. All one has to do is think about all of those 5.25 floppy disks we all have sitting around without any method of retrieving the data.
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"With regard to scanning best practices, scan documents/images as either PDF/A or .tif files. These are lossless compression formats that captures more data than the more lossy compression found with PDF and .jpgs.
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[Editor's rude interruption: I've also found ways to save images as essentially "lossless" jpgs, which have the advantage of being more accessible to the public. A surprising number of people still have major trouble with tif files.]
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"Lastly, the fire at the Newland House reminds us that we all should be concerned with the threat of loss. Whether it's a security issue or natural disaster, an evaluation of existing plans or writing a new plan helps us better prepare and respond to theft, fire, flood, or earthquake. Much like the state encouraged us to participate in the Great Shakeout last month, we, too, should practice (if only on paper) what our plan of action will be.
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"WESTPAS (Western States and Territories Preservation Assistance Service) provides disaster assistance (disaster preparedness, response, and recover) as well as free workshops to help institutions prepare disaster plans."
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Regarding this last issue, there is already a plan afoot to create an Orange County Emergency Response Network for archives in our area. It would be something like a mutual assistance organization open to all archives, large and small. Hopefully, I'll get one of the instigators of that program to write something about it for this blog in the near future.
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