The Strategic Stewardship of Cultural Resources: To Preserve and Protect: Papers from the Library of Congress Symposium “To Preserve and Protect: The Strategic Stewardship of Cultural Resources”

Citation

Mugridge, R.L. (2005), "The Strategic Stewardship of Cultural Resources: To Preserve and Protect: Papers from the Library of Congress Symposium “To Preserve and Protect: The Strategic Stewardship of Cultural Resources”", Collection Building, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 103-104. https://doi.org/10.1108/01604950510608302

This excellent collection of 22 articles, organized into eight sections and edited by Andrea Merrill, is a valuable resource for those librarians who are concerned about preservation, library security, securing funding and the archiving and preservation of digital resources. The first section, Cultural Heritage at Risk, introduces the theme through a discussion by Nancy Cline on libraries' responsibilities as “stewards of our cultural heritage,” and a review by Werner Gundersheimer of recent criticisms of librarians' preservation practices.

In the section titled “As strong as its weakest link” Laurie Sowd discusses the “weakest link” of library security: people; Steven Herman shares how the Library of Congress (LC) developed its plan to ensure collections security; and Charles Lowry describes the University of Maryland's assessment of policies and procedures regarding the security of collections, employees, equipment and patrons.

Strategic preservation management is the topic of “The big picture”. Here Jeffrey Field discusses the National Endowment for the Humanities' efforts to support preservation activities and develop a national preservation infrastructure. Doris Hamburg describes the development of a preservation framework at LC. Jan Merrill‐Oldham addresses the need for a structured approach to preservation management.

The fourth section, “The silver lining”, includes three interesting articles. Jean Ashton relates the story of Daniel Spiegelman's theft of manuscripts from Columbia University, his arrest in Utrecht, extradition and eventual conviction. Lynne Chaffinch discusses the laws concerning the theft of objects of cultural heritage, actions to take before and after a theft and databases that record stolen items. Camila Alire recounts Colorado State University's efforts to recover from a flood that damaged half of its collections.

Many suggestions on securing preservation budgets are shared by Nancy Gwinn, Deanna Marcum and James Neal in “Building the budget”. In Understanding Success Francis Ponti describes techniques to assess preservation needs, and James Reilly describes a method to assess an organization's environment and its impact on the rate of decay of organic materials. A topic of current interest is addressed in “Electronic information and digitization”, with three articles by Carl Fleischhauer, Clifford Lynch and Maxwell Anderson addressing aspects of the preservation of electronic resources.

Finally, in “People, buildings, and collections”, Kenneth Lopez builds on Chapter 4 to explain LC's approach to its security programme. Abby Smith discusses the difficult choices that libraries, archives and museums will have to make in the future regarding what to preserve. James Williams describes the variety of risks that academic libraries face and the need for strategies and policies to address them.

Winston Tabb and Mark Roosa conclude the volume with a summary of the previous articles. The articles were originally presented at a conference held at the LC in October 2000, so some of the material is dated, but useful nonetheless. The strength of this book is in the way it pulls together not only topics of traditional concern to libraries such as the preservation of library materials, but also issues such as digital preservation, security and safety, all of which affect our collective cultural heritage. It would be a suitable purchase for libraries that do not already subscribe to the Journal of Library Administration.