Today, I want to take a break from preservation administration think pieces and write a little bit about tools of the trade. Preservation administration is arguably a subset of management, and the old adage that "you can't manage what you can't measure" has led to lots of preservation data collection. Various projects have measured costs, environmental conditions, productivity, and condition of materials in the collection.

Preservation week starts today and throughout the celebration, I'll be writing daily updates on key principles that help me out as a preservation administrator. I'm writing these quickly. Partly that's because there is quite a lot else to do in this preservation week, but also because I think there's some value in sharing thoughts unvarnished. I'd welcome comments and conversation. After preservation week, I'll take some time to clarify, respond and revise. (Comments on the form are moderated before public posting, so you can write off the cuff, too.)

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