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Preservation – April 2011

Preservation Week V: Preservation Administrators and Conservators

By Jacob Nadal on Fri, 2011-04-29 00:40

The preservation administrator's most important working relationship is with the conservators. This is such a core part of the work that I have to constantly re-correct myself from writing with possessives: my conservators, our conservators. A good conservator is a treasure, well worth coveting. A critical part of my formation as a preservation administrator was the opportunity to work with conservators who really knew their business. I consider myself blessed to have had a chance to work with many of the finest, at Indiana, New York Public, and now at UCLA.

Preservation Week III: Data

By Jacob Nadal on Wed, 2011-04-27 13:09

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 II: Problems versus Process

By Jacob Nadal on Tue, 2011-04-26 12:42

At the IPI workshop today, we naturally fell to talking about the relationship between collection managers and facilities managers. One of the hurdles in optimizing collection storage environments is that these two groups simply have different ways of working, each one adapted to the general requirements of their work and customs of their profession, and often enough, these are very different cultures.

Preservation Week: Tangible Records

By Jacob Nadal on Mon, 2011-04-25 10:30

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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Preservation

A weblog about preservation, conservation, and the stewardship of the UCLA Library's collections.

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