Preservation Week

“Pass it on” will be the theme of the second annual ALA/ALCTS Preservation Week to be held April 24–30. Libraries of all types are encouraged to celebrate protection of our cultural heritage with events and promotions. Sixty-eight libraries participated in 2010, and it is hoped that number will increase in 2011. The Preservation Week Web site has toolkits to help plan and promote events, preservation resources, and information about events at other institutions. ALCTS is also selling posters and bookmarks that list tips for preserving personal treasures.

For more information, go to www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/confevents/preswk/index.cfm.

Webinar series

The “Connecting to Collections Webinar Series” was originally targeted at the more than 3,000 small libraries, museums, and archives that received a set of printed preservation resources called the “Connecting to Collections Bookshelf.” Six of those Webinar sessions were recorded in late 2010 and are now available online. They are: “Telling the Story of Your Collections to the Press” presented by Anne Edgar of Anne Edgar Associates of NY; “Using Social Media to Tell your Collections’ Stories” by Nancie Ravenel of the Shelburne Museum; “Getting the Most from your Bookshelf: Care of Art and Objects” by Kristen Laise of Heritage Preservation; “Funding for Collections Care” by Debra Hess Norris of the University of Delaware and Lee Price of the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts; “Public Outreach and Collections Care” by Amber Kerr-Allison of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Susan Blakney of West Lake Conservation, and Beth Tice of Baylor University; and “Getting the Most from your Bookshelf: Care of Paper, Photographs, and Audiovisual Collections” by Kristen Laise. The recordings are accompanied by session handouts and discussions. This project is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services in partnership with Heritage Preservation.

The Webinar recordings and related materials are available free-of-charge at learningtimesevents.org/c2c/.

Microbial research

Cultural Heritage Microbiology, edited by Ralph Mitchell of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Christopher McNamara of the Harvard School of Public Health, covers both dangers of microbiological deterioration to cultural heritage objects and uses of microbial processes during their conservation. Introductory essays synthesize past research and current findings, and it includes reprints of almost two dozen seminal scientific papers published during the last two decades.

The book is divided into six sections, each covering a different type of cultural material. Of special interest for librarians and archivists is the second section, “Paper and Manuscripts.” It has a 15-page essay by Francesca Cappitelli and Claudia Sorlini, followed by reprints of “Aerobiological Research and Problems in Libraries” by Fausta Gallo, “The Role of the Conidia of Fungi in Fox Spots” by Mary-Lou Florian, and “Application of Molecular Techniques for Identification of Fungal Communities Colonising Paper Material” by Astrid Michaelsen, Flavia Pinzari, Katrin Ripka, Werner Lubitz, and Guadalupe Piñar.

The book is available for $169.95 from the American Society of Microbiology eStore at estore.asm.org/viewItemDetails.asp?ItemID=911 or through a bookseller. ISBN=978-1-55581-476-2.