Preservation News

Jane Hedberg


NARA reformatting

The Special Media Preservation Division of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has opened its products and services Web portal to the public. According to its mission statement, Special Media Preservation provides “agency-wide laboratory services and technical expertise in order to facilitate preservation and access to the content of Federal Records in the custody of NARA.” It only performs its digital and analog reformatting of textual, audiovisual, micrographic, and cartographic materials for collections held by NARA, but decided to make the information on its portal widely available to encourage discussion. What may be of special interest are the charts, which delineate reformatting approaches by type of original material. The charts start with descriptions of desired outcomes and product scope, and then indicate the appropriate product to meet the need. The charts are meant to be helpful, not prescriptive, for organizations outside NARA.

For more information, go to www.archives.gov/preservation/products/.

NEDCC Webinars

The Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) held a live Webinar, “Risk Assessment for Disaster Planning,” April 28, 2011. It was designed to introduce risk evaluation for cultural institutions and collections, as part of developing a disaster plan.

A recording of the Webinar is available free-of-charge at www.nedcc.org/about/news.freewebinar.php. Latest version of Windows Media Player required for playback.

NEDCC will hold a series of live Webinars, Fundamentals of Digitization, in fall 2011. The series is designed to explain basic concepts to those new to digitization. Introduction to Image Capture will be held on September 22, Digital Project Planning on September 27, Metadata on October 18, Sustainable Digital Collections on October 25, Handling Collection Materials during Digitization on November 15, Reformatting Scrapbooks on November 17, and Digital Disaster Planning on November 22. Each session will run from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Eastern time.

The Webinars cost $95 each ($80 if registration is done before early-bird deadline). For more information, contact Kim O’Leary at E-mail: or (978) 470–1010, ext. 226.

Personal archiving

The National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) has a Web page about preserving personal digital objects. It offers simple advice for preserving digital photographs, personal digital records, electronic mail, digital video, digital audio, and personal Web sites. There are seven basic steps to the preservation process: identify where the digital information is located, decide which information has long-term value, export the long-term information with metadata (depending on the format), organize the information, make multiple copies on different types of storage media and distribute them to geographically separate locations, check the readability of the copies once per year, and create copies on new media every five years. The Web page also links to a downloadable brochure about personal archiving, a printable poster, an interactive slideshow, a quiz, several videos, and “Preserving Your Personal Digital Memories,” an ALCTS Webinar given by Bill LeFurgy on April 28, 2011.

For more information, go to http://digitalpreservation.gov/you/.

Copyright 2011© American Library Association

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