Preservation Week inspires action to preserve personal, family, and community collections in addition to library, museum, and archive collections. It also raises awareness of the role libraries and other cultural institutions play in providing ongoing preservation education and information.
At Batavia Park District you can enjoy two different activities
Cheers Through the Years
Grab your friends for a history-flavored night of 21+ fun in downtown Batavia. Check in at the Depot Museum to pick up your trolley pass and booklet. Then climb aboard our open-air trolley for a guided tour of historic downtown Batavia with stops near some of the city’s best bars. Ticketed event. 21+ 5/1, 6 p.m. $10
Preservation Workshop: Box Making
Spend a creative morning making your own custom archival boxes for storing albums, newspaper clippings and photographs. All tools and materials will be provided. This workshop is held in the Museum Lab at the Callahan Community Center, where you will see curatorial work in action. Registration required. ID# 244401-05, 18+, 5/2 10a.m.-Noon, $95
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How did Preservation Week start?
In 2005 the first comprehensive national survey of the condition and preservation needs of the nation’s collections reported that U.S. institutions hold more than 4.8 billion items. Libraries alone hold 3 billion items (63 percent of the whole). A treasure trove of uncounted additional items is held by individuals, families, and communities. These collections include books, manuscripts, photographs, prints and drawings, and objects such as maps, textiles, paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, and furniture, to give just a sample. They include moving images and sound recordings that capture performing arts, oral history, and other records of our creativity and history. Digital collections are growing fast, and their formats quickly become obsolescent, if not obsolete.
Recognizing this need, ALA and its Association for Library Collections and Technical Services inaugurated national collections Preservation Week, May 9-15, 2010, along with national partners that include the Library of Congress, Institute of Library and Museum Services, American Institute for Conservation, Society of American Archivists, and Heritage Preservation.
Why is preservation awareness important?
Some 630 million items in collecting institutions require immediate attention and care. Eighty percent of these institutions have no paid staff assigned responsibility for collections care; 22 percent have no collections care personnel at all. Some 2.6 billion items are not protected by an emergency plan. As natural disasters of recent years have taught us, these resources are in jeopardy should a disaster strike. Personal, family, and community collections are equally at risk.
Who runs Preservation Week?
Preservation Week is managed and maintained by Core and the Core Preservation Outreach Committee.
