RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage reviews books, reports, new periodicals, databases, websites, blogs, and other electronic resources, as well as exhibition, book, and auction catalogs pertaining directly and indirectly to the fields of rare book librarianship, manuscripts curatorship, archives management, and special collections administration. Publishers, librarians, and archivists are asked to send appropriate publications for review or notice to the Reviews Editor.
Ross Harvey and Martha R. Mahard, eds. Revised by Donia Conn. The Preservation Management Handbook: A 21st-Century Guide for Libraries, Archives, and Museums. 2nd edition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2020. Hardback/Paperback/eBook, 390p. $133/$73/$69 (ISBN: 978-1-5381-0900-7/978-1-5381-0901-4/978-1-5381-0902-1).
The Preservation Management Handbook is a classroom textbook for beginners, a self-help guide for those charged with the care of collections, and a ready reference for the shelves of cultural heritage institutions. It can be read straight through if you are looking for a foundational grounding in collections preservation, but is also organized to provide quick assistance if you are seeking help with a particular topic or material.
The first (2014) edition of The Preservation Management Handbook distinguished itself by asserting that the principles for management of collections in digital format are fundamentally similar to those for analog collections, even where there are significant differences in the technology. Twenty-first-century collection managers increasingly are called on to manage both. The 2020 edition includes updates on the rapidly developing field of digital preservation practice, reorganizes the foundational chapters to expand information on disaster planning and environmental management, and adds a chapter on care of digital printouts. It includes new tables that provide quick access to complex details on terminology, assessment, storage, and environment.
The Handbook is set out in three sections. The first reviews the fundamentals of policy, assessment, and planning, including disaster planning and security. The second also looks at organization-wide care of artifacts, with a close examination of storage environments. The final and largest section, prepared by a long list of specialists, gives detailed information about the materials, vulnerabilities, care, and treatment of specific media and materials: paper and books; photographic materials; digital prints; sound recordings; moving image recordings; digital files and carriers; textiles; and paintings. The authors in this last section work to a template outline which assures that similar information is covered about each kind of object.
The editors assert that the text is a handbook for all LAM (Library, Archive, and Museum) organizations, and the second edition strives to expand that comprehensive coverage. Their own firm grounding in library and archive work — the editors all have connections as faculty in the Simmons School of Information and Library Science — steers the narrative, however. In practice the book is a guide for libraries and archives (that may, like most libraries and archives, contain occasional museum-like objects) or for the museum that contains library or archive-like materials in their collections.
This library/archive slant is notably apparent in the chapters on “Artifacts and Information” and “Creating Preservation-Friendly Objects.” The distinction between container and content pertains especially to information collections, although it is not necessarily unique to them, and this distinction is core to understanding options for the preservation of information. The concept of container and content opens up a good discussion about value and anticipated use of collections as well as technologies of making copies–which is also particularly relevant to information collections. The chapter devoted to the creation of what the authors call “preservation-friendly objects” likewise focuses on the creation of information-carriers, whether originals or copies. This discussion draws out the similarities in preservation theory across the analog/digital divide: selection of acid-free paper, processing microfilm to established standards, and selecting widely-used, open digital file formats are all ways to package information so as to reduce preservation problems in the future.
The chapter on “Preservation Principles” is a good springboard for classroom discussion, not only about the similarities and differences between analog and digital objects, but especially about the core why and how of preservation of cultural objects. The authors are thorough in setting out principles that have become key to cultural preservation in Western institutions. They introduce the concepts of appraisal, authenticity, original and copy, containers and content, value, and do no harm. The text passes over the idea of context, however, and the problems of competing goods in preservation decisions. For example, preserving a book to survive maximum circulations is different from preserving a book as an artifact; you probably will not meet a book collector who likes library bindings. Similarly, the advancement of knowledge and creativity sometimes requires explorations into new materials and methods, which do not yet have established preservation practices. Limiting creation to preservation-friendly technologies can also limit discovery. Most importantly, the chapter does not acknowledge culturally varying views of what may constitute “authentic” or “original” or “value” or even “preservation.” The discussion leaves out the people — who is making the decisions and who is the intended beneficiary — and why that matters.
Updated information in the sections on disaster planning, preservation survey and assessment, and managing storage environments are especially useful for managers developing a local preservation program. These have all been areas of intense and active advancement in the past decade. The presentation reflects new and more nuanced approaches as well as providing useful links to templates and models that can make implementing programs easier.
Part III of the Handbook reviews specific media and materials, grounding each section on the principle that an understanding of the materials and technology of an object provides the best basis for understanding how to preserve it. Experts in the different media describe the materials, use and date ranges, manifestations and identification, environment and storage, handling, disaster response, decay, and treatment.
Layers of multiple authors and multiple editions almost inevitably create some inconsistencies in writing as well as repetitions both within Part III and between Part III and other sections of the book. Many of the repetitions reflect the tension between the book as textbook and the book as reference work. Should care of optical disks be included in the section on sound recordings, moving image recordings, or digital files? Should discussion of environmental targets be located in a general chapter on collection management or included in a specific chapter on photographs? The editors have opted for both, with some cross-references, so it is possible to begin from whichever starting point the reader chooses.
A particular strength of the Handbook is the systematic citation of bibliography and standards. Each topic is buttressed by references to current literature, making this guide a good entry into deeper investigation about an issue or material. Standards, which have a long history of establishing community best practices for the preservation of information, provide managers with authoritative support when proposing a course of action to administrators or granting agencies, or when describing specifications to vendors.
What is often missing from the Handbook is the acknowledgment that all preservation of cultural heritage is compromise: between use and damage, human convenience and collection longevity, cost and benefit, usability in the present and historic authenticity, and on and on. Students and inexperienced managers most need guidance on how to conduct an informed negotiation among these compromises. Unfortunately, many of us writing about cultural preservation fall into the trap of presenting only the very best practices–the culmination of years of research and experience. The chapters on media and materials give excellent, up-to-date information, but rarely help the manager who has to make choices about priorities or only has resources to implement incremental improvements. The revised chapters on collection environments early in the Handbook give the best guidance on negotiating compromises. Several sidebars specifically highlight low-cost techniques for improvement and the text acknowledges the likely gaps between ideal environments and what an organization may have to cope with.
Overall The Preservation Management Handbook achieves its aim as a textbook and a ready reference. It provides a useful entry into many, many important issues relating to preservation of cultural objects, both broad and specific, and gives routes to more detailed information. Comparable sources often are more superficial (aimed at the private collector), are available only online (and only if you know where to look), have less strong bibliographies, or omit general care of digital formats altogether. The Handbook should not be the end or the only text, either in the classroom or on the manager’s shelf, but it is a strong starting point to a rapidly evolving and technical field.
- Shannon Zachary