ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


5 9 4 /  C&RL News •  September 2002

P r e s e r v a t i o n  N e w s Jane Hedberg

ARL reaffirm ation
The Association of Research Libraries issued a 
statement, “The Responsibility of Research Li­
braries for Preservation,” in May 2002. This 
statement reaffirms “preservation as one of the 
fundamental responsibilities o f the research li­
brary community.”

It also describes the complexity o f preserv­
ing all types o f research materials, and the ne­
cessity for making “w ise and economical 
choices among a spectrum o f options from 
conserving an artifact in its original manifesta­
tion to preserving only its informational con­
tent in an alternative format that best facilitates 
its continued use.”

The full-text of the statement is available at 
http://www.arl.org/preserv/responsibility. 
html.

9/11 report
Heritage Preservation has issued “Cataclysm 
and Challenge,” a 26-page report about the de­
struction o f cultural and historical artifacts re­
sulting from the September 11 attacks.

The report includes both a study o f the 
losses in N ew  Y ork City and Washington, 
D.C., and a survey o f the disaster prepared­
ness o f 122 cultural institutions in Low er 
Manhattan.

Among the survey’s findings were that stan­
dard emergency preparedness activities proved 
to be most effective in protecting or saving ma­
terials, even in this unprecedented situation. It 
also found that only 46 percent o f the institu­
tions surveyed had a written emergency plan, 
and only 42 percent had staff trained in disas­
ter response procedures. Only 60 percent had 
a current catalog or collection inventory, and 
more than half o f those did not keep a back-up 
copy o f holdings off-site.

The full-text is available as a free p d f at 
http://www.heritagepreservation.org/NEWS/ 
Cataclysm.htm. Printed copies are available for 
a shipping and handling fee from Lucy Kurtz 
at Heritage Preservation, 1730 K Street, NW  
Suite 566, Washington, D.C. 20006-3836; phone: 
(888) 388-6789; fax: (202) 634-1435; e-mail:

lk u rtz@ h erita g ep reserva tio n .o rg ; URL: 
http://www.heritagepreservation.org.

Benchmarks
Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives 
and Libraries in the United Kingdom, has pub­
lished Benchmarks in Collection Care fo rM useums, 
Archives and Libraries: A Self-Assessment Check­
list. This 92-page document helps institutions 
evaluate their collection care activities against 
basic good and best practices, then identify pos­
sible improvements and measure progress in 
making those improvements.

The checklist is available as a free PDF at 
http://www.resource.gov.uk/information/pub- 
lications/OOpubs. asp.

Technical m etadata standard
The National Information Standards Organi­
zation (NISO) has released Data Dictionary— 
Technical Metadatafo r Digital Still Images (NISO 
Z39.87-2002/AIIM  20-2002) as a draft standard 
for trial use. Jointly developed with AIIM In­
ternational, this standard provides technical 
support for applications to validate, manage, 
migrate, process, and ultimately preserve digi­
tal still images. It utilizes MIX, an XML schema 
that defines the format for interchange and/or 
storage o f the specified data.

The standard will be available for review and 
implementation from June 1, 2002, through 
December 31, 2003. Oya Rieger (Cornell Uni­
versity) and Robin Dale (Research Libraries 
Group) cochaired the Standards Committee AU 
that developed this draft standard so expedi­
tiously.

The standard is available as a free PDF at 
http://www.niso.org/standards/dsftu.html. 
MIX is available free through a link on the 
standard’s page above, or at http://www. 
loc.gov/standards/mix/. Comments should be 
submitted to NISO headquarters by e-mail at 
nisohq@niso.org. ■

Ja ne  H e d b e rg  is p re s e rv a tio n  p r o g r a m  o ff ic e r  a t  H a rv a rd  
U n iv e rs ity  Lib r a r y , -m a ii: ja n e _ h e d b e rg @ h a rv a rd .e d u ; fa x : 
(617)496-8344

http://www.arl.org/preserv/responsibility
http://www.heritagepreservation.org/NEWS/
mailto:lkurtz@heritagepreservation.org
http://www.heritagepreservation.org
http://www.resource.gov.uk/information/pub-
http://www.niso.org/standards/dsftu.html
http://www
mailto:nisohq@niso.org
mailto:jane_hedberg@harvard.edu


C&RL News ■ September 2002 / 595