community service
Across the street in this high end, high priced district there is a small, red pushcart hotdog stand. Each day I break away from the $6 hotel coffee shop and cross over to get a hotdog. They are spectacularly good, grilled and seasoned. They cost $1 exactly.
Then I noticed that there is a "Jumbo" on the menu, $2.50 so I got one. It is the same hotdog about one inch longer. The bun is the same, the grilling is the same, the relishes are the same.
What this street vender is providing is a magnificent service for the community providing the same meal for both those who have too little money and for those who have too much money.
orphan masters
"The Preservation Department is pleased to announce the establishment of the Preservation Masters Collection which is noncirculating and contains items that act as backup to digital and nondigital items in our collection. The InfoHawk record will indicate that an item is in that collection using PMC = Preservation Masters Collection as a collection code and in sublibrary MAIN.
The collection contains such things as:
1. Books that have had a preservation paper copy made for the circulating collection and have been “withdrawn” from the public and put into safe keeping in case the circulating copy is lost or damaged and needs to be replaced.
2. DVCAMs that serve as the preservation duplicating master for U-matics that are stored in Special Collections and have a DVD available for patron use.
3. Tapes and CDs provided by vendors as part of a subscription or purchase agreement that back up material available to the public as CDs or online.
This list will continue to grow and could include LPs, CDs, U-matics, audio cassettes, etc." Nancy Kraft
orphan parents
The exclusive attributes of tangible books; immediacy of meaning, haptic efficiency, persistence and self-authentication, these attributes also apply to AIC Members. These are the conservators, the secluded enclave that actually does the work, the activists behind curtains, who save art and evidence of the past.
Curious how they work and curious how cool they are. They have orphan roles but families of legacies and skilled communities of persuasion both with objects and with policies. They do not let adminstrators forget that one of our service sectors is the artifactual world. All the new meanings still reside in the source original.
aic certification
This September the AIC membership will vote, up or down, for a practitioner certification program. I am still not sure if the certification function is at home in the organization, but maybe it is. One functionality that is at home in AIC is the practice called “training the trainers”. This is the routine training for those who must manage others in preservation activities. So my question is if the AIC would have more self-validation with a process of certifying the certifiers.
All the organization would need to do is to point to programs and apprentice opportunities that meet excellent performance for education and accreditation of students. This different agenda would have a distinct advantage of pointing to responsible educational opportunities without the need to implement de-certification. It would also perform a recognition service that is not redundant or ambivalent, expensive or unsustainable.
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