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Comments on PARS Meetings, ALA 2000

The preservation/reformatting meetings were dominated by concern for persistent access to non-print holdings. Developments at larger, technically staffed preservation departments indicate the current focus. Specific developments to watch: (1) National Library of Medicine program to rate archival capacity of electronic publishers, to arrange transfer of archival responsibility from electronic publishers to third parties and to assume and announce institutional archival responsibility for specific electronic publications, (2) Harvard and Yale developments of non-print archival repositories that initially just store machine dependent media, but eventually develop (or outsource) revenue services for assumption of preservation rights, preservation responsibilities, preservation treatments (refreshment, dubbing, migration to other media, etc) as well as "eye readable" access.(see <http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/MOA2/papers/dump3.html> for a definition of non-print repository)

Another project to monitor would be the LC initiative to integrate preservation management records into a a single database. This software will be based on exemplars of existing binding preparation modules and may influence the contest of LARS/ABLE. Another option is an exemplar from ILL (interlibrary loan) modules.

Such agendas clearly point to the need for an aggressive, programmatic Preservation Librarians. Those at the meetings suggest ever closer collaboration and teamwork of preservation departments with collection development and scholarly digital resources staff. Many preservation officers at ALA remarked that the newer media is requiring much more "active" management as well as much more collaborative work with other stake holders and technical and systems officers.

Because most consider traditional units defined, functional, and productive, there is reason to assign the Preservation Librarian to new agendas and not define that position strictly in terms of existing functions or status quo management activities. But is the shift to management of persistence parameters for non-print collections a continuity or discontinuity for the preservation function?

The consensus that I observed was that the development of services for non-print and especially for on-line resources would prove to be a continuity within the preservation function. Disturbances to continuity, now of uncertain magnitude, would include the influence of fundamental changes in reading modes and scholarly research and the uncertain definition of the right to preservation of a moving target or transitory digital "object".

At the same time, a premise of continuity; the continuing role of the source original in the context of digital delivery (keyword-continuing) is not being specifically verbalized or advocated. Here a cultural bias may be silently at work. In the USA we tend to choose the clean copy over the dirty original.

End Note

The term "non-print" repository is ambiguous...but happily both meanings apply. Non-print can suggest archival material in contrast to published works or it can suggest non-paper as opposed to paper based media. In reference to the new repositories both meanings are at work since the target collections are unique, local holdings resident on non-paper media. A non-print repository is somewhat like a non-paper archive or a new age archival repository!

(Ambiguous terms with contradictory meanings are rare. One of my favorites is the term "recase"? Libranians use this to indicate save the original cover and binders use it to indicate provide new cover!)