Laminating and Delaminating

I’ve been wanting to do more reading on the Barrow method after this jumped out at me from the Northeast Document Conservation Center’s  Introduction to Preservation: “Archivists adopted many of the techniques for conservation of individual documents set forth by William J. Barrow, among them deacidification and lamination, a process later found to be damaging.” (Foley) (emphasis mine)  I found this alarming since my library has, for decades, saved archival newspaper clippings by pasting them onto construction paper and then laminating the pages.  Probably doubly damaging as I suspect the construction paper was not acid free.

My fears were allayed quickly by a little more reading on the Barrow lamination method.  This process used cellulose acetate, the same material which was used, among other things, for motion picture film during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.  When it was developed in the 1930s, cellulose lamination was considered a state of the art method for preserving fragile paper and was used on many collections of historic documents, among them gubernatorial papers of Thomas Jefferson (Dulaney) and documents relating to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 (Page).  Cellulose acetate film turned out to be less permanent than had been hoped as the film will deteriorate when exposed to heat or moisture.  The chemical breakdown can cause even more damage to the documents it was designed to protect.   The film that my library is currently using is labeled “homopolymer.”  That is a fairly generic term so further research will need to be done to determine whether this particular film is appropriate for archival use.  However, I don’t believe we need to worry about it breaking down in the same manner as the cellulose acetate film does. Whether it could be removed is another question.  Cellulose acetate films (there are various brands) can be dissolved by various solutions of acetone.  Two articles (referenced below) from the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) describe this process as it was applied to several documents relating to the 1803 purchase of the Louisiana Territory by Thomas Jefferson.  Page gives a history of the documents and an overview of the delamination process, enhanced by several photographs.  Ormsby goes into great detail on the chemical processes of delaminating cellulose acetate film.

 While perusing the FAIC website I also found a dissertation written by Sally Roggia in 1999 about Barrow and his work.   Roggia gives an extensive background on Barrow, his family, education, research, and work, as well as history and exploration of library and archives conservation, and research into paper deterioration and preservation.  Barrow did much of his work right here in Virginia, and for several years has a workshop at the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, which is within walking distance of my house.  All the more reason to learn about his life and work!

1. Foley, L. (Project director). What is preservation? Definitions. In Preservation 101. Andover, Massachusetts: Northeast Document Conservation Center. (2006)  Retrieved from http://unfacilitated.preservation101.org/

 
2. Dulaney, D. (2011, February 23). Grant Allows Jefferson’s Papers to be Preserved.  Retrieved July 17, 2014, from http://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/out_of_the_box/2011/02/23/grant-allows-jeffersons-papers-to-be-preserved/

3. Page, S. (2003). Cellulose Acetate Lamination at the National Archives Part 1: The Louisiana Purchase Documents, a Case Study. The Book and Paper Group Annual, 22. Retrieved July 18, 2014, from http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/sg/bpg/annual/v22/bp22-11.pdf

4. Ormsby, M. (2003). Cellulose Acetate Lamination at the National Archives Part 2: Analysis of Laminated Documents Using Solid-Phase Microextraction. The Book and Paper Group Annual, 22. Retrieved July 18, 2014, from http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/sg/bpg/annual/v22/bp22-12.pdf

5. Roggia, S. (1999). William James Barrow: A Biographical Study of His Formative Years and His Role in the History of Library and Archives Conservation From 1931 to 1941 (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. Retrieved July 18, 2014, from http://cool.conservation-us.org/byauth/roggia/barrow/

Learning Digital Preservation the Hard Way

I used to hear an adage of computer use that “there are two kinds of computer users - those who have experienced a hard drive failure and those who WILL experience a hard drive failure”  Meaning of course, that everyone is going to experience a hard drive failure eventually.  In my memory that adage comes from a time before there were IT departments and off-the-shelf virus protection and back-up packages.  It should be easier now to protect one’s data, but that doesn’t mean that it gets done.  I’m one of those who experienced a hard drive failure early on and so I’m probably a little better than most at making regular backups.  However, that didn’t save me from a recent little digital archive crisis of my own.

I have a sideline career as a musician, playing and recording with a group that specializes in 18th century music.  We have recorded four albums to date and recently realized that we needed to reprint the earliest of those, first recorded in 2001.  As we went to place a reorder we were faced with a series of data failures which have been made all the more poignant in light of the reading I have been doing on preservation in general and digital preservation in particular.

Lessons learned and how they apply to the world of preservation.

Failure no. 1 - at the time of the original production the graphic artist gave us a disk (a zip disk, we’ll get to that later) with the backup files for the cover and liner notes.  We did not verify that the files were complete, and they weren’t.  Preservation lesson -  do a complete inventory of any materials that you receive as soon as possible so you’ll know if there are any missing pieces while they might still be acquired.  In our case going back to the source now is impossible as the artist passed away a couple years ago.

Failure no. 2 - the production company experienced a catastrophic server loss during Super Storm Sandy lost all their archived design files from prior to 2012. Technically this wasn’t our fault, the but preservation lesson is this: If you are preserving any “too important to lose” digital information (whether born digital or transferred) budget for off-site storage and create a backup. Then build updates for that backup into your maintenance schedules (see item #3)

Failure no. 3 - We did not migrate our own data as formats and carriers changed.  Preservation lesson - digital information must be constantly maintained.  Files need to  transferred to new carriers as storage formats evolve.  Files also must be transferred into new versions of software as those formats change.  And if you are going to keep original materials on original carriers, be they zip disks or 8-track tapes, then you also need to keep compatible playback equipment, along with whatever drivers are necessary to make them function.  In our case we were hit with a double whammy here, zip drives are no longer common, and the program that the artist had used is now obsolete. So when we did finally locate a zip drive and extract the files we discovered that half were missing (see point no.1) the production company was unable to use them.

The only thing that’s going to save us here is that we happen to have most of the photos and text built into our website.  So now we’re in the process of copying and converting all the components and trying to rebuild the cover, case, and liner notes from scratch.

Brittle Digital

I’ve been thinking about the parallels and differences between the brittle books crisis that came to light in the 1980s and the still emerging problems with digital information storage.  There are a lot of similarities, and some significant differences.  I’ve made a chart comparing the two:

Brittle Books	Digital Objects and Media
All the endangered items were basically the same - printed paper, whether in the form of books, newspapers, maps or other printed material.	Digital information is stored in dozens of different carriers, each with their own preservation issues.  Furthermore, digital objects are dependent on multiple layers of technology: file formats, software, hardware, drivers for the hardware, playback equipment, packaging, etc.  A failure at any point can render in information inaccessible.
Even as the carrier is crumbling, the information is still at least partially retrievable, even if only temporarily, since it can still be seen and read (until the pages completely disintegrate).	The information contained in files is often completely irretrievable (all or nothing).
The production of acid paper was partly in response to growth in writing and publishing that outpaced the older forms of paper manufacture - there was a need for faster, bigger, cheaper production.	Development of new technologies is partially in response to the growth in information creation, there is a need for greater storage capacity and more flexible, easier to use forms of data creation and storage.
Creation of the “inherent vice” in acid paper was unintentional.  While commercially driven, no one was trying to force users to abandon one format in favor of another.	The inherent vice and weaknesses in digital storage are at least partially due to the practice of planned obsolescence in software and hardware design and manufacturing.
The damage is visible - as soon as you pick up the books you can see the level of damage (though in books sitting unused in the stacks, the interior damage may not be evident).	Damage or obsolescence is invisible until you try to retrieve the file.

A silver lining, if you will, of the brittle book crisis was that the need to address the problem motivated substantial growth in library cooperation.  In her article “The Future of the Past” Abby Smith quoted Patricia Battin, first president of the Commission on Preservation and Access,  “we had to move from the cottage industries in our individual library back rooms to a coordinated nationwide mass-production effort." (1)  While library cooperation was nothing new, this crisis spurred the development of several organizations, commissions, and other group efforts to research and combat the problem.  This interagency cooperation has continued to address the issues surrounding digital information storage, retrieval, and security.

1. Smith, A. (1999, April). The Future of the Past: Preservation in American Research Libraries. Retrieved from the Council on Library and Information Resources website: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub82/pub82text.html

 

Expanding the Definition of Restoration

The Northeast Document Conservation Center’s Introduction to Preservation defines restoration as “treatment procedures intended to return cultural property to a known or assumed state, often through the addition of non-original material.” (1)  In the context of preservation I’ve generally thought of the term as it would apply to art objects, paintings for instance, or to the rebinding of books.  In both these cases while the finished object may contain new materials the data that the object presents (whether visually or through text)  will hopefully remain unchanged.  

However, when talking about digital objects restoration takes on a whole new meaning, and presents new issues and problems for preservationists.  “Restoring a file” in simple terms means retrieving it from the recycle bin or from a backup, but in the case of damaged or corrupted files often the best one can hope for is to salvage some of the data.  While there are algorithms available for restoring digital images (2), corrupted text files are another matter.  Missing text cannot be filled in without the danger of changing the meaning of the work.  As more and more of our records are either created or preserved digitally, I suspect this second context of restoration will take on increasing significance.

 1. Foley,Lori (Project director). What is preservation? Definitions. In Preservation 101. Andover, Massachusetts: Northeast Document Conservation Center. (2006)  Retrieved from http://unfacilitated.preservation101.org/

2. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inpainting

I'm ba-ack.....

Picking up again after a couple years. I sent myself back to graduate school this year and am being presented with new and varied opportunities to create blog entries. Writing has been my biggest challenge as I've been getting back into student mode and that's all the more reason to make myself practice.

Why did I send myself back to graduate school?  Well, having survived thirty years as a state employee I became eligible for "full" (as in not drastically reduced) retirement this year. That got me thinking about whether I wanted to retire. I don't. I like my job and I can easily imagine staying at it for another five to ten years. However, if I'm going to do that I need to upgrade myself a bit. A lot of things have been changing very quickly in the library world during the past decade and reading journals and partaking of webinars isn't really enough to keep up.

Secondly, the same past decade has seen the creation of viable and useful continuing education for librarians. Several schools have started programs for post-MLS students, and a couple of these are offered online. I chose the University of South Carolina, mostly because of its flexibility. SC doesn't restrict students to a predetermined curriculum, I am pretty much free to take whatever courses suit me. Here is a link http://www.libsci.sc.edu/about/index.htm. I am pursuing the Certificate of Advanced Study in Library and Information Science (that's a mouthful for what is basically a half a Master's Degree).

And as I said, it's all online. I did drive down to Columbia for an orientation and I'm almost sorry that there isn't a residency requirement, it's a beautiful campus and town.

Thing Twenty-Two: Podcasts

I already subscribe to a few podcasts, mostly of NPR shows. I get email alerts and them when I'm working in my office at home. If I ever decide I can afford to upgrade to a smartphone, podcasts are an option that I expect I would make frequent use of for listening to while driving.

I'm not feeling ambitious enough to pursue creating any at the moment. But here are TNCC we have made use of iTunes U (other 23 Things participants may have noticed theFeed@TNCC in the list of education podcast sites). In addition to the news feed, several faculty have created podcasts of lectures and presentations and made them available throuh iTunes U.

Thing 21: Mashups

After looking at these sites it's clear that I've been taking advantage of Mashups for quite a while without knowing it. Since I have never entirely embraced flickr and twitter I wasn't all that excited about the Mashups between them. But I did get more interested when I started looking through the Google Mashups and the ones created for the Apps for Democracy contest.

One Mashup that I found particularly intriguing is #Ask4Stuff a trial service whereby you use Twitter to find results within Worldcat. The reports from people using it were positive, however when I tried it I never received any results. Perhaps I'm just not using it correctly?

Thing 23: The End?

I've enjoyed this process. Learned a lot, got excited about the possibilities of some of the things. Also experienced a bit of frustration at the college's firewalls and other security measures which completely blocked some of the applications, but even that process enabled me to become a lot more familiar with the network staff and I believe we'll be able to come to some accommodation.

The things I found most interesting were:

1. Wikis. As I mentioned in the original entry, I want to use this tool to create a new version of the library's policy and procedures manual. Something similar to the example in week five: Antioch University New England Library Staff Training and Support Wiki . I think we've just about worked out a compromise with IT to actually allow a wiki on the college's servers, so now all that remains is to create the thing.

2. Youtube. I have a much better appreciation for the educational videos that Youtube has to offer. We've just started a subscription to LibGuides here and I'm planning to incorporate some Youtube sources into our new guides.

3. Photos and Image Generators. That was just plain fun.

4. Creative Commons. Having had some frustrating experiences with the current copyright codes in the past, I am gratified to know that there is a grassroots movement of sorts creating another way. Maybe as this grows it will encourage lawmakers to revamp the codes for everyone.

Overall I'd say that I've become much more aware, and more interested in how media, the web, and emerging technologies have become integrated into and are shaping our lives (that's just about what the intro to 23 Things said, isn't it?).

Thanks to Tara and all the other participants!

Thing 20: Tagging and Social Bookmarking

OK, looked around delicious. Explored the site options. Created an account and bookmarked a few sites. I like the portabiity of the bookmarks. Since I'm traveling between two campuses these days, that could really be useful.

Didn't think much of the comments. Everything I saw seemed to just be brief reiterations of the basic site info.

We don't currently have a social bookmark collection, but I mentioned before that we've just started working with Libguides, and I can see delicious working into that nicely. One of the tabs in the Libguides template could be for a delicious list. We'd just have to create a generic TNCC account so that any of the librarians who are editing the Libguides could add links to the delicious list.

I created a collection of bookmarks related to an event we have coming up in October. Author Orson Scott Card will be speaking at CNU, brought in by the Virginia Peninsula Literay Consortium.

Thing 19: Multimedia

I was not aware of the Text-to-speech options in Ebsco, Gale, and Factiva. How cool. I couldn't find the option in Ebsco, but I did in the other two and tried them out.

I was aware of the other audio options listed, and have used all of them except Last.fm

I haven't used Youtube much. I know it has a good deal of useful, educational material, but I get tired of filtering through the dross. We've just started a subscription to Libguides, and I'm hoping that we can use some of the more useful Youtube material in some of our guides.

I found several videos done created by academic libraries. This was a good one, though a bit overlong:


And I liked this series, "The Library Minute" from Arizona State University. Short, coherent, easy to understand:


Lastly, this old one, more general tech than library oriented and a bit dated now, but one of my all time favorites:

Thing 18: Audiobooks

In my opinion Farrell's article summed up the whole audiobook experience quite well. A bit confusing, often frustrating, and very, very popular.

I love audiobooks, and jumped right into Overdrive when the VCCS first got the service. My initial experience was very much like that depicted in "Webcomic Takes on Audiobook DRM" - I spent a several hours downloading and updating various players and files before I finally got it to work at home. Since then it's been great, at home. At work it's a different story. When we first got Overdrive I was able to download the media player just a couple days before the latest draconian security protcols were put in place. I used it for quite happily until a few months ago when I received a new computer (a necessary evil, the old one had smoke coming out the back). Since then the multiple layers of security and firewalls have made it impossible to use. So what I do now is download at home, transfer to my Sansa recorder, and then bring that into work. And I probably ought to note that I only listed to audiobooks at work when I am engaged in those most tedious of tasks that would put me to sleep otherwise.

Students and faculty also seem to love Overdrive. We have a modest collection of audiobooks on CD, cassette, and Playaway, and whenever someone checks out one of those we make it a point to show them the Overdrive links on the webpage. The universal response is some variation of "OMG - this is great! And it's FREE? Wow."

Week 20 addendum

Gaak. Classes start on Monday. I'm not ready.

Thing 17: Social Cataloging

I already have a Librarything account. I set it up specifically for keeping track of the music books and scores that I own. In my other life I'm a musician, and in the intersection of that and my professional life, I do research on folk music and songs. I've amassed quite a collection of books and manuscripts and sometimes when I'm researching a new topic, I forget what I already have in my collection. So I created a catalog through Librarythng to help me keep track. (my only problem now if remembering to check it and keep it updated)

Here is the link to my Librarything catalog, if anyone is interested:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/slawlor314

I've toyed with the idea of using one of these sites for my book club, but that impose an undue degree of organization on my book club (we're a pretty casual bunch).

While not for cataloging, I have made extensive use of Bookmooch to benefit the library. We often receive donations of books that we really don't need in the collection but which are still of interest. I took it upon myself to add them to my Bookmooch inventory, and after accumulating a good points balance, I also started using Bookmooch to acquire books for TNCC. I've been able to replace worn out copies in our paperbacks collection, and get extra copies of titles for the campus book club. The mailing cost comes out of pocket, but it's minimal and I enjoy the global book exchange.

And while it wasn't one of the options mentioned in the 23 Things list, I also want to put in a plug for the "WeRead" feature on facebook. I've used that to post titles that I'm reading and it always generates a bit of discussion.

Thing 16: E-Books

What do you think of PsycBooks?
     I liked it. Since I wasn't looking for anything in particular I poked around in the browsing featured. I liked the terminology finder and the nav bar choices for narrowing down topics.

Are e-books the wave of the future? An aesthetically-challenged plot to empty your wallet? A wild west frontier?
     Yes, all of the above. I think e-publishing is the overall wave of the future and e-books are simply a part of that. As for the "empty your wallet" part - I remember reading somewhere that half the books purchase each year are never read. People buy books and get the feeling that they then somehow own the knowledge that's in them, even if they have no idea what that knowledge actually says. Buying e-book downloads is even easier and I suspect far more than half of the those purchases are going unread.

Are e-books popular with your students?
     They are once they've been introduced to them. Students still think of the library primarily as a place to get hard copy material, and seem to be surprised when we show them the e-books collections. But they do use them once they know they're there. I think out most popular collection is Safari, great for looking up technical information.

Do you own a dedicated e-book reader such as the Amazon Kindle or Barnes & Noble Nook? If so, what do you think of it?
     I don't own one myself, yet. I have several friends who have and love them and I suspect I'll be getting one in the foreseeable future. I'm envisioning e-readers becoming the new format for daily newspapers and magazines. Publishing them for free online hasn't worked very well, at least not for the publishers' bottom lines. But a modest subscription fee to allow one to read the morning paper while sitting on the couch with your coffee might just do it.

Thing 15: Creative Commons

I am continually frustrated by the current copyright laws. I agree with the spirit, but the application often either leaves works in limbo or obstacles to use that potential creators simply give up. And I don't believe that the laws can handle the explosion of new media and the fluid nature of the Internet.

I definitely think it would be a good idea let faculty know about Creative Commons (if they don't already). There are many great resources already available under CC licenses which can save faculty time when preparing presentations and class material. And the more who know about it, the more collaboration is possible.

Thing 8: Screencasting

We have a license for Camtasia here, though we haven't made much use of it. Rather than wait for the process of getting permission for Camtasia I downloaded the free version of Jing and used that. I created a soundless video of the process for renewing a book online.

I'd like to make another version of this using sound and callouts with notes, but that will have to wait for the Camtasia permissions and for finding a microphone (I believe we have USB mics somewhere on campus...)

I tried for quite a while to embed the video here but wasn't able to do it, so I have just included the link.

How to Renew Books Online

Thing 14 : Online Surveys

OK, I know that firewalls are necessary, but they're really getting in the way here. After the segment on Wikis here, I got excited about the possibility of recreating our policies and procedures manual in a wiki format. It needs to be updated in the worst way and the current format is cumbersome. A wiki would be easier to update, would allow several people to make changes, and would make it more accessible. Great, but the firewalls in place here have thwarted all my attempts to set one up.

Likewise, the local firewalls completely block Doodle. Very frustrating.

Google works all right though, and I I'd like to rework some of our library survey with Google. We conduct an annual user survey but only in paper format, it would be interesting to see how many additional responses we received if we added an online component.

And, my one question survey...

Thing 13 : Document Sharing

I've used Google docs quite a bit for committee work. As the Common English clip stated, it eliminated the issue of having multiple copies of a document floating and being passed around, often with different versions of editing.

I've been trying to get the rest of the staff here to warm up to the idea of putting our operations manual into Google docs or into a wiki but so far only a couple people are on board. One question I still have is whether it's a good idea to have our policies and procedures manual publicly accessible. That wouldn't have been possible with the old hard copy version, but web versions make it easy.

I posted a document in my google account, one of my favorite Yeats poems. And shortened the url to boot.

http://bit.ly/a6DRO7

Things 10 & 11: Tweeting and Shortening a URL

I've had a twitter account for some time, though I don't really use it. I set it up to follow some of the threads at the ELUNA conference in Richmond last year, and have kept it, though all I really follow is the VCCS library and TNCC news threads (is "threads" the correct term to use here?)

I was interested to find out about the search engines and the twitterfall site, both could be potentially useful in doing research, or at least for gathering information. And I liked the scenarios that were presented describing how twitter could be used in professional collaborations. Although all these would take a good deal of tweaking to filter out the dross.

URL shortening - I've also been aware of these services but have never used them. And I suspect that if we shortened the links to our databases, for instance changing Academic Search Complete from
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/search?vid=1&hid=110&sid=7b6bd863-f795-4d4d-920d-9709528c2c3b%40sessionmgr110

to http://bit.ly/d9mmCU

that it wouldn't work from off campus. I'll have to try it from home. And just out of curiosity, I shortened the shortened link that we already have, this one:
http://library.vccs.edu/license-bin/linker.plx?ebscoa9h which takes users through the proxy server.

Shortened it looks like this: http://bit.ly/aFVU5o

Tried another, which doesn't have the proxy issues, this is the link to the listing for "The Secret Life of Bees" from our catalog, shortened from http://vccslinc.vccs.edu/F/QCU2RNSQ3UHHKYB8BDKI3K1B2ABGSLFSR6DUSAMMJQ3GA9VRYV-61032?func=full-set-set&set_number=005626&set_entry=000002&format=999

to http://bit.ly/aaXbxa

But again, the true test will be how these links work from off campus. Results to follow...