Preservation Week has gotten a new look for 2022. I can't say that I am enamored with the logo since it seems to imply that only books need preservation, but I do like the colors of the new logo chosen by the American Library Association's division Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures. Core: LIF is now responsible for its 2022 Preservation Week public awareness campaign. Since its inception in 2010, Preservation Week has promoted preservation and conservation by offering resources, materials and a space to share events and ideas for Preservation Week celebrations.
Preservation Week is also a good time to assess the state of preservation in the Beaufort District Collection to 2022.
The general public tends not to think too much about the true costs of stewardship of community and personal "treasures." In my opinion, there is a lot of lip service given to "preserving" history through monuments and historic documents, but funding preservation activities for the future tends to get overlooked. I acknowledge that funding the preservation of a particular monument or document offers "feel good moments" that we collectively and individually are "preserving history" for future generations without thought about setting up sustained funding of preservation of these same monuments or documents well into the future. [If you think that preservation isn't expensive, read the Smithsonian Magazine's special report "The Costs of the Confederacy" (2018)]. Preservation isn't "sexy."
Nevertheless, improvements can be made as long as one follows a dictum falsely attributed to Theodore Roosevelt: "Do what you can, where you are, with what you have." Because money and lack of labor are always issues for BDC operations, we concentrate on easy, low cost (or no cost) ways to mitigate harm to our collections:
1. We limit UV emissions from our light fixtures - though now that they are 12 years old we are finding it more difficult to find replacement bulbs.
2. We cut off our lights when we don’t need them. Our storage area is kept dark except when staff is actively retrieving materials for customers to use or when BDC and Technical Services staff is actively working with the collections in the storage area. The inventory and relabeling projects are indeed causing the storage area lights to be on more often than usual but that work definitely needs to get done before I retire. It's a risk well worth taking for the long-term preservation of this collection.
3. With County Facilities Management personnel, we monitor the heat and humidity of our area all the time, making adjustments as conditions warrant. For the most part, the environment in the BDC Research Room stays steady within the 68 - 72 degrees, 40-60% humidity range year round - though every time that the HVAC system streams water vapor into the area to stabilize the humidity customers think that we might be on fire - a circumstance, thankfully, with which I have not had to deal during my tenure thus far.
4. We relocated to the 2nd floor a decade ago to rise above the flood plane. Given the recent storms and flooding issues in downtown Beaufort, I am so glad that we moved upstairs.
5. We look up whenever there is a rainstorm – to make certain that our roof isn’t leaking. So far, so good - though that definitely cannot be said about other parts of the Library building on Scott Street. Occasionally Rusty from facilities comes and looks up with me.
6. We attend workshops and webinars on the best way to take care of our materials. Preservation is an evolving field. In fact, we don't even have to wear white cotton gloves as much as we used to. The BDC has some but the white gloves are mostly reserved for dealing with photographic materials.
8. We do not have windows in the stacks area.
9. My office area and the workroom now have donated blackout curtains on the windows to reduce the inflow of natural light. Light is the most destructive cause of materials degradation and light damage cannot be undone. This is important because there are a lot of unprocessed donations in my office and in the workroom that have not made it into the BDC storage area - yet.
10. I lost my former book repairer person - a former BDC staff member who volunteered her services to repair items until her relocation and acceptance of a professional Librarian position out-of-state last summer. And truth be told, I am not the person who should fill that breach. My bench skills are poor. I know what to do but without the arts-and-crafty gene, I am not at all good at repairing books. I have decided that it is better in this case to do nothing at all than to try to attempt the repairs myself. Perhaps my successor will be the next book repairer or will have the staff to do it. 11. Archival processing and preservation activities with archival collections have pretty much come to a standstill due to current circumstances related to BDC staffing levels.
I spend most of my time these days being a librarian - answering reference questions and helping researchers find useful materials for their respective projects and responding to off-site customer questions via phone or email; writing social media pieces for Facebook, this Connections blog and the BDCBCL: Links, Lists and Finding Aids blog; evaluating new and new-to-us materials for acceptance; coordinating well regarded and attended Local History programs; monitoring the BDC's digital projects in the pipeline; interacting with the Beloved BDC Docents; and doing the occasional community service event or presentation.
Given that I am the only employee in the Beaufort District Collection right now, the librarian tasks are predominating with little time left over to do the archival tasks that my previous Preservation Associates were trained to do. Think of it this way, librarians deal more with other humans, helping customers find information and conduct research whereas archivists deal more often behind-the-scenes tasks necessary to arrange and share important documents and records: processing, appraising, and cataloging. Two different disciplines; two different approaches to dealing with materials; two different schemas of organization and description; but with one purpose: To acquire, preserve, maintain and share a collection of permanent value that records the rich and unique heritage of Beaufort County, South Carolina. I promise that I strive daily to do my best to leave the BDC in as good a shape as I can so that when I retire, I can do so with a clean conscience that I did what I could, with what I had while in the employ of Beaufort County Council.
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