The Preservation Management Handbook

Preservation how-to for every medium. Cultural heritage professionals—museum curators, museum professionals, archivists, and librarians— use their specialized knowledge to prioritize the needs of their collections. Preservation managers and collections care specialists draw from experts in climate control, fire safety, pest management, and more in assessing a collection and its needs. And all the special materials within the collections have their experts too. This revised second edition contains a wide range of topic-specific expertise that comprises both an enduring text for preservation and collections care students, as well as an essential one-stop reference for cultural heritage professionals—particularly those in small- to medium sized organizations where resources are limited and professional help, is not always accessible. Chapter coverage includes: PART I: FUNDAMENTALS Chapter 1: Mapping the Preservation Landscape for the Twenty-first Century Chapter 2: Preservation Principles Chapter 3: Managing Preservation: Policy, Assessment, Planning Chapter 4: Security and Disaster Planning PART II: COLLECTIONS Chapter 5: Artifacts and Information Chapter 6: The Environment Chapter 7: Creating Preservation-friendly Objects PART III: MEDIA AND MATERIAL Chapter 8: Putting it all together – environment and storage quick reference guides Chapter 9: Paper Objects and Books Chapter 10: Photographic Materials Chapter 11: Digital Prints (A. Carver-Kubik) Chapter 12: Sound Materials Chapter 13: Moving Image Materials Chapter 14: Digital Storage Media and Files Chapter 15: Textiles Chapter 16: Paintings In addition to updated and expanded existing content, a new chapter on digital prints has been added to the Media and Material. Also new is Expanded information on disaster planning; A quick guide to good, better, and best preservation practices to help institutions strive to improve their own activities; A comparative terminology guide to assist in greater understanding between LAMs; and two quick references for temperature and relative humidity preferences for a wide range of collection materials. This comprehensive handbook is an invaluable reference.

Museum curators, professionals, archivists and librarians deploy specialized knowledge to prioritize the needs of their collections. This revised volume has a wide range of topic-specific expertise that comprises both an enduring text for preservation students as well as an essential one-stop reference for cultural heritage professionals.

Museum Exhibition is the only textbook of its kind to consider exhibition development using both theory and practice in an integrated approach. This comprehensive study covers care of exhibits, writing accompanying text, using new technology, exhibition evaluation, administration and content for a wide range of collections. It provides a complete outline for all those concerned with providing displays in museums and other cultural heritage contexts.

Archives, museums, and libraries are pivotal to the management and preservation of any society's heritage. Heritage assets should be systematically managed by putting in place proper policies, maintenance procedures, security and risks measures, and retrieval and preservation plans. The Handbook of Research on Heritage Management and Preservation is a critical scholarly resource that examines different aspects of heritage management and preservation ranging from theories that underline the field, areas of convergence and divergence in the field, infrastructure and the policy framework that governs the field, and the influence of the changing landscape on practice. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics, such as community involvement, records legislation, and collection development, this book is geared towards academicians, researchers, and students seeking current research on heritage management and preservation.

The current economic climate, coupled with an all embracing desire for museums to be respondent to 'the market' make a proper grounding in management essential. The 'bottom line' is one of the most powerful measures of management performance. Museums and galleries invariably have a neutral bottom line, they are not set up to make a profit and many of them are constrained by governmental accounting rules and charity legislation. Managing these organisations is difficult and this book tackles the issues that make it easier. Managing the Museum examines the highly sophisticated principles and techniques of modern business management from the perspective of museums and galleries and delineates their practical application. This volume surveys the day-to-day issues of time management, delegation and recruitment to the problems of strategic planning and initiating and controlling conflict and change. This study incorporates the needs of both the independent and national sectors and discusses the links between the museum and commerce.

Handbook for Museums is the definitive guide of need-to-know information essential for working in the museum world. Presenting a field-tested guide to best practice, the Handbook is formed around a commitment to professionalism in museum practice. The sections provide information on management, security, conservation and education. Including technical notes and international reading lists too, Handbook for Museusms is an excellent manual for managing and training.

The Digital Archives Handbook provides archivists a roadmap to create and care for digital archives. Written by archival experts and practitioners, Purcell brings together theoretical and practical approaches to creating, managing, and preserving digital archives. The first section is focused on processes and practices, including chapters on acquisitions, appraisal, arrangement, description, delivery, preservation, forensics, curation, and intellectual property. The second section is focused on digital collections and specific environments where archivists are managing digital collections. These chapters review digital collections in categories including performing arts, oral history, architectural and design records, congressional collections, and email. The book discuss the core components of digital archives—the technological infrastructure that provides storage, access, and long-term preservation; the people or organizations that create or donate digital material to archives programs, as well as the researchers use them; and the digital collections themselves, full of significant research content in a variety of formats with a multitude of research possibilities. The chapters emphasize that the people and the collections that make up digital archives are just as important as the technology. Also highlighted are the importance of donors and creators of digital archives. Building digital archives parallels the cycle of donor work—planning, cultivation, and stewardship. During each stage, archivists work with donors to ensure that the digital collections will be arranged, described, preserved, and made accessible for years to come. Archivists must take proactive and informed actions to build valuable digital collections. Knowing where digital materials come from, how those materials were created, what materials are important, what formats or topical areas are included, and how to serve those collections to researchers in the long term is central to archival work. This handbook is designed to generate new discussions about how archivists of the twenty-first century can overcome current challenges and chart paths that anticipate, rather than merely react to, future donations of digital archives.

This new edition of Digital Preservation in Libraries, Archives, and Museums is the most current, complete guide to digital preservation available today. For administrators and practitioners alike, the information in this book is presented readably, focusing on management issues and best practices. Although this book addresses technology, it is not solely focused on technology. After all, technology changes and digital preservation is aimed for the long term. This is not a how-to book giving step-by-step processes for certain materials in a given kind of system. Instead, it addresses a broad group of resources that could be housed in any number of digital preservation systems. Finally, this book is about “things (not technology; not how-to; not theory) I wish I knew before I got started.” Digital preservation is concerned with the life cycle of the digital object in a robust and all-inclusive way. Many Europeans and some North Americans may refer to digital curation to mean the same thing, taking digital preservation to be the very limited steps and processes needed to insure access over the long term. The authors take digital preservation in the broadest sense of the term: looking at all aspects of curating and preserving digital content for long term access. The book is divided into four part: 1.Situating Digital Preservation, 2.Management Aspects, 3.Technology Aspects, and 4.Content-Related Aspects. Digital Preservation will answer questions that you might not have even known you had, leading to more successful digital preservation initiatives.

Surveying over thirty different positions in the museum profession, this is the essential guide for anyone considering entering the field, or a career change within it. From exhibition designer to shop manager, this comprehensive survey views the latest trends in museum work and the broad-ranging technological advances that have been made. For any professional in the field, this is a crucially useful book for how to prepare, look for and find jobs in the museum profession.