With financial support from the American School, Reference Archivist Eleftheria Daleziou attended the Basic Preservation for Library and Archives Collections event on Tuesday 4 March 2008, organized by the UK National Preservation Office (http://www.bl.uk/services/npo/npo.html).  The event was held at the British Library Centre for Conservation in London. Armed with new knowledge, Dr. Daleziou intends to produce a leaflet with basic reading room requirements for the handling of archival material (for both the Blegen and the Gennadius Archives reading rooms). Her knowledge will also be valuable in the preparation of a preservation policy document for the ASCSA Archives.

REPORT - NATIONAL PRESERVATION OFFICE TRAINING EVENT
LONDON - BRITISH LIBRARY 4.3.2008

On March 4, 2008 with financial support from the School I attended a training event organized by National Preservation Office, held at the NPO Center at the British Library.
The participants of the training event were primarily archivists from the United Kingdom and France. The lecturers were Alison Walker, the Head of the NPO, Carolin Bendix and Jonathan Rhys-Lewis, preservation and collections management consultants. The following themes were covered: Preservation framework and policies, Disaster planning and emergency response, Environmental monitoring for museums, archives and libraries, Handling library and archives collections, Caring for bindings and commissioning conservation, Benchmarks and surveys. At the end of the training there was also a preservation clinic which was particularly beneficial as participants were invited to bring issues from their own collections for the expert panel members.
Following there is a brief summary of the contents of the lectures and a short note on a preservation policy for the ASCSA Archives.

NPO TRAINING
Alison Walker, the Head of the NPO outlined the basics of preservation management and stressed its importance for the collections. The main focus of her presentation was the existence of a policy, a course of action for safe keeping of the collections backed up by a clear strategy on how to preserve the collections and in what order. There were also guidelines as to what should a policy include and what an effective strategy should address.  The presentation concluded with a variety of examples of policy documents and suggested sources of help and advice.
The presentation of Jonathan Rhys- Lewis addressed the disaster planning and emergency preparedness and outlined the role of a good disaster plan in the event of an emergency situation. Guidelines, advice on risks and methods of response were discussed. There was also a short introduction on emergency planning equipment and responses. Information on recent developments on the subject and websites were also provided with examples of disaster hitting collections (fire and flood incidents primarily).

An equally informative lecture was the one delivered both by Jonathan Rhys-Lewis and Carolin Bendix on environmental monitoring for museums, archives and libraries. Among the topics which were addressed were the direct risks to collections from the storage environment, effects and methods to confront them. There was also a section on the chemistry of paper,  that is the deterioration of paper, since the training targeted specifically those who care for paper-based collections. The presentation was concluded with information on monitoring equipment suppliers and some very informative charts with predicted lifetimes for specific record types at set temperature and relative humidity.
Handling library and archive material was a very effective and informative presentation by Caroline Bentix.  The presentation was followed by a behind the scenes tour of the conservation studios of the NPO where we had the opportunity to discuss with conservators about time schedules, treatment of specific types of material, and the importance of keeping keep full and accurate conservation records for all treated materials.
Alison Walker in her presentation on Caring for bindings and commissioning conservation introduced us to the basics of binding structures, to what can go wrong in the treatment of bound volumes and advice on assessing whether an item requires repair or care. The most important aspect of the presentation was the advice given on how to deal effectively with commissioning conservation.
The lectures of the training event concluded with a section on benchmarks and surveys where the Head of the NPO analyzed the benchmarks in collection care and talked about the NPO preservation assessment survey which works on two levels: to provide a standard method of assessing preservation needs , and build a body of data for large-scale assessment. It basically examines a sample of items from the collection to create a statistical picture of the whole. Conservation surveys are particularly important for a variety of reasons, funding is one of them.
During the preservation clinic there was discussion on specific issues. Some of the topics discussed: cotton gloves, levels of cleanliness in the reading room, the use of ‘surrogates’, the handling of scrap-books with different types of materials.


PRESERVATION POLICY
Preservation, as it applies to archival material, can be explained in simple terms, as the actions to keep safe, maintain and retain all archival material in our collections. Policy is, at its most basic definition, a course or general plan of action. A preservation policy is a plan of action for the safe keeping of the collections. A policy can explain why certain actions are or are not taken while it sets out the responsibilities of all concerned, staff and users alike. In addition, when bidding for funds a policy is important in order to prove that priorities do exist and funds, if allocated, can be used responsibly and effectively. Lastly, a policy is a necessity in order to develop a preservation strategy and plan coherent preservation programs. Acquisition, retention, storage, access, use and security are the elements that need to be addressed in order to formulate a sound preservation policy. The result must be a living document, known by all concerned, referred to, regularly updated and constantly monitored. 

CONCLUDING REMARKS
Archivists with graduate archival education require continuing education and training to update, expand, and deepen the knowledge they gained in graduate courses and through their work experience. One of the most traditional roles of archivists is that of the preservation of the materials in their custody. I benefited enormously from this event. I gained knowledge on basic, in-house procedures on conservation and on basic guidelines on what is being called ‘preventive maintenance.’ In addition, the guidelines and information supplied on the topic of commissioning conservation were particularly enlightening.  Finally, the need for a preservation policy and strategy is not a new one but it has become more acute in recent years.
Following my attendance at the training event I would like to ask permission to produce a leaflet with basic reading room requirements for the handling of archival material (for both the Blegen and the Gennadius Archives reading rooms). After that, I would like to ask you to consider the possibility of producing a preservation policy document for the ASCSA Archives.


Respectfully submitted,

Eleftheria Daleziou