by Kim Hagerty and Bryan Whitledge
This week is the American Library Association’s Preservation Week. It is a week designed to highlight all of the complexities that are
involved in preserving the objects of enduring cultural value that are stored
in libraries across the United States. The goal is to raise awareness and give
educational opportunities to those who care about preserving all forms of
information – from priceless antiquarian books to the latest presidential tweet
– for generations to come.
As part of the Clarke Historical Library’s mission to keep
and make available resources related to the history of Michigan, we are
involved in a very large project to preserve local newspapers from throughout
the state. Newspapers, as many of us have seen, do not do a good job of withstanding
the test of time. They tend to become acidic over time and they will eventually
become yellow and brittle and, in the advanced stages of degradation, they can begin to crumble with even the slightest
touch. To ensure that researchers have
access to old newspapers without worrying about deterioration, the newspapers
must be preserved. The primary way that we preserve newspapers for future use
is to photograph them and store them on microfilm.
While it seems that everything is going the digital route, analog
preservation microfilming is still a preferred method for keeping information
well into the future. The advantages of microfilm include that it is static and
cannot be changed (i.e. it is exactly the same as when it was created), it will
last for over 500 years if it is stored and maintained properly, and it doesn’t
require any special equipment other than something to magnify the image unlike
digital documents which require computer software or a special player.
At the Clarke, our preservation microfilming unit uses
state-of-the art equipment and techniques that meet or exceed American National
Standards Institute (ANSI) specifications for preservation microfilming. We work
with several libraries and newspaper publishers to create high quality, enduring,
accessible copies of historical and contemporary newspapers. Many of our
projects are continuing and we have standing orders to microfilms all copies of
specific publications. On average, we process 100,000 images on microfilm each
year. After the pages are filmed and inspected, multiple copies of the film
are created and stored in climate-controlled secure locations, both in-house and
offsite. We also work with libraries and other clients to distribute user
copies of film. The redundancy of multiple copies ensures that if one copy is
ever damaged, there will be a backup available, and if one storage location
suffers a disaster, all of the copies will not be affected.
Besides newspapers, the Clarke Historical Library
preservation microfilming unit works with documents, manuscripts, and
scrapbooks to reformat the information. We offer institutions
across the World the opportunity to purchase user copies so their researchers can
remotely access the unique holdings of the Clarke Historical Library.
If you are interested in further information about
preservation microfilming in general, please see this Northeast Document Conservation Center Preservation Leaflet regarding
preservation microfilming. If you would like further information about working
with the Clarke Historical Library to preserve documents or newspapers that are
in need of reformatting, please visit the microfilming unit’s webpage or call
us at 989-774-3352.