DISASTER BEWARE!!!

On May 24th and 25th , 2011, Collections Action and Response Team (CART) members assembled for a mock recovery exercise. Participants included Richard Langdell, Kerry Lazarus, Owen Mcdowell, Lisa Maxfield, Joy Weale, Joanne Messineo Lisa Ladd, Josh Lascell, Deborah Howe, Brian Markee, and Stephanie Wolff. Over the course of the two separate sessions, CART members put into practice: assessment and problem solving skills, working together as a team, and hands-on experience in salvaging material.

Note: No collections materials were harmed in this exercise; all items used were personal materials or had been discarded from the Library collections. All activities were performed under the direction of a trained conservator.

For more information on disaster recovery check out these sites:

• http://www.nedcc.org/disaster/disaster.php
• http://www.heritagepreservation.org/programs/tfcurrent.html
  
• http://www.disaster-survival-resources.com/personal-disaster-recovery.html

Items awaiting the disaster scenario. Some books were given special labels in order to distinguish between possible variations in materials.

Sand and dirt were added, providing a more real-to-life feel to the event.

Layer upon layer of books and other media such as CD's and videos were interspersed with dirt mixture and lots of water.

Day one team members arrive at the scene to survey the damage, ascertain the situation and decide what to do next.

The supplies of course! The majority of disaster supplies are kept on shelves in Preservation Services. Each branch library has a disaster kit, which contains basic supplies such as plastic, flash light and gloves.

Collapsible crates are used to pack the wet books.

Once opened, the crates are stacked two high with a third crate dropped in at an angle. This configuration of the crates helps the packer by raising the height of the crate to be packed and keep the books tightly aligned.

When books are badly soiled they can be rinsed off in
a large bath of fresh water.

Joy tries out the rinsing method!

CART members soon fall into step, forming teams and a smooth work flow.

Books are wrapped in wax paper to impede sticking to each other and deter off-setting of colors, especially red books.

Meanwhile, members are informed that a leak has been found in the stacks and needs immediate attention. The team must decide who will go and address the new leak. Here Joanne and Brian remove books from the top shelf onto a cart.

Because of the configuration of the shelving, the sheets of plastic must be individually cut for each section of the range.

The area is expertly sealed off and the books will no longer be vulnerable to the leaky pipe.

After both sessions team members sat around our conference table and reviewed the exercise. A list of ideas and suggestions were compiled and will be used to improve the program. Thank you CART members for a successful event!

Written by Deborah Howe and photos courtesy of Beth Hetland

Personnel News: Stephanie Wolff

Stephanie Wolff has completed the degree requirements for a Masters of Arts
in Liberal Studies from Dartmouth College and was awarded her degree on
June 12. Her thesis, Blue the Sky, Blue the Sea: Indigo Across Borders, Across Time, is a study of indigo, its uses and trade over time. In partial fulfillment of her degree Stephanie created an artists book, A World of Blue, which is on display in the cases outside the Treasure Room in Baker Library.

Congratulations to Stephanie on this outstanding accomplishment.

Written by Barb Sagraves

Blog Wrangler Earns MFA

Congratulations to our Blog Wrangler, Beth Hetland, who has successfully completed the requirements of a Master of Fine Arts from the Center for Cartoon Studies. Beth’s autobiographical thesis was entitled, “Fugue: a family in three parts” and explores her mother’s relationship with music and her three daughters. If you are interested in reading it Beth promises it will soon be available on her blog: www.beth-hetland.com

Well done, Beth!

Written by Barb Sagraves

Digital Preservation Series, Part 4 – Solutions, cont.

To continue on my topic from the last post about solutions to the digital preservation conundrum, let me focus now on storage and digital preservation management.

Storage
This is one of the biggest questions that many people have about digital preservation. If storage media, such as hard drives and magnetic tapes, are bound to fail over time, what can we do to make sure the information on them isn’t lost? The first and most important answer is redundant backup. Digital content should never, ever be stored in only one location or on one type of storage media. For example, if one copy of a file is stored on a server in Florida, there might be another copy on a server in California and another copy on magnetic tapes in France, and another copy on a different type of server in Ohio.

While this example might be overkill for personal collections, storing identical copies of digital resources on different types of storage media (such as hard drives, tapes, and DVDs) and in different geographic locations (which could be as far-reaching as different countries or simply different buildings in a single town, depending on the kind of data being stored) helps ensure that if a disaster ruins one copy, there will still be another to use. The Library’s digital resources are stored on servers that are backed up in another location with its own generator in case of power failure.

The other important note about storage is that there are many different kinds of storage media, ranging from CDs and DVDs to very expensive liquid-cooled servers. When selecting a storage medium for digital materials, it’s important to choose a type and brand that has a reputation for good quality. While all media will fail eventually, higher-quality media will last longer and ultimately help reduce the cost of replacing media over time.

Of course, copies alone will not keep digital materials safe. Even if disaster is averted, there’s still the issue of bit rot to deal with. And that’s why we need a set of…

Preservation Management Activities
These are actions that are regularly performed on digital files to make sure they are still usable. There are many, many ongoing preservation actions, but some of the most important include:

• Validation – checking to make sure the file is still exactly what its metadata says it is, and that none of its bits have been damaged or lost. If the validation fails, then another copy (thank goodness we have those redundant backups!) can replace the damaged one.
• Migration – this includes both format migration, where a file is converted to a newer format if the software it relies on is becoming outdated, and migration to new storage media when old media are in danger of deterioration.
• Maintenance of equipment – all of the hardware used to store and view digital resources, software necessary to view resources that can’t be converted to open file formats, and technical infrastructure such as networks and updates, have to be actively maintained all the time.
• Security – it’s important to have security measures in place, such as encryption, active virus scanning, and strong firewalls, to prevent digital files from being inadvertently or maliciously damaged by other people. Just as you (hopefully) wouldn’t store your important family documents in an unlocked and easily accessible location, important digital files should be given the same measure of protection.

Ongoing Learning
On top of all the activities listed above, digital preservation managers have to constantly monitor the information science field to make sure they are following the latest standards, new technologies, and accepted best practices. We always have to know what’s happening now and what technical innovations are just over the horizon, because there are always new threats and new ways that old digital collections can be rendered useless to future researchers. In the words of Alastor “Mad Eye” Moody in Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, "constant vigilance" must be observed to ward off any potential hazards.

Fortunately for us here at Dartmouth, we aren’t alone in the digital preservation boat. There are many organizations that are conducting research, defining standards, and creating tool to help preserve these relatively newfangled digital materials. In my next and final post, I’ll talk about some of the great resources out there that are leading the way in digital preservation.

Written by Helen Bailey

Pick a type, any type!

Some very exciting news for the Book Arts Program letterpress webpage. This past week I've been working really hard to take the excellent type specimen books that we have in the letterpress studio, scan in each page, and compile a comprehensive collection of digital samples of our physical collection.

Each page was then chopped up into the individual fonts, labeled and separated, and uploaded to our website! Now, without leaving the comfort of your own home, you too can browse our collection. Whether in preparation, inspiration or to just spend time day-dreaming about that amazing project you're going to create, take some time to paroose our collection! You can gaze alphabetically by font name, or just click through each page as it is arranged in the books that you'll find in the letterpress studio. Click to behold the beauty!

Written by Beth Hetland