Door to Notorious Bell Tower Lack of Emergency Preparedness: The Bell Tower Emergency Preparedness is also known by the less positive term disaster planning, an area in which Hopkinton's library has failed to address in regard to its Treasure Room. There is always the potential crisis posed to libraries and repositories due to water, fire, biological agents and damage because of human actions. Mold or insect infestation and burst frozen pipes are internal examples of potential emergencies; severe weather is an external example presenting possible risks to The Treasure Room. Importantly, our collection is directly underneath a bell tower! A potential leak above the room from the one hundred fifteen year old tower, (it has never been examined for potential leakage,) could bring water raining down onto the collection; there also exists a preservation issue regarding the tower as being a possible living space for bats and rodents, a biological threat to the historical collection. Water pipes, heating and air conditioning, (temperatures and range of fluctuation of them,) relative humidity, levels and range of fluctuation of humidity are all critical factors that need to be assessed and addressed. We are fortunate that the current space being set apart from the larger library tends to be cool and dry, beneficial conditions for paper materials and media, but measurements of temperature and humidity have not yet been taken. Our tiny collection has not been assessed for such potential emergency scenarios or significantly for basic preservation needs.   need to assess the risks of external and internal conditions potentially affecting our local collection. What We Have Accomplished We have completed two phases of the three-phase project, the inventory has been accomplished and we are in the process of arranging and re-housing some of the materials using archival-quality folders, protective sheets and boxes. These enclosures are composed of acid-free materials that will help slow the deterioration of paper items that in themselves are likely to be acidic and that create additional destructive acids as they break down. The use of neutral, lignin-free Ph folders and boxes are used for preservation purposes as they do not contribute further to the natural decomposition of paper products and additionally protect the materials from light, moisture, dust and exposure to pollutants in the external environment.  In a later phase, additional preservation issues will be addressed, including assessment of specific high priority items in regard to their physical conditions and long term protection within the storage facility. Preservation decisions will be considered in regard to selection of particular items for reformatting by microfilming, photocopying or digitizing in order to preserve their content, additionally to protect the physical item itself and in the case of digitization to share content via the World Wide Web. As preservationist Paul Banks emphasizes, preservation planning begins with appraisal of materials, a setting of priorities based on the physical needs of records, potential research value of records and perceived intrinsic or inherent value of other unique items. We can’t begin to think about increasing the size of the library's collection until we first consider setting preservation priorities and stabilizing the items for which we are currently responsible. |