{"id":501,"date":"2019-01-16T11:55:30","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T16:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/mblc_blog\/?p=501"},"modified":"2020-03-12T10:17:03","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T14:17:03","slug":"visiting-eastham-and-reading-public-libraries-town-wide-preservation-assessments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/mblc_blog\/2019\/01\/16\/visiting-eastham-and-reading-public-libraries-town-wide-preservation-assessments\/","title":{"rendered":"Visiting Eastham and Reading Public Libraries: Town-Wide Preservation Assessments"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Evan Knight, Preservation Specialist at the MBLC<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Since joining MBLC as Preservation Specialist last month, I quickly realized how important it is to get know the libraries, people, and collections that make our Commonwealth so culturally rich.<\/p>\n

Much of my work here at MBLC is either project consulting (for annual LSTA direct grants<\/a>) or general advisory services for collection management and risk assessment (e.g., water, fire, theft, intellectual control, light, temperature, humidity, pests, etc.).<\/p>\n

So a few weeks ago, I reached out to Debra DeJonker-Berry, Director of Eastham Public Library<\/a>, to learn more about her experiences leading recent projects in Eastham that related to both of those aspects of my work: an LSTA-funded Town-Wide Preservation Assessment and Collection Identification<\/a>, and MBLC\u2019s environmental monitoring program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What a visit! She arranged a number of meetings around town with a couple of the local institutions who were a part of the Town-Wide grant, first with the volunteer staff of the Eastham Historical Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Gloria, Eileen, Sylvia (l-r), Eastham Historical Society<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Debra DeJonker-Berry, Eastham Public Library<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We talked about their continuing work to process their collections, best practices in the preservation of scrapbooks, and their digitization projects with Digital Commonwealth<\/a> (and the challenges of preparing metadata), as we toured their Archives and storage spaces. The next visit was with the Town Clerk\u2019s Office<\/a>, who maintain and preserve some of Eastham\u2019s oldest legal and historical documents (among many other responsibilities!). The public library plays a role in sharing and interpreting some of these old documents, the \u201cancient records\u201d as they\u2019re called, by providing electronic copies on CD and online<\/a>. This is just another example, in the same spirit as the Town-Wide Assessment grant, of the collaborative vision Debra has for the Eastham Public Library. One of the greatest values of the Town-Wide project, as she put it, was having everyone at the same table talking about big-picture issues regarding their collections, now and for the future, together.<\/p>\n

The Eastham Library, by the way, occupies a beautiful building<\/a>, opened in 2016, that is worthy of a visit in its own right. We discussed their environmental monitoring report for their archives storage room, and although we didn\u2019t find major concerns, they\u2019re continuing to check their data every month to make sure the humidification system is working correctly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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Sue, Cindy, Linda (l-r), Eastham Town Clerk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Interior views, Eastham Public Library<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Reading Public Library is another institution pursuing an LSTA-funded Town-Wide Preservation Assessment and Collection Identification<\/a>, and wouldn\u2019t you know it, they have a beautiful building too, recently renovated! Amy Lannon, Director, hosted me for a recent visit to get to know their collections and better familiarize myself with their goals in this project.<\/p>\n

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South fa\u00e7ade panorama, Reading Public Library<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Reading Antiquarian Society, the Reading Historical Commission, and the Reading Town Clerk will all participate with the Public Library to analyze their collections and determine their preservation needs.<\/p>\n

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Amy, Eileen (l-r), Reading Public Library<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On my visit, I also spent a lot of time looking at the collection and the storage area with Eileen, Local History Librarian, to talk about collection development policies, security, oversize maps, environmental monitoring, and what to expect in the Assessment process.<\/p>\n

It was a great pleasure to visit all of these institutions, and I was happy to see the work that MBLC is helping to support. But what I like most is meeting the folks who manage the collections and do the day-to-day work to preserve the cultural heritage of the Commonwealth. Thank you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Evan Knight, Preservation Specialist at the MBLC Since joining MBLC as Preservation Specialist last month, I quickly realized how important it is to get know the libraries, people, and collections that make our Commonwealth so culturally rich. Much of my work here at MBLC is either project consulting (for annual LSTA direct grants) or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[158,156,162,17,161,27,25,160,159,157],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lsta","category-preservation-digitization","tag-assessment","tag-eastham","tag-eastham-historical-society","tag-lsta","tag-parker-tavern","tag-preservation","tag-reading","tag-reading-antiquarian-society","tag-town-clerk","tag-town-wide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/mblc_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/mblc_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/mblc_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/mblc_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/mblc_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/mblc_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":770,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/mblc_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/mblc_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/mblc_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/mblc_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}