| Abstract: | Summaries. Collection materials have enduring relevance to the basic mission of research institutions. Keeping collections in usable condition remains an issue of fundamental importance to both an institution's ability to serve society and its own internal economic life. Unplayable tapes, faded photos, and tattered books have diminished research value. Decay of collection materials impedes access to information and drives up the cost of access, either by making it difficult or impossible to use an object in its original form, or else by complicating its conversion to digital form. Decay also costs money by requiring the expenses associated with special housings, removal from circulation, microfilming, or restoration treatment. However, decay is slow and intangible; for still undeteriorated materials its cost will only be felt sometime in the indefinite future. It is difficult to engage institutional managers in the enterprise of preventing decay by doing something about it here and now, especially when today's precious resources must be spent to do so. One encouraging development in this situation is the fact that science has been able to offer insights into the deterioration process and effective strategies for controlling it. The scientific investigation of how library and archives materials deteriorate has yielded a view something like this: acidic paper, magnetic tape, color dyes, and photographic film supports all deteriorate at a relatively fast rate that depends on storage temperature and RH (1,2,3,4). Although they can be adversely affected by pollutants, light, mechanical damage, and mold, the principal problem is that these are organic materials prone to spontaneous chemical change. In other words, they are self-destructing, and storage conditions are the primary determinant of whether they last for years, decades, or centuries. It's inevitable that they will decay; the question is when. Based on accelerated-aging data, science can actually make predictions about how long it will take for such materials to degrade at given storage conditions. The considerable amounts of data now in hand show that all the above-mentioned materials begin to deteriorate significantly within about 40 years if kept at room temperature and moderate RH. (Such predictions are not out of line with the observed facts in many collections.) The impact of good and bad storage conditions on life expectancy has been quantified so that the «preservation quality» of any combination of temperature and RH can be determined. Still better, techniques and models have been developed that allow for any set of changing environmental conditions to be analyzed for their overall effect on the rate of spontaneous decay in library and archives materials. In this paper, the TWPI model, a general-purpose measurement tool for the preservation quality of storage environments in libraries and archives, will be described. TWPI was developed by the Image Permanence Institute as a technique for applied preservation management. Preservation efforts in institutions must respond to the realities of how institutions are actually managed (5. 6). There is a new management culture that has gripped all large institutions in our society. This management culture insists that every activity be analyzed for cost, productivity, and relevance to the mission of the organization. Nothing is taken for granted, and change is endemic; resources will be withdrawn from activities that cannot make a case for themselves and spent on those that do. Preservation is obliged to present its role to upper management in terms of relevance, productivity, and cost, or lose out to other activities whose value seems more compelling. It would be very helpful to all concerned if preservation can make a case for itself in part by showing that it uses the storage environment to actively manage and extend the life expectancy of every object in the institution's collections, thereby directly supporting the mission of the institution and helping to reduce costs in the middle and long term. It would be even better if such management had a beneficial effect on costs in the short term, making sure that each dollar spent this year bought as much life expectancy as it could. |
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