{"id":349,"date":"2013-01-25T15:33:44","date_gmt":"2013-01-25T21:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tslacconservation.wordpress.com\/?p=349"},"modified":"2018-06-21T15:08:31","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T20:08:31","slug":"conserving-and-preserving-this-month-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/conservation\/2013\/01\/25\/conserving-and-preserving-this-month-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"Conserving and Preserving, This Month and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

My shortage of January posts can be attributed to my thorough immersion in the planning stages of a significant effort to digitize TSLAC\u2019s collection of cassette recordings of the proceedings of the Texas Senate, from 1972 \u2013 2006.\u00a0 These recordings document the laws and the lawmakers that shaped our state.\u00a0 Listen to a sampling of the topics and colorful personalities in the collection here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My work in the last month draws attention to the contrast between preservation strategies for books and paper vs. audio media.\u00a0 For example, in January, most of the time I normally would have spent working with my hands at the workbench was instead spent working with the computer at my desk.\u00a0 Conservation strategies for books and paper more frequently involve physical repair; for audio media, they more frequently involve transfer to new media, or, in my case, planning for that transfer.\u00a0 While I\u2019ve advocated in lectures and research for the artifactual value of audio media, practical realities dictate rapid transfer in the face of chemical decay and format obsolescence.\u00a0 Digitization is just one reality for books and paper; it\u2019s often the only reality for audio.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s interesting is that our decisions about whether to preserve original media route books and paper into the practice of conservation, while they route audio media into the practice of preservation.\u00a0 Conservators are trained to work physically, and to use both science and craft knowledge to sustain cultural materials in their physical form.\u00a0 Preservation administrators \u2013 note that extra word in the title \u2013 are trained to manage environment, storage, exhibition, people, money, etc., to sustain cultural materials in viable forms.\u00a0 \u00a0In theory, it\u2019s much the same; in practice, it\u2019s all different.<\/p>\n

My feeling is that as the print and digital worlds continue to negotiate their territories, conservation and preservation approaches will continue to unify.\u00a0 In libraries and archives, one sees many examples of this: conservation treatment supports digitization projects; then, digital access drives increased physical use and, presumably, wear.\u00a0 But no one person can know all facets of such disparate practices.\u00a0 That\u2019s why hybrid library-conservation-preservation training programs like the one at the University of Texas were so important, and why we can hope they may be again in the future.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I\u2019m glad for the opportunity to help prolong the lifetime of the Senate tapes, and I look forward to returning to the book and paper workbench in the near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My shortage of January posts can be attributed to my thorough immersion in the planning stages of a significant effort to digitize TSLAC\u2019s collection of cassette recordings of the proceedings of the Texas Senate, from 1972 \u2013 2006.\u00a0 These recordings … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12,20,24,66,82],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservation-2","tag-audio","tag-conservation","tag-digital","tag-preservation","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/conservation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/conservation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/conservation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/conservation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/conservation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/conservation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":671,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/conservation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions\/671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/conservation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/conservation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/conservation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}