The Oliver Wendell Holmes Stereoscopic Research Library (defunct)
In the life span of any given preservation organization there exists the possibility that there will come a time when preservation of the collection is no longer sustainable. When an organization for preservation ceases to function, what happens to the collection? How is this event handled, and why? Obviously every situation will be different, but to get an idea of what can happen, let's take a look at a research facility that was shut down, and what happened to it's collection.
Background:
Established in 1979, The Oliver Wendell Holmes Stereoscopic Research Library was operated by The National Stereoscopic Association and was a collection of stereoscopic materials including cameras, prints, stereographs, View-Master reels, and other related materials. The organization that operated the library is a non-profit organization and the library was funded exclusively by the organization. It contained over 20,000 items and was open to the public as a non-lending library (Sell, 1999).
Closure:
According the the organization the library was suffering from low attendance and therefore was more of a drain on the funding of the organization than it's leadership felt was warranted (Rulien, 2006). It closed in March, 2006 and the fate of it's holdings were a matter of great debate. Many people were concerned that the holdings would be auctioned off to the highest bidder and that they would therefore fall into private hands and no longer be available for public reference.
Solutions:
After much discussion and sending of many letters and emails to museums around the country, including the Smithsonian Institute, no one was interested in taking the collection (Rulien, 2006). In the end, a similar organization was found where much of the collection could be housed so that it indeed remained accessible to the public in the form of the 3D Center of Art and Photography in Portland, Oregon.
However, there was some issue with duplicated items either in the Library's existing collection, or that of the receiving institution. The leaders of the organization decided that these duplicated items should be sold at auction in order to raise funds needed by the parent organization, and that because they were duplicated they held little value, and so were actioned off under the name 'OWHSL' on eBay (Rulien, 2006).
Considerations:
In this particular instance, a collection that was built by enthusiasts rather than museum or library professionals was created and maintained by a non-profit organization. It existed for a time and then was disbanded, with the expected level of concern by those within the organization who disagreed with those making the decision. The collection's unique items were transferred to another institution, which duplicated items were auctioned off.
There are many, many facets to preservation, and there are few clear cut answers. Each institution must have a plan in place to deal with the contingency of closure, for what ever reason. To preserve information without such a plan in place is to take on the responsibility of custodian of these items without consideration for the information itself. Deaccession is part of being a preserver of information - decisions on what to preserve, what is more important, and what might be deaccessioned in order to get something more in keeping with the intent of the organization is common (Vogel, 1986), but it must be done with care and thought, especially when it is the entire collection that is being deaccessioned.
Consider what might have happened if the 3D Center did not exist, or if it decided that it did not have the space or funding to take on this new collection of preserved photographic items? Might the entire collection have been sold at auction? Might some of the items have been discarded if they were not able to be sold? What of the items that were donated to the collection for preservation?
Further Reading:
The original web site preserved on the Internet Wayback Machine.
Center News article on the Library and it's collection.
Works cited:
Rulien, D. E. (2006). Center Receives Bittersweet Gift from Ashes of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library. Center News 3 (2), 1.
Sell, M. (1999). Collecting 3-D Images Workshop. Retrieved June 10, 2008 from http://www.cinti.net/~vmmasell/ebayworkshop.html.
Vogel, C. (1986, August 29). Auctions: Museum's art on the block. The New York Times. pp. C25.
In the life span of any given preservation organization there exists the possibility that there will come a time when preservation of the collection is no longer sustainable. When an organization for preservation ceases to function, what happens to the collection? How is this event handled, and why? Obviously every situation will be different, but to get an idea of what can happen, let's take a look at a research facility that was shut down, and what happened to it's collection.
Background:
Established in 1979, The Oliver Wendell Holmes Stereoscopic Research Library was operated by The National Stereoscopic Association and was a collection of stereoscopic materials including cameras, prints, stereographs, View-Master reels, and other related materials. The organization that operated the library is a non-profit organization and the library was funded exclusively by the organization. It contained over 20,000 items and was open to the public as a non-lending library (Sell, 1999).Closure:
According the the organization the library was suffering from low attendance and therefore was more of a drain on the funding of the organization than it's leadership felt was warranted (Rulien, 2006). It closed in March, 2006 and the fate of it's holdings were a matter of great debate. Many people were concerned that the holdings would be auctioned off to the highest bidder and that they would therefore fall into private hands and no longer be available for public reference.
Solutions:
After much discussion and sending of many letters and emails to museums around the country, including the Smithsonian Institute, no one was interested in taking the collection (Rulien, 2006). In the end, a similar organization was found where much of the collection could be housed so that it indeed remained accessible to the public in the form of the 3D Center of Art and Photography in Portland, Oregon.
However, there was some issue with duplicated items either in the Library's existing collection, or that of the receiving institution. The leaders of the organization decided that these duplicated items should be sold at auction in order to raise funds needed by the parent organization, and that because they were duplicated they held little value, and so were actioned off under the name 'OWHSL' on eBay (Rulien, 2006).
Considerations:
In this particular instance, a collection that was built by enthusiasts rather than museum or library professionals was created and maintained by a non-profit organization. It existed for a time and then was disbanded, with the expected level of concern by those within the organization who disagreed with those making the decision. The collection's unique items were transferred to another institution, which duplicated items were auctioned off.
There are many, many facets to preservation, and there are few clear cut answers. Each institution must have a plan in place to deal with the contingency of closure, for what ever reason. To preserve information without such a plan in place is to take on the responsibility of custodian of these items without consideration for the information itself. Deaccession is part of being a preserver of information - decisions on what to preserve, what is more important, and what might be deaccessioned in order to get something more in keeping with the intent of the organization is common (Vogel, 1986), but it must be done with care and thought, especially when it is the entire collection that is being deaccessioned.
Consider what might have happened if the 3D Center did not exist, or if it decided that it did not have the space or funding to take on this new collection of preserved photographic items? Might the entire collection have been sold at auction? Might some of the items have been discarded if they were not able to be sold? What of the items that were donated to the collection for preservation?
Further Reading:
The original web site preserved on the Internet Wayback Machine.
Center News article on the Library and it's collection.
Works cited:
Rulien, D. E. (2006). Center Receives Bittersweet Gift from Ashes of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library. Center News 3 (2), 1.
Sell, M. (1999). Collecting 3-D Images Workshop. Retrieved June 10, 2008 from http://www.cinti.net/~vmmasell/ebayworkshop.html.
Vogel, C. (1986, August 29). Auctions: Museum's art on the block. The New York Times. pp. C25.
2 comments:
Greater social fragmentation: “These technologies allow us to find cohorts that
eventually will serve to decrease mass shared values and experiences. More than cultural
fragmentation, it will aid a fragmentation of deeper levels of shared reality.” – Denzil
Meyers, founder and president of Widgetwonder
Hi, Randall,
What do you think? Cheryl Myers
Source: Pew/Internet American Life survey/summary (2007)
This reminds me of a piece I heard on NPR on one Iowa library dealing with the floods. The library was able to retrieve many of their most valuable documents from their basement and stored them on the highest floor to avoid any damage. Taking a lesson from this here, there needs to be some type of back up in case of a natural disaster hits. Lots to consider as to how this will be done and where the back up will be stored.
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