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Collection Guidelines - Collection Management

Preservation

The Library undertakes the physical preservation, maintenance and restoration of items (including repair and rebinding) in order to manage the library collections and maintain their value and usability over time. Not all material within the collections will be preserved over time and decisions on preservation and maintenance are based on the intellectual value of the item to the collection

• the current use of the item
• the future usefulness of the item
• replacement options or alternate formats available
• the intrinsic value (rarity, uniqueness or significance) of the item

Responsibilities

The Special Collections and Preservation Coordinator is responsible for providing expert advice and guidance regarding physical preservation issues. The Disaster Recovery Coordinator is responsible for training and providing expert advice and guidance on the recovery of physical items in the case of disasters such as fire or flood. All library staff and library users are responsible for identifying and reporting items requiring repair or maintenance.

Storage and Usage

The Library endeavours to make staff and users aware of the need for reasonable care in the treatment of library materials by communicating recommended procedures for the handling, photocopying, or display of book and non-book materials when necessary.

Some restrictions are placed on the use or loan of certain collections or categories of book and non-book material identified as requiring extra care, due to age, value, or condition.

When appropriate, selected materials will be targeted for repair, binding, digitising or replacement with microform.

Electronic preservation

Although print resources are more subject to physical deterioration, preservation of digital content is also an increasingly important issue in the electronic era where formats and the technology to read different formats can change rapidly. The Library is responding to this challenge by actively supporting digital archival initiatives such as JSTOR and Portico.