8.9 Tips, Practical Advice, and Lessons Learned

• By integrating a preservation review into established library processes, you allow fragile materials to be identified and stabilized before damage occurs, and damaged materials to be rapidly evaluated for possible treatment.
• Preservation plans should dovetail with your larger library’s collection development policy and the disaster recovery plan. See chapter 5 and chapter 14 in this Handbook for more information.
• Your preservation policy should be realistic and practical. It should focus on steps that you can accomplish with existing or obtainable resources.
• If your library is unable to preserve or care for at-risk or rare materials, you may want to consider donating them to another library with an active preservation program.
• Work with the larger library’s rare book or special collections department to safeguard and preserve any rare and valuable government publications.
• There are some practical steps that will help you to extend the life of depository material without a budget increase.
  • Train staff and users in the care and proper handling of government information resources;
  • Carry out systematic stack maintenance;
  • Prepare a disaster plan (see chapter 14 in this Handbook for more information);
  • Follow preservation criteria when purchasing storage furniture and supplies; and
  • Work with the larger library’s facilities management staff to stabilize temperature and humidity levels.