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Dear Friend:
Each
year, millions of Americans discover the cherished collections
of maps, quilts, recordings, paintings, and countless other
gems held in our libraries, museums, archives, historic houses,
and gardens. From the schoolchild to the scholar, these priceless
pieces of our past serve to enlighten, inform, and inspire.
They help to give our communities a sense of place and identity.
Seeing first-hand the Ellis Island record books signed by
immigrants like my own Italian grandparents brings to incalculable
clarity the challenges faced so that children and grandchildren
could grow up free as Americans. There is something so powerful
about seeing a signature, another chapter etched into our
great national story.
But just as these chapters bear testimony to our rich past,
so, too, they are being erased from our memory.
In communities around the country, from Bridgeport to Biloxi,
museums and libraries face losing their collections for good
because of neglect and everyday threats like exposure to light,
humidity, abnormal temperatures, and infestation. A 2005 study
co-sponsored by IMLS, called A Public Trust at Risk: The
Heritage Health Index Report on the State of America’s
Collections found that nearly 190 million objects in
U.S. collections are in immediate danger and need our help.
Once we lose these collections, we sadly cannot get them back,
a possibility with profound impact for future generations
of learners.
With this in mind, the Institute has launched Connecting
to Collections, a national initiative to raise public
awareness of the importance of caring for our treasures, and
to underscore the fact that these collections are essential
to the American story.
From special conservation grants to national forums serving
local museums and libraries, each component of the initiative
connects to recommendations made within the Heritage Health
Index report. In short, Connecting to Collections
is not just about saving objects, but about the legacy we
leave to our own children and grandchildren.
In 1823, Thomas Jefferson would write that it was “the
duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities which
occur to him… or her, for preserving documents relating
to the history of our country.” This is what we hope
to help communities do.
In our nation’s collections we find a window to our
past and a looking glass to the future. By conserving them
and making them accessible to our communities, they become
a storyteller whose memory never fades. To learn more about
this pressing issue and this exciting initiative, I invite
you to explore the Connecting to Collections Web
site.
Sincerely,
Dr. Anne-Imelda M. Radice
Director, Institute of Museum and Library Services
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