Cornell receives Luce grant--addendum

Expanding Preservation Capability Across China
Cornell Expands Internship Program With Funding From the Henry Luce
Foundation

Building on a successful 2012-2013 internship program that trained
staff from four leading academic libraries in Beijing, Cornell
University Library has received an $186,000 award from the Henry
Luce Foundation to offer another round of the library collections
preservation workshop to a wider audience and extend the reach of
the "train-the-trainers" model even further.

The program will begin in the spring of 2015 and will offer two
training sessions per year for two interns at a time.  Interns will
be selected from separate geographic regions in mainland China and
Taiwan.  Over the course of a two-year span, eight interns will be
instructed in the basics of preservation and disaster prevention and
also given the tools to train other librarians, archivists and
technicians in their region.

   "Through the interactions with previous interns and multiple
    inquiries we received from other Chinese libraries after they
    learned about the project, it became apparent that the need for
    this type of training exists throughout China," said Barbara
    Berger Eden, director of preservation at Cornell and co-project
    director.  She added that this project allows Cornell to
    contribute to the well-being of collections residing in mainland
    China and Taiwan that benefit research around the world.

Materials from the Chinese Republican (1919-1949) era and Western
bindings will be of particular focus.  The program has been enhanced
based on knowledge gained during the initial phase.  Having learned
that Chinese libraries have far more paperbacks than hardcover
books, conservation training will include in-depth instruction on
caring for and repairing paperbacks.  The incoming interns will
include underrepresented libraries from diverse geographic regions.
When they return, they will not only form a much wider preservation
expert network than existed before, they will also broaden the
network by training additional librarians.

Pan Wei, deputy director of the China Agricultural University
Library, conducted a survey in 2013, which indicated the need in
China and the potential reach of the Cornell program.  Of the 56
Chinese research libraries that responded to Pan, 40 have no
preservation unit or even trained staff with preservation expertise.
Pan, having experienced the Cornell program first hand, gave it high
marks, noting its rich content and impact.  "Thanks to the
training," she said, "my library is able to preserve our collections
and exhibit library materials in non-destructive ways."

Two of the four home libraries of the previous interns are
establishing preservation labs; and an online preservation tutorial,
developed and translated into Chinese during the initial program,
will benefit many Chinese-speaking librarians, including the interns
and those who will be trained by them.

    <URL:http://chinapreservationtutorial.library.cornell.edu>

   "The Cornell University Library is a leader in the field of
    preservation and conservation.  The Luce Foundation is pleased
    to support this project, which helps preserve important
    materials for teaching and research and fosters exchange between
    the academic library communities in the United States and
    China," said Helena Kolenda, who directs the Foundation's Asia
    Program.

To learn more, visit the Library and Preservation and Conservation
Services online.

    <URL:http://www.library.cornell.edu/Preservation_Conservation>


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 28:29
                 Distributed: Monday, December 15, 2014
                       Message Id: cdl-28-29-003
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