Volume 51, Issue 3

This paper will discuss the issues faced by the Rhode Island Historical Society (RIHS) in deciding how to handle the conservation and restoration needs of a very large and damaged work in their collection, and describe the innovative solution they came up with. The RIHS faced the decision of how to approach possible restoration of an 1812 painted drop scene or theater curtain, which had been conserved in the 1980s but was by now in need of cleaning and perhaps further restoration, to help celebrate the organization’s bicentennial in 2022. They had to decide what the limits of traditional restoration were for their object, if this restoration might significantly affect the integrity of the work, and whether the considerable cost of traditional restoration was too prohibitive for a smaller institution. In considering these questions the RIHS came to the conclusion that an alternative method of restoring a work such as theirs was needed, a method that would allow an institution to create a digital file of the work, and to “restore” it using a combination of photo-editing tools and traditional painting methods. Digital photo-editing on its own would not have been sufficient to produce an organic, realistic restoration of the work, and using this hybrid digital approach, which did not alter the original object in any way, was the ideal solution.

Researchers have suggested that free-use digital humanities websites remain online for an average of five years and that larger, more functionally specialized and wealthier institutions are more likely than other organizations to continue to make them available online for a long period after their initial development. A study of fifty-nine websites created with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities Education Development and Demonstration program 1996–2003 reveals a different situation. The data show that 68% of these websites remained online for free use in September, 2020, suggesting an online lifespan of approximately eleven to sixteen years. Further statistical analysis reveals that a significantly higher proportion of websites hosted by academic institutions remained available online in September, 2020 (74%) than websites hosted by non-academic institutions (45%). However, a comparison of types of academic institution revealed that a significantly lower proportion of websites hosted by R1 and R2 institutions remained available (67.5%) compared to websites hosted by Associates colleges, Baccalaureate colleges, and Masters/Comprehensive universities (100%). Comparing R1 institutions to all other types of institutions revealed identical proportions of available websites (R1: 68%; other: 68.0%). Analyses of institutional expenditures and institutional financial assets showed that neither factor produced a significant effect. Institutions with sites remaining available in 2020 showed higher levels of both expenditures and assets compared to institutions with sites not available, but neither of these differences was significant by a standard commonly used in the social sciences.

The importance and growth of the amount of data available on social media have made organizations use Social Media Data Archiving Software (SMDAS) to collect and archive their data. This study compares the features of three SMDAS: ArchiveSocial, Pagefreezer, and Smarsh. First, by surveying the developers’ websites and catalogs, the features of all three software products are identified and classified into four areas. After using statistical methods and the Chi-square test, significant differences among features of the software in each domain are investigated. “Access to deleted records,” “automatic archiving,” “archiving of native formats,” “archive categorization,” “archive sharing,” “simple and advanced search,” “online service,” and “advanced discovery and monitoring functions” were the shared features. A significant difference was noted in the domain of security and data preservation, with Pagefreezer software offering more features than the other two software. In the other areas, no significant difference was observed. Knowledge of SMDAS can help librarians and other information professionals choose and use it wisely. Comparing features may also benefit companies that are developing SMDAS. The literature suggests to use the studied software; nevertheless, few studies discussed the software’s features in detail. This article has made a valuable contribution to comparing the software’s features.

Studies on climate change and sustainability have been gaining interest within the global preservation and conservation communities. However, studies related to sustainability in library preservation and conservation, especially in academic libraries, are still limited. This study aims to determine current practices of sustainable library preservation and conservation in academic libraries. The findings of this study will serve as a starting point to obtaining a comprehensive understanding of how academic libraries are implementing climate change–responsible preservation and conservation programs. This study applies quantitative and descriptive approaches to collect data. A questionnaire was distributed to the top 200 universities in the Universitas Indonesia (UI) GreenMetric World University Rankings 2021. The results show that current practices of sustainable library preservation and conservation implemented at the majority of academic libraries relate to sustainable energy use. Although some areas still need to be developed (e.g., policy and regulation toward sustainable library preservation and conservation practices, alternative eco-friendly preservation and conservation materials, and waste management practices), the fact that academic libraries have implemented sustainable practices in preservation and conservation is noted as a positive finding, since it represents success in universities’ efforts to address the climate change issue.