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Preservation Week is celebrated by libraries all over the country. Libraries present events, activities, and resources that highlight what we can do, individually and together, to preserve our personal and shared collections. Preservation Week was created in 2010 because some 630 million items in collecting institutions require immediate attention and care. Many libraries have no one responsible for the preservation of their materials, so this event helps focus attention on best practices in the field for both individuals and institutions.

This year for Preservation Week, I worked with our Digital Initiatives Librarian, Chelcie Rowell, to spotlight obsolete media and explore the preservation challenges they present. Together with Rebecca Petersen, Chelcie and I gathered quite a collection of obsolete media both from Special Collections & Archives and from the personal collections of resident ZSR geeks. On the digital preservation side of the exhibit, we have a large collection of formats of the White Album by The Beatles, as well as a laser disc of The Lion King and VHS tapes of Star Wars. On the analog preservation side of the exhibit, we have a collection of care and handling advice and old photos demonstrating the hazards of light and humidity to these items. Chelcie and I also collaborated to design a Preservation Week poster about the proliferation of storage media.