Understanding Success: Measuring Effectiveness of Preservation and Security Programs
Measuring and Managing Deterioration of Cultural Resources
James M. Reilly
Director, Image Permanence Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology

The concept of preservation encompasses both the physical security of collections and the actions required to prevent, retard, and repair their decay. Once physical security has been established, the largest single influence on the preservation of collections (and in many cases the fiscal health of institutions) is the storage environment, in particular the temperature and RH conditions prevailing in storage and display areas. Up until now, neither the providers of storage environments (i.e., the building facilities staff), nor the preservation managers, nor the institutional executive leadership have had credible measurements of the effects of the environment on their collections, or any basis on which to estimate the return on investment for expensive HVAC costs. The Image Permanence Institute (IPI) has a scientifically based approach to preservation that emphasizes environmental strategies. With funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, IPI has developed hardware and software (currently being tested in the Library of Congress in a joint research project with the Library's Preservation Directorate) to facilitate quantitative measurement of preservation effectiveness and to develop management processes that optimize both the cost and the quality of storage environments.