Heritage Preservation Annual Meeting
Keynote Speech
Dr. Anne-Imelda M. Radice
Director, Institute of Museum and Library Services
November 15, 2006
Thank you, Dr. Norris. I commend Heritage Preservation;
Larry Reger, the board, and staff; for your continued
commitment, creativity, and innovation. Heritage Preservation
is making a difference in our country. I have a table
in my office that is nearly overflowing with wonderful
products that have come out of this shop. “Caring
for your Family’s Collections,” the “Emergency
Response and Salvage Wheel,” the latest “Emergency
Response Field Guide” with DVD – and of
course the groundbreaking “A Public Trust at Risk:
a Report of the Heritage Health Index.” Each and
every one of these projects sets a high standard for
quality and effectiveness.
I am so proud that the Institute of Museum and Library
Services provided ongoing and significant support for
the Heritage Health Index. As some of you know, conservation
and preservation are the foundation stones of my tenure.
I have the great good fortune to have just returned
from Florence, Italy, where I attended the anniversary
reunion of volunteers who took part in recovery efforts
after the Florence flood forty years ago. As some of
you know, we were called mud angels. Deborah Hess Norris
was most gracious in her presentation at the reunion,
and IMLS was mentioned four times in her remarks and
slides… but who’s counting? The small part
I played in rescuing the cultural heritage of Florence
was a life changing experience for me.
Our mission, at IMLS, is to connect people with information
and ideas. The preservation of collections, objects,
digital material, documents, and living collections,
is essential to that mission.
Anyone who has offered time, money, or expertise to
care for a collection knows this: the act of conservation
is powerful. Everyone in this room has had the experience
--whether it’s caring for a zoo animal, a painting
collection, a sculpture, or even born digital government
documents – of connecting with beauty, authenticity,
genius, scientific understanding, the story of our nation,
the cultures of the world, or a community’s local
history. Conservation offers the opportunity for a legacy.
Your own life story is changed by the collections you
have come to know and in some very real way your story
becomes part of the tale that collection has to tell.
When you care for a collection you make a difference.
The best development and fundraising executives know
that everyone who gives – whether they give time,
money, or effort – gives for one reason: they
want to make a difference. They want – in the
language of business – a return on investment.
To have a role in caring for the collections that are
held in our libraries, museums, and archives is an honor
– a responsibility – and the return on that
investment is exponential.
And yet without swift action now, much of our heritage
could disappear. The Heritage Health Index is a clarion
call to action. It documents for the first time the
state of America’s collections. And as we all
know the results are sobering.
• 190 million objects in need of conservation
treatment;
• sixty-five percent of collecting institutions
with damage to collections due to improper storage;
• eighty percent of collecting institutions without
an emergency plan for their collections and staff trained
to carry it out;
• forty percent of institutions with no funds
allocated in their annual budgets for preservation or
conservation
But there is good news. The science of conservation
is better than it has ever been. The innovative use
of technologies has greatly enhanced the state of the
art. It is not that we don't know what to do; the issue
is raising public awareness and repositioning conservation
care within the public mind so that it is seen not as
a drain but as an investment with limitless return.
The Heritage Health Index is a springboard for action
and I pledge to make emergency planning and conservation
a top priority at IMLS.
My very first act as Director last March was to award
$670,000 to seven museums that suffered damage during
the Gulf Coast hurricanes last year. And later, at a
meeting of the American Library Association in New Orleans,
I announced an additional $1.5 million to support staff
at museums and libraries in disaster areas. We are dedicating
a portion of these funds to work in partnership with
the Gates Foundation and the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund
to restore library service in the affected areas.
IMLS has a long record of helping museums and libraries
prepare for disasters, and we are especially optimistic
about a recent grant to the Northeast Document Conservation
Center that will make it possible for cultural institutions
nationwide to use a new and effective online tool to
develop comprehensive disaster plans.
Through support for Heritage Preservation’s Conservation
Assessment Program and our own Conservation Project
Support we have made awards totaling over $70 million
and leveraged at least $70 million more. That adds up
to over 7,000 grants over the last two decades –
sustained support for core collections care activities
from research, surveys, and assessments to treatment.
Through these grants and through National Leadership
Grants, innovations have become common practice.
And since 1999 many of our grantees have added public
programs to bring collections care, preservation, and
conservation out from behind the scenes and into the
public eye to increase awareness. Using these funds,
museums produce exhibitions about the conservation process,
present lectures and behind-the-scenes tours, create
CD-ROMS, hold workshops, publish articles in newsletters
and on Web sites, and create programs especially for
youth. The L.C. Bates Museum in Hinckley, Maine, for
example, created a program, The Very Young Conservator,
which teaches basic conservation concepts through hands-on
activities and museum exploration.
And of course we are proud to support the Heritage
Preservation pilot called PREP, the new Program for
Risk Evaluation and Planning to help prepare museums
and historical societies for natural and manmade disasters.
The program will help museums develop disaster plans
and create guidelines for first responders and local
emergency managers.
A grant to the Foundation of the American Institute
for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works holds
special promise. It will create a team of “rapid
responders” that can be mobilized to provide emergency
assistance to museums in the wake of hurricanes, earthquakes,
and other natural and man-made disasters. The project
will potentially benefit hundreds of museums and save
countless irreplaceable objects from needless damage
and loss.
We know that even without IMLS grants, museums everywhere
are finding ways to make the conservation story part
of exhibits and programming. And the public's interest
in caring for its heritage seems to be on the rise.
What else could account for the popularity of the Antiques
Roadshow, the History Channel, and shows like the History
Detectives?
Just a few weeks ago, I was in New Orleans again,
this time to take part in Preserve America, a celebration
of the 40th anniversary of the National Heritage Preservation
Act. Our wonderful First Lady Laura Bush is a tremendous
advocate for this work. Preserve America is providing
magnificent support for our built environment –
buildings, parks, and towns.
Also, our nation’s collections are an essential
part of the American story, and I feel a profound responsibility
as the Director of the Institute of Museum and Library
Services to make care of collections as much a part
of the nation's consciousness as the care of our natural
environment.
Together, with all of you, we will raise public awareness
about the value of these collections and provide momentum
that can be leveraged in leadership activities by other
federal agencies, state and local officials, and private
funders. Together we must turn around the dismal picture
painted by the Heritage Health Index.
We will seek-
• a public that understands that caring for collections
is an investment in the future;
• safe conditions for our collections;
• emergency preparedness plans and trained staff;
and
• a place in the organizational chart for staff
with responsibility to care for collections.
Our goals are to-
• raise public awareness;
• encourage federal, state and local conservation
and emergency planning efforts; and
• showcase innovation and effective practice.
Today we are launching Connecting to Collections:
The IMLS Conservation Initiative. One of the components
of this new initiative will be a national summit on
conservation to be held in June of next year. We expect
325 to 350 participants from small to mid-size institutions
to attend in response to our invitation. And we plan
to award 200 scholarships for the event.
We will hold regional summits to focus on region-specific
challenges. Both the national and regional summits will
feature true conservation experts so that meaningful
professional networking can take place.
Also, we want to ensure that groups that have been
underrepresented in professional conservation efforts
benefit from our summit. IMLS has been authorized to
include Native American tribes and African American
museums in our granting efforts. When it comes to conservation,
these groups bring to the table additional issues that
are endemic to their cultures.
Sometimes it is a matter of identifying objects for
preservation.
In African American communities the objects in most
need of preservation are in non –museum types
of organizations, such as black churches or historic
black colleges and universities.
The bulk of Black patrimony is in private hands, in
the care of families who are likely to be unfamiliar
with collections care issues.
Native American cultures might require that an object
only be handled by a man or by a woman, or by specific
persons within a tribe. In order to conserve these objects,
one must be sensitive to the culture and honor the traditions.
Another component of the initiative will be a conservation
bookshelf. The book shelf will be comprised of core
texts in collections care. It will be made available
to all summit participants and, through a streamlined
competitive process, be distributed to 1,000 libraries,
museums, and archives nationwide. This has both a practical
and symbolic benefit. When we set aside a special place
for a particular issue, we signal its unique importance.
We will award $500,000 in state planning grants. These
grants will help statewide coalitions raise public awareness
about conservation and strengthen conservation practice.
Each of you is core to our goal. If we work together,
the next time we take the temperature of our heritage's
health we will find the patient much improved.
Thank you.
