Discovering the universe of preservation history and practice.

AuthorHaller, Stephen E.
PositionBook review

Preserving Our Heritage is a lengthy, fairly comprehensive examination of a range of practices and challenges regarding information preservation for almost three millennia. This undertaking and the book's sheer size may seem initially imposing, but its organization and added features greatly facilitate navigation for specific or extensive study or as a reference resource.

The legion of contributors offers a rich collection of resources for students, instructors, and professionals in not only the library field, but also for allied areas of archives, muse ums, and others responsible for or concerned with the preservation of cultural heritage.

Organization

Before considering the 11 major chapter headings for the 95 essays in the book, readers should note some particularly helpful features beyond the standard preface and table of contents. A 14-page, briefly annotated "Preservation Timeline" (ca. 750 BC 2013) provides very useful context for the scope of this work. Although there are appropriate endnotes throughout the essay sections, descriptive "Contributors" and "Credits" sections are also included. The work concludes with two separate indexes: an "Author and Title Index" and a "Subject Index."

Cloonan brings together numerous essays from respected experts who represent and/or are knowledgeable about a wide range of disciplines and practices comprising preservation as she presents them in the major chapters for each component.

These major sections allow for more than linear access to extensive sets of information for the variety of individuals making up the book's intended audiences. Each of the 11 major "chapters" begins with a solid overview and proceeds with a number of essays on the chapter topic.

Chapter Content

Chapter 1, "Early Perspectives on Preservation," sweeps from Biblical times through the late nineteenth century with practical and intriguing glimpses of the nature and challenges of what was almost more like survival of cultural memory rather than intentional, systematic preservation (with some important exceptions).

Chapter 2, "Perspectives on Cultural Heritage," pauses for writers to define and further explore the notions of memory and heritage.

The next chapters provide what most readers would expect to find in such a work, as the contributors delve into the primary components of modern or recent institutions, practices, and management. Chapter 3, "Preservation in Context: Libraries, Archives, Museums and the Built...

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