Instructions and Dehinitions: FY2014
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Instructions and Deinitions: FY2014 Table of Contents Introduction 2 Background 2 What’s New for the FY2014 Survey 2 FAQ 4 General Instructions 6 General Information 6 Section 1: Conservation Treatment 8 Section 2: Conservation Assessment, Digitization Preparation, Exhibit Preparation 9 Section 3: General Preservation Activities 10 Section 4: Reformatting and Digitization 10 Section 5: Digital Preservation and Digital Asset Management 13 Introduction Count what you do and show preservation counts! The Preservation Statistics Survey is an effort coordinated by the Preservation and Reformatting Section (PARS) of the American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS). Any library or archives in the United States conducting preservation activities may complete this survey, which will be open from January 20, 2015 through February 27, 2015. The deadline has been extended to March 20, 2015. Questions focus on production-based preservation activities for /iscal year 2014, documenting your institution's conservation treatment, general preservation activities, preservation reformatting and digitization, and digital preservation and digital asset management activities. The goal of this survey is to document the state of preservation activities in this digital era via quantitative data that facilitates peer comparison and tracking changes in the preservation and conservation /ields over time. Background This survey is based on the Preservation Statistics survey program by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) from 1984 to 2008. When the ARL Preservation Statistics program was discontinued in 2008, the Preservation and Reformatting Section of ALA / ALCTS, realizing the value of sharing preservation statistics, worked towards developing an improved and sustainable preservation statistics survey. An initial pilot survey was issued in 2012, and a second survey in 2013. The FY2012 and 2013 Preservation Statistics Survey data sets and reports are available at: http://www.ala.org/alcts/resources/preservation/presstats In 2014, the Preservation Statistics project received an ALCTS Presidential Citation in recognition for its contribution to the preservation profession. What’s New for the FY2014 Survey The FY2014 Preservation Statistics Survey is signiicantly shorter than the FY2013 and 2012 surveys. The FY2014 survey focuses on production statistics such as number of conservation treatments performed, the number of items reformatted, and the number of digital items preserved. In an effort to strike a balance between data that is easy for institutions to gather and data that is useful to the preservation community, questions about administration, staf/ing, and most general preservation activities are not included in the FY2014 Survey. Those issues will be surveyed in a supplementary survey in the future (likely FY2017). Some questions in the FY14 survey are marked as optional. These questions cover emerging preservation activities that may not be conducted in all institutions. Nonetheless, your responses to these questions provide valuable information about the evolving role of preservation in cultural heritage programs. If your institution tracks it, please share it. The data collected by the Preservation Statistics Survey survey is most meaningful if a representative number of libraries and archives consistently share their annual statistics. Given the effort required to manage this project and perform analysis that informs our /ield about current issues and ongoing trends, a W2 Instructions and De2initions: FY2014 goal of seventy-ive respondents has been set in order for the Preservation Statistics Survey project to continue and for the FY2015 Survey to be conducted. - - - - - - - - - - - Preview the survey questionnaire (.pdf) and use this Instructions and De/initions document (.pdf) to guide your responses. If helpful, utilize the Preservation Statistics worksheet (.xlsx) to organize and gather your data. Finally, visit the FY2014 Preservation Statistics Survey on SurveyMonkey to enter your responses: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/preservationstatisticsFY14 Please send any questions or comments to survey coordinators Holly Robertson and Annie Peterson at [email protected]. For additional news and updates on the survey like Preservation Statistics on Facebook at www.facebook.com/preservationstatistics W3 Instructions and De2initions: FY2014 FAQ What is the scope of the survey? The FY2014 Preservation Statistics Survey requests data about: 1. Conservation treatment 2. Conservation assessment, digitization preparation, and exhibit preparation 3. General preservation activities 4. Reformatting and digitization 5. Digital preservation and digital asset management Who may participate in the survey? Any library or archives in the United States that conducts preservation activities may participate. If you are a smaller entity within a larger organization (for example: a law or health sciences library or a specialized archives within a larger university system), we encourage you to report separately to facilitate peer comparison to similar institutions. Why should you participate? Your participation facilitates the documentation and analysis of current library and archive preservation programs in the United States. This data is helpful in understanding the ever-evolving scope of preservation programs and the activities employed to preserve long-term access to library collections. Many institutions use this data to evaluate their preservation programming support and activities in the context of peer institutions, to promote long-term preservation planning, and to raise institutional awareness about collections care needs. What date range of activities should be reported? What is FY2014? Report preservation activities from Fiscal Year 2014 (FY2014). FY2014 is whatever period of time your institution de/ines as a /iscal year: if that’s from October to September, July to June, or by calendar year (January to December), that’s /ine. You’re reporting a year’s worth of activities. How long will the survey take to complete? How many questions are included? Short answer: it depends. If you participated in the FY2013 Preservation Survey, you will be familiar with all of the survey questions. The FY2014 survey is designed to take signi/icantly less time than the FY2013 survey. If your institution was a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and participated in their discontinued Preservation Survey program, you will recognize many questions, with a few additions to re/lect interest in capturing general preservation programming, preservation reformatting and digitization, and digital preservation data. Many institutions will have this data on ile for internal planning or reporting purposes. Others will not have statistics recorded for each activity, while others will simply not conduct every activity covered by this questionnaire. Can I start the survey online, save my responses, and return to it later? Don’t rely on it. Depending on your browser setup, SurveyMonkey may install a cookie that will allow you W4 Instructions and De2initions: FY2014 (if you return to the survey using the same computer and same browser, and if your browser does not dump cookies when you close a session) to re-open the survey. Rather, we recommend that you /irst download the survey questionnaire to collect data: http:// www.ala.org/alcts/sites/ala.org.alcts/iles/content/resources/preserv/presstats/FY2014/FY2014- PresStats-preview-ques.pdf And then visit the SurveyMonkey site when you are ready to input your data: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/preservationstatisticsFY14 You can also use this worksheet to record your activities throughout the year: http://www.ala.org/alcts/sites/ala.org.alcts/iles/content/resources/preserv/presstats/FY2014/FY2014- PresStats-worksheet.xlsx May I enter footnotes into the survey? Yes: if you need to further clarify or explain any responses, at the end of each section there is a question with a textbox that allows you to enter any additional information. These notes will be published with the rest of the survey data. How will the responses be used? Individual responses will be shared so that libraries might examine their activities, planning, and needs in the context of their peers and so that preservation activities are documented for scholarship and study. Results data will be published online (much in the same way ARL made its Preservation Survey data available1) as a spreadsheet made available via a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Aggregate data may be used in infographics, presentations, and other analysis. The reports for the pilot FY2012 and 2013 Preservation Statistics Surveys are available at http://www.ala.org/alcts/resources/preservation/presstats Who sponsors this survey? This survey is an all-volunteer initiative of the Preservation Standards and Practices Committee of the Preservation and Reformatting Section (PARS) of the Association of Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) of the American Library Association (ALA). If you have any questions about this survey, contact preservation coordinators Annie Peterson and Holly Robertson at [email protected]. When will the results be posted? The FY2014 Preservation Statistics Survey will be open from mid January through February 2015. Results and data should be posted in time for the American Library Association annual meeting in late June 2015. 1 http://old.arl.org/stats/annualsurveys/pres/