Print Monographs: Endangered Species & Dangerous Metaphors

Jacob Nadal Executive Director, ReCAP ALA Midwinter 2015: Print Archive Network Meeting

Lower Falls of the Lewis River Gifford Pinchot National Forest

Washington State

Print Monographs: Endangered Species & Dangerous Metaphors

• The Map Trends, rates, inflection points Rule-proving versus game-

changing exceptions

• The Trail IUCN Red List A risk-model for books

Mid-20th Century

This is a big opportunity

This can be addressed in many ways and at many rates

• Establish categories of concern Archiving cycles for most likely high-

impact mono groups • FRBRize retention commitments

• Consider hybrid (light/dim/dark) archives

• Seek additional copies Secondary market Private collections Non-PAN affiliated libs.

• Rate of Change Loss rate for ILL Region/Consortia • Total Population

• Establish categories of concern Archiving cycles for most likely high-

impact mono groups • FRBRize retention commitments

• Consider hybrid (light/dim/dark) archives

• Seek additional copies Secondary market Private collections Non-PAN affiliated libs.

• Rate of Change Loss rate for ILL Region/Consortia • Total Population

Consider the Antelope…*

Dramatization • Twenty-five endangered

antelope species • Loss of habitat • Trophy hunting • Illicit pelt and horn trade • Competition with grazing

cattle

De-escalation • “Wastebasket Taxon” • 66 of 91 species are in “least

concern” status (72.5%) • Systematic risk is low;

individual risk is real and often very severe

• Species risk and habitat loss may be better addressed as a joint issue, to preserve the creature and the place

Specifically, the Mountain nyala or balbok (Tragelaphus buxtoni)

* With apologies to Suzanne Briet and David Foster Wallace

• Most artifact value falls in a small part of the longest part of the tail; keep specific instances

• Assumptions about care give way to specific, binding, measurable commitments

• Make room for technologies and workspaces… … and also cultivate more browsable stacks and better curated collections

Localization • Andy Stauffer:booktraces.org

(& forthcoming CLIR study) • MLA: printrecord.commons.

mla.org • SHARP: www.sharpweb.org • CLIR: coherence.clir.org • OCLC: oclc.org/research/

activities/usl.html • CRL-PAN: crl.edu/

archiving-preservation/ print-archives

Triangulation

Thank you. Jacob Nadal Executive Director, ReCAP: The Research Collections & Preservation Consortium jnadal@princeton.edu Scarcity Case-study : jacobnadal.com/162 Image Credits: Alex Dunke, FluttershyIsMagic, Николай Усик, KrisMaes, Lyn Topinka, Medicaster40, Mulmatsherm. Petrarch1603, pfly, US Forest Service, and US Geological Serive. All images sourced from the author, US government web sites, or from wikimedia.org, where they were posted under Creative Commons 2.0 or higher.