Conservators examine a scrapbook during a preservation assessment at an academic library. Image courtesy of LYRASIS.
Funding from the NEH helped establish a Preservation Program at the Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET), a regional organization that now supports the work of libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Since 1984, the organization (now known as LYRASIS) has received more than $16 million from the NEH—funding that has saved collections significant to our nation’s cultural heritage and supported cultural organizations large and small throughout the United States.
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A conservator examines tintypes during a preservation assessment at a community college. Image courtesy of LYRASIS.
LYRASIS’ contributions to preserving our cultural heritage fall into two main categories: education services and brittle book preservation. Through its field service program, which the NEH funded from 1984–2016, LYRASIS developed and offered low and no-cost courses to thousands of heritage professionals. These courses built the capacity of institutions and individuals to plan for the future, seek funding, preserve and digitize cultural heritage items, and prepare for and respond to disasters. Through the program, LYRASIS distributed free professional development content, offered a 24/7 emergency hotline, and provided on-site consultations to hundreds of institutions, helping them develop preservation plans and respond to emergencies. Between 2014 and 2016, NEH supported LYRASIS in teaching preservation practices to more than 1,500 library and archives staff around the United States through more than 100 classes.
Between 2010 and 2012, LYRASIS worked with 62 organizations to establish regional emergency response networks in Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Tennessee and helped to establish Alliance for Response networks in Atlanta. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. While building local capacity for preparedness and response, LYRASIS also provided assistance to organizations following disasters, such as cultural institutions in Nashville, Tennessee, following a major flood in 2010, and Brenau University in Georgia, following a roof leak in 2012 that damaged more than 35,000 books in the library’s collections.
And between 1990 and 2006, LYRASIS undertook its major brittle books campaign, an effort to preserve items printed or written on highly-acidic paper from 1700–1990, which were rapidly deteriorating. As part of a larger NEH-funded campaign to preserve these items, LYRASIS supported 46 institutions throughout the Southeast and Caribbean through the complex, expensive, and labor-intensive process. Between 1990 and 2006, LYRASIS scanned 67,283 titles and 100,837 volumes printed on brittle paper. These included collections focused on religion, children’s literature, African American history and literature, history of science and technology, and the history and local literature of every state in the Southeast. Seventy-nine percent of the items scanned document American History and Culture; 55% document the American South. All of these items came from institutions that held nationally significant collections but lacked the ability to take on the preservation microfilming process without outside support.
LYRASIS continues to support cultural institutions throughout the United States, many of which use NEH grants to access the offerings LYRASIS provides, including disaster response workshops and preservation services.
