Lawrence L. Reger
08/01/06
Lawrence L. Reger is president of Heritage Preservation, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. The members of Heritage Preservation, founded in 1973, have included libraries, museums, archives, historical societies and others concerned with saving the past for the future. Reger’s commitment to preservation began nearly 40 years ago, when he left his hometown of Lincoln, Neb., for Washington to work in arts advocacy.
When I really want to get someone’s attention about preservation, I tell the story of the distinguished scholar who turned a book into dust. The setting was the U.S. Capitol in the 1980s, and O.B. Hardison, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, was telling a congressional committee about the precarious condition of irreplaceable books in the nation’s libraries. He wanted them to see, he said, just how fragile a book can be. With a gentle motion, he lifted a yellowed, brittle page, and it crumbled into tiny fragments, right there in the hearing room.
The urgency of preserving objects in the nation’s collections
first attracted my attention 36 years ago. I had moved to Washington to work for
the National Endowment for the Arts, then a relatively new agency led by the
indomitable Nancy Hanks. One of the many things Nancy felt passionately about
was helping museums care for works of art. And they needed serious help.
Inadequate facilities, environmental controls and storage space, along with a
shortage of trained staff—the problems added up to a preservation emergency. In
1972, the NEA started giving museums grants for art conservation.When I became director of the American Association of Museums in 1978, we kept working on collections preservation—educating museums, studying needs and pressing for more financial support from the public and private sectors. In those days, we didn’t have reliable data. We learned from anecdotes and observations that collections care was a critical issue, and we did our best to raise both awareness and money.
Now we do have solid information, and the news is alarming. Last year, Heritage Preservation released the results of the first comprehensive survey ever conducted of the condition and preservation needs of the nation’s collections. According to A Public Trust at Risk: The Heritage Health Index Report on the State of America’s Collections, 80 percent of collecting institutions have no emergency plan to protect collections and no staff trained to deal with emergencies. We found that improper storage has caused damage to collections in 65 percent of these institutions. An astounding 190 million objects are in urgent need of conservation treatment. The most pressing preservation need in collecting institutions is better environmental controls. Objects are actually at risk because of the very structures and systems that are supposed to protect them.
Models of Memory
It is worth reflecting for a moment on why we have these
collections in the first place and what they mean to each one of us. More than
4.8 billion artifacts are held in public trust by more than 30,000 archives,
historical societies, libraries, museums, scientific research collections and
archaeological repositories in the United States. They “belong” to you and me,
but collecting institutions protect them so that they are available to us and to
future generations.
Unlike some other capital assets, collections appreciate
in value over time—not just monetary value, but historical, civic, educational
and emotional value. I’ve always liked the way the late A. Bartlett Giamatti,
president of Yale University, described museums, libraries and archives. He
called them a “model of the memory, a repository of images, a chamber of living
dreams, a glass for focusing the visions of the future.” Far from being static
storehouses, they are “expressions of conviction that the future is not simply
possible, but accessible; and not simply accessible, but potentially
noble.”
Two of my own favorite collections are in Lincoln, where I grew up.
As a student at the University of Nebraska, I had classes in Morrill Hall, in
the same building as the University of Nebraska State Museum. The western part
of the state has rich fossil fields, so archeologists everywhere—amateur and
professional—know about this natural history museum’s collections. The fossil
elephants are considered the best in the world.
Across campus is the Sheldon
Memorial Art Gallery, in a travertine jewel box of a building designed by Philip
Johnson. Every time I visit the Sheldon, the works of art feel like a group of
old and dear friends—especially the wonderful paintings by Marsden Hartley. The
photographer George Platt Lynes made some striking and evocative portraits of
the artist in his later years. A few years ago, I gave the museum a gelatin
silver print of one portrait, hoping to add something worthwhile to visitors’
experience with Hartley’s work.
| Objects are actually at risk because of the very structures and systems that are supposed to protect them. |
Elemental Risks
The Heritage Health Index, which Heritage Preservation
developed in partnership with the federal Institute of Museum and Library
Services, confirms that we have a big job ahead of us. Most people assume that
collections are safe. But the Heritage Health Index Report tells us otherwise.
One-quarter of collecting institutions have no environmental controls, exposing
objects to three serious threats: fluctuations in temperature, light and
humidity. Millions of historic documents, photographs and other objects are kept
in areas where they are susceptible to flooding, overheating, light and insect
infestation. Many are crowded onto shelves or stored in containers that leach
acids and other chemicals.
Disasters—from broken water pipes to
hurricanes—show how vulnerable collections are to sudden catastrophic loss,
especially when there is no emergency plan in place. After Hurricane Katrina hit
Biloxi, Miss., a chimney was the only thing left standing from Pleasant Reed, a
19th-century historic house at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum. The principal collection
was saved because the museum had an emergency plan and staff trained to carry it
out.
So what needs to happen next? Giamatti warned that “it is no small thing
to outwit time.” We are encouraging collecting institutions to use the Heritage
Health Index to make a strong case for more—and more stable—funding for
collections care. Seventy percent of them do not have a preservation line item
in their budgets, and 80 percent do not use endowment income for preservation
purposes. We also hope to inspire donors to learn more about preservation needs
and think about supporting solutions to pressing problems. Gifts for an improved
storage facility, the stabilization of a long-neglected group of film negatives
or professional services to cover the basics of emergency planning all have
lasting value.
We conducted the Heritage Health Index survey during one of
the great waves of museum building and expansion in U.S. history. But we found
out that we have a long way to go to provide safe facilities for collections,
not just in museums, but in libraries, historical societies and other collecting
institutions. It is important to realize that 30 years ago the situation was
much worse. With confidence that we have made great progress, we will continue
aspiring to outwit time.
Photograph courtesy Minneapolis Institute of Arts.