 Excuse me, the foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. Go ahead, Susan. Good afternoon. Wherever you are, welcome. Today's session, Connecting to Collections Care, is the online community that grew out of Connecting to Collections. And it is now sponsored by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation, with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and technical support from Learning Times from Mike Mornell. And this came out of Connecting to Collections, which was founded by IMLS Heritage Preservation and the American Association of State and Local History. So we want to acknowledge everyone that's been involved in this, and thank them very much. And you. So feel free to contact us. I'm the online coordinator. You can contact me at this email address. And I want to introduce today's speaker, who is Sherilyn Ogden. She's a book and paper conservator at the Minnesota Historical Society. She also has a private consultation and treatment practice for the preservation of library and archives materials. Before she went to Minnesota, she was the director of field services. Well, actually, after she went to Minnesota, she was the director of field services at the Midwest Art Conservation Center. And then she was the director of book conservation at the Northeast Document Center. I've been working for over 35 years. It's hard to imagine. I've known Sherilyn so that long. In the field of as a practicing conservator, a consultant and a teacher, she's written a lot of things. And she is also the author of a book, Preservation Planning Guidelines for Writing a Long Range Plan. And that is in part the basis for today's presentation. So I'm going to turn this over to Sherilyn. Hello, everyone. Thank you, Susan, for the kind introduction. I'm happy to have this opportunity to speak with all of you. Can you hear everything all right, Susan? I can. And I also want to say that we're going to stop in the middle of this presentation for questions. If you type them into the chat box, I will catch them. And Sherilyn will answer them later. We'll have two opportunities for questions. Okay, Sherilyn. Okay, good. Mike, may I have the first slide? Waiting for it. Oh, great. Good. Thank you. Today's webinar is about using worksheets for preservation planning. Actually, it's a case study of the Hawaiian Historical Society and how that organization developed a long-range preservation plan with the help of worksheets. I'll walk you through the methodology used and illustrate how worksheets facilitated the process. I'll also discuss how the society is implementing their plan. And as Mike and Susan mentioned, there are worksheets and other pertinent information online for you to consult if you wish. They're both in PDF format as well as Word so you can actually use the worksheets and the Word worksheets and fill them in if you decide you would like to do that. In addition, I'll point out a few planning tips as we go along. My hope is that by the end of today's session you'll feel comfortable adapting the worksheets to suit your particular organizational situation and that you will pick up a few ideas that you can apply to your preservation planning. This webinar is adapted from a presentation prepared for a conference of the Association for Tribal Archives Libraries and Museums. Barbara Dunn, who at the time was the administrative director and librarian at the Hawaiian Historical Society, and I collaborated on the original presentation. I have about an hour of prepared remarks which will leave about 30 minutes for questions. We'll break for questions 20 or 30 minutes into the presentation and have time again at the end for more questions. Throughout the presentation, I'll show images of treasures from the society's collections such as this one for you to enjoy. To ensure that we're all on the same page, let's start by clarifying terminology. Preservation planning is a process that leads to the most effective use of an organization's resources to meet its highest priority collections care needs. The result of the planning process is a written document called a Long Range Preservation Plan. It includes an action plan and timetable. This is a prioritized list of actions to take over a set period of time to meet collections care needs. Every organization's long range plan is different. Some are lengthy, complex, and detailed while others are short and simple. A needs assessment survey is the foundation for preservation planning and is carried out before a plan is drafted. It evaluates the policies, practices, and conditions that affect the preservation of collections, it identifies needs, and it recommends actions to take to meet the needs. This information is provided in the survey report. The report is the tool used when drafting the long range plan. You can conduct a needs assessment survey and prepare a long range plan yourself, or you can hire a consultant to do it with input from you. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages. The deciding factor probably will be time. In the case of the Hawaiian Historical Society, Barbara wanted the process to move forward steadily and did not have time to do it entirely herself, so she hired consultants. Even when you use consultants, however, the process can take a significant amount of your time, so you and your organization's board or other governing body need to be committed from the outset. We're going to take a moment here to ask for your input. We have a few short polls we would like you to answer. May I have the first poll please? Has your organization had a needs assessment survey? And let's see, there are 41 participants who have. That's great. Susan, can you see this? Susan, shall we move on to the next poll? Okay, so if your institution does have or has had a survey needs assessment, do you have a written report? It looks like most people have a report, which is great. Or the people that have had a survey. Right, correct. And now let's look at the third poll. Does your organization have a long range preservation plan? Wow, it looks like we've all got some work to do here. Okay, and then the last poll please. If you do have a plan, does it include an action plan and timetable? Well, those of you who have plans look like you have good tools to start your planning from. Okay, so let's continue. Now I'd like to give you some background about the Hawaiian Historical Society to put their preservation planning in context. It is a non-for-profit membership organization with an operating budget of about $200,000 per year. The society was founded in 1982 during the time of the Hawaiian Kingdom for the purpose of providing a library on the history of Hawaii and Polynesia. Queen Lily Uokalani was an early patron. Okay, sorry about that. I have so many arrows here. I'm pushing the wrong ones. The society offers public lectures and publishes books and articles in English and Hawaiian. The library has an extensive collection of 19th century materials on the Hawaiian Islands, including narratives of early voyages, family histories, Hawaiian language imprints, photographs, manuscripts, and newspapers published in Hawaii. It also collects modern materials up to the present. Located in the center of Honolulu, the society is housed within the Hawaiian Mission's Children's Society and shares reading room and storage space with that organization. It has a 10-year lease and pays the Mission's Society a monthly fee for rent and maintenance. The society has two full-time staff members, until recently it was Barbara and also Epocantus Bear, who serves as administrative assistant. The preservation and care of its collections has been a priority of the society from its beginning, and the board and staff have been good stewards. For example, between 1982 and 1988, they raised $56,500 in grant funds for conservation treatment of several items, and over the years, both staff and board members regularly attended conferences and took workshops to expand their knowledge of preservation issues. It wasn't, however, until 2010 when Barbara made a startling discovery that the urgency of addressing the society's preservation needs from an organization-wide perspective was recognized. A microfilm copy of a run of the Hawaiian-language newspaper Kanupipa Kōkōa had been stored in the vault for 50 years. The vault was air-conditioned and had humidity controls, and it was considered the safest place for the society's most valuable items. Barbara looked at the microfilm one day and was shocked to find it was deteriorated and unusable. She reported the microfilm to the board at their next meeting. Barbara brought the microfilm to the meeting and tore and crumbled it in front of board members. They were horrified and took immediate action. They formed a preservation committee on the spot and instructed committee members to identify ways to improve collections' care and to report back to them with suggestions. This is the first planning tip I'm going to offer. That is to get the attention of the board in a way they understand. The crumbled microfilm was visual and undeniable evidence of deterioration. Barbara was very savvy in thinking to take the microfilm to the board and demonstrate to them how damaged it was. This prompted Barbara to take a workshop in preservation planning. In September of 2011, the Association of Tribal Archives Libraries and Museums and the Western Museums Association collaboratively presented a conference in Honolulu. Barbara attended the session titled, Surveying and Assessing Collection Needs, given by Janet Ruggles of the Balboa Art Conservation Center. Janet stressed the steps that need to be taken for preservation planning, the elements of a long-range plan, and how to move forward once you have a plan. Barbara came away from the session with a concrete understanding of what needed to be done and how to write grants to higher consultants to do it. Barbara and I met for the first time at a luncheon at that conference. Helen Wong Smith, one of the society's board members, introduced us and the three of us discussed what the planning process would entail for the society. Barbara now was prepared to convey to board members the importance of having a plan based on organization-wide priorities and could clarify for them the steps in the planning process. This resulted in the preparation of a successful grant proposal to the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts for a Needs Assessment Survey subsidized by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The survey was carried out in 2012 by Jessica Silverman, Paper Conservator and Preservation Consultant at the Center. And you can see the Needs Assessment Report here on the left. In April of 2013, funding was obtained from the Samuel N. & Mary Castle Foundation for a consultant to prepare a long-range preservation plan for the society. Barbara asked me to do this and I completed it in August of 2013. And you see the Historical Society's Long Range Plan here on the right. And this is the cover sheet of the plan. It's important to note that many organizations are not able to move past the Needs Assessment to produce a long-range plan. Drafting one is a sizable undertaking. Staff of smaller organizations in particular need to spend all their time conducting everyday business and don't have the time required for the planning process. I asked Barbara how the Hawaiian Historical Society managed to do this. She explained that everyone she consulted initially emphasized that the goal of the planning process is the development of a plan and that the assessment is the means to that end and not the end in itself. Barbara also was advised that granting agencies like to see that organizations have gone through the planning process and have identified their highest priority needs. They want to know that funds will be used responsibly. This motivated Barbara and the Society's Board to commit to the entire assessment and planning process from the start. Moving from the Needs Assessment to the Long Range Plan requires some preparation. When Barbara asked me to draft the plan for the Society, I considered how best to go about this. There were 4,000 miles between me and Honolulu. Because of the distance and travel time involved, I knew I would be able to make only one visit to the Society. And if possible, I wanted Barbara to have the final document in hand at the end of that visit to maintain momentum. Also, the Board asked to have the plan completed as soon as possible and I wanted to honor that request. Documents needed to be gathered and additional information tracked down. Barbara sent me a copy of the Needs Assessment Survey report and other relevant documents by email. Then she and I agreed to have periodic telephone interviews during which I could ask questions and she could clarify information. This worked well because I have cell phone service that allows me to call Honolulu at no additional charge. We could talk at length and not feel rushed. Finally, I prepared several worksheets and filled in as much information as I could. Worksheets are an invaluable way to organize large amounts of information and to see it at a glance. Also, they facilitate finding specific information and shifting it from one place to another. As I mentioned earlier, copies of these worksheets have been posted online for you and I'll refer to them as we continue. Next, I'll go over the process of actually drafting the plan and using the worksheets to do this. But first, let's take a break here to see if there are any questions. Susan, are there any questions? Susan, I don't hear Susan, so I will continue. Yeah, sorry about that. We're not hearing Susan for some reason. We don't have any questions although one has just come in about can we get copies of the slides and text for future reference? Will those be available? Yes, I can make them available and is everyone able to understand me well enough? Oh yes, I believe so. There haven't been any indication otherwise, so please go ahead. And just to respond about questions with regards to the worksheets, you can get a copy of the worksheets right beneath the chat window at the lower left of your screen. And other than that, Sherilyn, there are no questions at this time. Okay, good. Well, that will leave more time for questions at the end, which is when I think there are participants who would have more questions, so we'll continue. So as I said, I'm now going to go over the process of drafting the plan step by step. The methodology is straightforward and it's not difficult. It's a logical progression requiring a number of steps and the completion of several worksheets. This process may seem labored at first, but I find it a relatively easy way to stay on course and to avoid losing track of information. Barbara had started to prepare a description of the society's collections when the Preservation Committee was formed, but due to time constraints was not able to complete it. We decided to complete it now and include it in the long-range plan. The information is invaluable in prioritizing preservation actions. Further, Barbara has knowledge of the collections that no one else has. She was considering retirement at the time, so this information needed to be recorded. I identified the types of information most useful to have in the description, which you see here, and prepared a worksheet, which is number one in your handouts. And by the way, Barbara just retired last week and the new director started in November. And the new director is Jennifer Higa. Congratulations to you both. Okay, so here what you see is the information that I think is most useful in prioritizing to develop your action plan and timetable. You'll have the name of the collection. I'm trying to get the pointer to work, but I can't seem to get it where I want it to go. I'm sorry about that. The name of the collection, an indication of the size and volume of the collection. So you know how many materials you're dealing with, the nature of the value of the collection, whether it has great monetary value or associational value, whatever it is. It's significance to the institution, the reason for preserving the collection. A general idea of the condition of the collection, an idea of the use and its use, how it will be used and how frequently it will be used. And an indication of how long the collection should be preserved for. Some collections must be kept in perpetuity. There can be reasons, legal reasons for this. Others will become outdated in two or three years and can be disposed of at that time. And in what form the collection should be preserved, the original form, facsimile form, or a new format. I asked Barbara to email me what she had prepared previously, and I obtained additional information about the collections from the society's website. I entered all this into a worksheet for each collection. Then I emailed the worksheets to Barbara, and she began to fill in the rest. And here you see a completed worksheet. This is for the collection of early voyages to Hawaii and the Pacific. It's a collection of historical narratives. You see the size of the collection here. 160 linear feet plus some oversized materials. All of the books in the collection are rare. They're out of print. The atlases have high monetary value. Many of the volumes are the earliest accessions into the library, and they were donated by society founders. So they have a provenance that's significant as well as their rarity and their monetary value. Their condition varies. They're used regularly by researchers. The society is known for this collection, in fact. The collection should be preserved in perpetuity, and it should be preserved in its original format, which we forgot to write down here. And also, Barbara noted that it would be a great resource if the collection could be digitized for online research use. Next, I prepared the worksheet titled Summary of Needs and Prioritized Actions to Meet These Needs, which is worksheet number two for those of you who have downloaded the worksheets. This is probably the worksheet that is used the most in the planning process, and I'll refer to it repeatedly during today's webinar. To complete the worksheet, I relied on the Needs Assessment Survey Report, telephone interviews with Barbara, and my experience having done more than 100 Needs Assessments. I made a hard copy of the Needs Assessment Report and underlined the Needs and Actions identified in it. And here's another planning tip for you. I think it would be easier to work online and to highlight the needs, actions, and priorities of the report in different colors. For example, you could put the Needs in yellow, the actions in green, and the priorities in red. And then, when you go to fill in the worksheet, you'll know what items go where, and it will be a lot easier for you to figure out the information and keep track of it. Then, I entered the information from the assessment report into the worksheet. When I had questions, Barbara clarified by a phone. I filled out all the columns of the worksheet except the column labeled Implementation Priority, which is the column on the far right. So, here you will see, down where I talk about, in the identified need under implementation, if I can just, oh, good. Thank you. We're talking about Implement and Integrated Pest Management Program. That's the need. There are two actions, which you see to the left of that. One is to begin pest monitoring and documentation, and the next is to purchase sticky traps and place them in storage. And this was clearly indicated in the Needs Assessment Report. If you can see near the top of the report, the Developing and Integrated Pest Management Program and the various suggestions for doing that. In this worksheet, the needs and actions can be listed randomly or they can be listed by type of need. Here you see at the top of this worksheet in the left-hand column, it says environment. So, these are some of the environmental needs that are listed. Barbara thought that categorizing them this way would be useful for her, so that's what we did. Although categories will differ somewhat from organization to organization, most preservation needs fall into 10 general areas. Here you see those listed and they are defined in the information that's posted online for you in the worksheet number three. Once the needs and actions were listed, those requiring funding were easy to identify. This information is essential for the final prioritizing and scheduling. I created another worksheet, which is number four online. You see it here. Barbara asked Helen Wong Smith, who was president of the board at the time, to complete it. This was very helpful in that it provided us with the information we needed and also ensured that the board was aware of the direction in which the preservation planning was going. And here's another planning tip for you. Always keep your board informed, especially when what you're doing involves money. At this point in the process, Barbara was getting nervous about how she would find the time to accomplish all the actions that had been identified. So I created another worksheet titled List of Possible Projects for Interns from Museum Studies Programs, Library Schools, and Other Related Graduate Programs. And this is worksheet number five in the downloadable worksheet. The University of Hawaii at Manoa has excellent programs in library and information science and museum studies. And students from these occasionally do internships at the Historical Society. I went through the worksheet titled Summary of Needs and Prioritized Actions. That's worksheet number two, the one I said you would use probably most often, and extracted from it projects that I thought would be educationally valuable for interns and also helpful for Barbara in implementing the final plan. And now another planning tip. Don't be afraid to seek help, especially when doing so will be beneficial to all concerned. I've worked with a lot of interns over the years and it's just been a wonderful experience. I learn a lot from them. I think they learn a lot from being in a work situation and it's a win-win situation for everybody. I can't recommend it highly enough. Compiling a list of preservation activities that already have been accomplished is useful in documenting progress. It shows that an organization is capable of accomplishing its goals and utilizing its resources wisely. It's also good for everyone's morale to see how much they have achieved. I forwarded the worksheet you see here to Barbara and asked her to fill in as many past accomplishments as she could recall. 25 accomplishments were identified dating back to 1974, which I think is remarkable. Some of the accomplishments listed are ongoing accomplishments and you see three of those at the top of this worksheet. I think it's really important when you have a line item in your budget to list that in your accomplishments every year that you have it. So like to have a line in the budget to purchase archival supplies that should be listed as ongoing if it continues year after year because this shows great support for your planning activities and also it shows funders that your organization has made an ongoing commitment to preservation. It was now time for me to travel to the historical society and complete the plan. The first matter of business was to determine the implementation priority for each preservation need and action and enter that into the final column of the worksheet titled Summary of Needs and Prioritized Actions. Again, that's worksheet number two. Here it is helpful to consider a terminology one more time. An institutional priority is based primarily on the importance of an action in preserving the collections. So any action that's especially important is an institutional priority. The impact and feasibility of the action are not a consideration for institutional priorities. An implementation priority, however, also takes into account both the impact and feasibility of the action as well as its importance. And urgency additionally is taken into account. At the society, most of the institutional and implementation priorities are the same, high, but a few are different. For example, purchasing additional bookends to prevent books from slumping on the shelves is identified as a medium institutional priority. And I'm going to, I'm going to try to point to this. It's here, second from the, oh, right, down, down, there, thank you. So we see bookends prevent books from slumping on the shelves and that's identified as a medium institutional priority. But we should decided that it should be a high implementation priority because it is easy to do and does not cost much. So it's feasible and it will benefit a large part of the collection so it has high impact. Once we determined the implementation priority for each action, we entered it into the final column of the worksheet, which is the far right column. Included in your online information is this grid developed by Pamela Darling that is useful in prioritizing. It takes into account the impact and feasibility of actions. So here I'm going to try to do this without the arrow. We're going to refer back to the bookend example. The bookend has, we've identified that it has high impact. So it will go into the upper left quadrant because it will benefit a lot of books. It also has high feasibility because it does not cost much to do. So it will again go into the upper left quadrant. So that obviously is a high implementation priority. Purchasing a ladder was also something that we identified was an action to take and that we decided was a medium institutional priority. But then we looked at it on the grid and again it will impact all the collections that are on higher shelves so that you can use the ladder to get them and it reduces the risk of dropping them. And it also protects the staff from reaching overhead and grabbing things that could fall down onto their head. So it had high impact and again it was very feasible to do. All you need to do is go to the hardware store, buy a ladder and it doesn't cost that much. So that also goes in the upper left quadrant. But let's look for example at the possibility of digitizing one of the lesser used collections at the historical society. Digitizing it would have a low impact because some of the collections aren't used much. So we're just using as an example, I don't know which collection, but one that is rarely consulted. So it may be on brittle paper but it's rarely consulted so it doesn't matter that much because it's not used. It's a concern but it's not a high priority concern. It's a low one. So the impact of digitizing it would be low and it would fall either into quadrants number two, three or four. And the feasibility of doing it is low because it would cost a lot of money and there are other collections that should be digitized first with the funding that's available. So the feasibility of it would fall into quadrants three or four. So I would say that probably that would become one of the lower implementation priorities of the institution. Now we could create an action plan and timetable which is the most important part of the plan. We methodically looked at each high implementation priority. We considered the resources needed to carry it out and decided when it realistically could be accomplished. Then we scheduled these actions over a five year period using a separate worksheet for each year. Actions that could not be scheduled readily, sorry, we listed as long term priorities. For this you can use a three year timetable, whatever works for you. We used a five year timetable for the historical society in Hawaii and at the Minnesota Historical Society. We used a ten year timetable when we developed that long range plan. And here I would like to emphasize that the action plan and timetable is a working document. Neither the schedule nor the activities listed are written in stone and please remember that. Some activities may be superseded by emergency situations that require immediate action or by unexpected opportunities that need to be taken advantage of. If actions are not completed in the scheduled year just move them to another year of the timetable. This way you'll avoid losing track of them, which is really easy to do when you're dealing with a lot of information. As we were working on the action plan and timetable we realized that many of the actions we identified required collaboration with the historical society's landlord, the Hawaiian Missions Children's Society. As a starting point for conversation between the staff of the two organizations we listed on a worksheet all these actions with the resources needed to accomplish them and their priority. And again we referred back to worksheet number two for a list of needs and actions to meet them to fill in this worksheet. When we reached this point in the process I had all the information I needed to complete the plan. I wrote the acknowledgements, executive summary and introduction and I brought all the sections or elements of the plan together into the final document. A list of each section of the plan along with an explanation of its purpose is posted online in document nine. The society's plan turned out to be 74 pages long, which is lengthy. Plans can be most any length depending on the size and complexity of the organization and the amount of detail addressed. Some plans are three to five pages while others are more than 100. Each section is formatted so that it can be separated from the plan and used on its own for example for grant purposes. So you see the executive summary which is the second from the top element of the plan that's listed here. That's very important to put into grant applications because it tells in one or two pages what your preservation plans are for the next five, ten years, whatever your timetable turns out to be. And that's very impressive to funding agencies because they understand that you know where you're going in terms of preservation and that you have a definite plan or roadmap to get there. The action plan and timetable below that is very useful when implementing the plan because you can just look at it one year at a time and not be overwhelmed and just look at the things you need to do in a particular year. The list of preservation accomplishments to date is important to include in grant proposals. Again because it shows funders that you are capable of reaching your goals and accomplishing what you set out to do and that giving you money is a good investment. Also when you get discouraged it's nice to have a list of your preservation accomplishments to look at and to know that you really are making significant progress. And then there is the description of collections which you can use throughout all your planning and whatever you're doing and your research and it again is very useful in preparing grant applications. I arrived at the Historical Society on a Monday morning and by Thursday afternoon we had completed the plan. Barbara suggested at the beginning of the week that we meet with the board to discuss our planning methodology and findings and she scheduled a meeting for Friday afternoon. Thursday she had copies of the plan printed and bound for the board members to consult. The meeting was a success and proved to make the planning process real for the board. It served to get their buy-in and because they remember the meeting it keeps the process on their radar. They know that the planning process worked, that implementation will be happening and that this is an important and major undertaking. The board members ongoing support is crucial for implementation and this meeting helped cement that support. And here is another planning tip, always remember to get and keep the board's support. You'll hear me say that many times. The findings of the planning process ranged from major organization-wide issues to minor needs. In all, 83 actions were identified to meet 54 needs. Here you see the general topics into which the needs and actions fell. When Barbara saw the action plan and timetable she realized that she did not have time to implement it but she and the board were committed to pressing forward. In September 2013 Helen Wong Smith applied to the Atherton Family Foundation for funds to hire a half-time preservation librarian to implement the plan. The society learned in January of 2014 that it was awarded $25,000 for each of three years. The foundation specified that to be refunded each year the society needed to submit annual progress reports on its accomplishments towards the goal of the action plan. These reports were to include before and after photographs, a list of expenditures for equipment and supplies, and a written record of actions taken. The society advertised the new preservation librarian position and Nicolita Garces began May 16, 2014. And by the way, Nicolita is a participant with us today in this webinar and I'm really glad to have you with us, Nicolita. As an update, Barbara recently mentioned that the preservation plan allowed the society to secure the grant to hire the preservation librarian so that this is, quote, a key outcome of the plan. In another effort to ensure implementation, a joint committee of the Hawaiian Historical Society and the Hawaiian Missions Children's Society was established to deal with actions requiring their collaboration. The committee is comprised of board members and the directors of both organizations, the preservation librarian of the historical society, and the facility staff of the mission society. And they recently held their first meeting, so I think we're going to see a lot more progress happening very soon. In closing, the Hawaiian Historical Society has accomplished an impressive amount in four years of focused preservation planning. It now has a long-range plan that serves not only as a roadmap in carrying out preservation actions and in keeping activities on track, but that is also a useful tool in fundraising. In addition, the society has shown its commitment to implementation of the plan by obtaining funds and hiring a preservation librarian who already has accomplished many of the actions listed in the action plan and timetable. The new director, Jennifer Haiga, said just recently in an email to me, and I don't think she'll mind my quoting her, that the preservation plan has been a valuable reference to me as I learn about the holdings and state of the library, archives, and collection in general. And she went on to state that I can also say that I was impressed with the preservation plan while I was interviewing for my current position with the Hawaiian Historical Society. It was reassuring to see that there was a plan in place and that it was supported by a community foundation grant. So in terms of preservation, the Hawaiian Historical Society has made outstanding progress and is a model of success. I would like to think that the worksheets contributed in a small way to this. Thank you. And here, if you have more questions or if we're not able to answer all your questions today, here is my contact information both at the Minnesota Historical Society and at my private consultation practice. Thank you. So let's now take some questions. Okay, there are several questions. Before our first break, Janet Ecklund asked, will NEH fund long-range plans if we've already had a needs assessment survey that they funded? Oh, that they funded. It probably will, I don't know and perhaps I shouldn't answer, but it would probably have to do with what the needs assessment survey report looks like. So if sometimes the needs assessment survey will go into an enormous amount of detail, good detail, and will set up a timetable within it. And if that was the case, I don't know if they would feel that they needed to fund a long-range plan. But I personally think it would be a good thing to fund because the Hawaiian Historical Society had a wonderful needs assessment survey and survey report. But I think the action plan and timetable in the long-range preservation plan and the other components of the plan were very helpful to that organization. So I would certainly try to get funding for a long-range plan if not from NEH from someone else. And with any government grant, you have to look at what the guidelines are and what they'll fund and not fund. Good. So the next question is, does the list of accomplishments help with grant applications? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because funders see that you are able to use your resources to accomplish substantive activities and to make progress in working towards your goals. It shows that you're responsible and that you will make responsible good use of the funding agency's resources. Absolutely. The next question from Kathy Pierce is, I'm still at the needs assessment, at the preservation needs assessment level. That is, it's not been done. What advice or action plan do you have for someone who has not had this survey performed? What is the cost, money, and time? If you, there are a few ways to proceed. You can, I think that CAP surveys are going to be continued. These are funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. CAP stands for the Conservation Assessment Program. They were administered by Heritage Preservation. I don't know if they still are or not. Susan, you may know about this, about who's administering the CAP programs. But that is one possibility. You do have to pay some money, but it's minimal in the realm of things. You can do a needs assessment survey yourself. There is a workbook on how to do this that has been produced by the Northeast Document Conservation Center. In fact, it may even be on their website, so you can download it free of charge. I'm not positive about that, but I think it's on their website. And you can do that to help create your, to develop your own needs assessment. It will cost you, it will cost you in time and effort, however, to do it that way. So there are advantages and disadvantages to both, as I mentioned earlier, but if you cannot get funding to do it, then I say try doing it yourself. And the workbook is a good place to start. The CAP program is on hold for 2015, and they're looking for a new home for 2016. But it's been such an important program, I think they'll probably find someone to keep it going. Like they did with connecting to collections, FAIC is managing it. And I see that the needs assessment from New England Document Center that the link for that has been posted. And Janet Eklund says that preservation assistance grants through NEH, they're now accepting applications. And those are for small institutions, and they are, they're up to $6,000. And let's say the next question is, are there other feasibility guides other than cost, or is cost the only measure for feasibility? There are other guides. It can be staffing. You may not have staff available to carry out an action in your institution. So even though it's a high institutional priority, it will not become an implementation priority because there isn't anybody available to do it. It could also be space that you don't have the room in your institution either to carry out the preservation action, or the preservation action could be to re-house materials, and you may not have the space to store the materials once they're re-housed, because they may take up more space after they're re-housed. So there are other factors other than cost when it comes to feasibility. And I see in the chat window, I knew that this, that the Conservation Center in Philadelphia is accepting applications for doing needs assessments. They've been doing that for the last few years. It's a nice program. And then where did the Hawaiian Historical Society apply for their needs assessment survey? I think I mentioned that. I can't remember, Nikolita. Maybe you could provide this information. I think it was a grant. Yeah, so while we're looking for that, hold on a moment here. I also wanted to point out that several of the small museums I've worked with have used, once they've gotten their plans written, they put big sheets with their priorities, the implementation method, a date to complete on the wall of their director's office or where people ate lunch, and then they marked them off, and that really helped getting people going. So that's something to think of. I don't have it in the notes that are in front of me, but it was a needs assessment that was subsidized by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and it was offered through the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts. So I don't know. It may not have cost that much because it was subsidized. I really don't know. Sorry about that. Oh wait, I just saw from Nikki here in the chat box. I double-checked for HHS. It was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Right, and Rebecca Elder also posted something about finding information through the Foundation Center. That's another place to look. And then let me get down here. Has your process been used for museum artifact collections, and if so, how is it adapted to fit three-dimensional collections? It has been. I tested this methodology at the Minnesota Historical Society on our collections here because we have a fairly sizable research library. We have the state archives in this building, and we also have millions of museum collection items. And it worked fine. I don't really know that I had to adapt it very much. The problem is that it was very detailed and complicated and large. And many of the decisions had to be made by committee, so that slowed it down. But the methodology wasn't that different, I'm happy to say. And also it worked. I think it worked really well because we scheduled it out over a 10-year period, and at the end of 10 years, we had accomplished an awfully lot of items. The vast majority of things that were on the plan, and it did serve as a work plan for many of us, not just the conservators, but for the collections managers and for the curators as well. I've used a similar process, and it works very well. You're right. How did HHS identify rehousing as a priority as a long-range plan action? Well, as I recall, in their plan, they have rehousing listed of different collections, and that was listed in the needs assessment survey report. So they picked it up from the survey report, and then they just considered the feasibility and the impact and the urgency, and decided, considering those factors, whether or not it was a high priority or a priority. And, what was I going to say? I guess that's it. And scheduling, that was the other thing. It had to do with scheduling, and some things were determined to be a higher priority than others because some things could be accomplished in a particular timeframe when others could not. So scheduling entered into it. So, I'm going to go into the next question, but also we're going to put up the evaluation. And so you don't need to answer it now, but please answer it today. These evaluations are really important for us and for determining where we're going forward and who we're serving and stuff like that. So, Mike, if you could put that up. The next question, Sherlyn, is how do you convince both the staff and administrators at a cultural institution about the importance of working in collaboration and that everyone should be part of the team during the survey? Not only the conservators or the collection keepers. Let me see. How do you convince the staff? So, Mike, I'm reading the question here again. It was blocked for a moment from me, but I can see it now about the importance of working. And, Mike, put up the SurveyMonkey link for the survey. Well, it's a matter of establishing a good relationship with everybody. It's a matter of emphasizing that you're all part of the same team. It may sound a little trite, but it's the truth. You are all a matter of the same team in that what benefits one part of the organization will benefit your part of the organization as well. What brings visibility and money into the organization will also benefit all the staff members. And often you can share responsibilities and share benefits as well. So I don't know if that helps, but also I think, again, I have to refer to funders. I think they would be very impressed if you could demonstrate that everyone is working together as a team towards the same goal, towards the same end. And it just comes down to good relationships and making up your mind that you're all going to work together. I know it's easier said than done, but it can be done. Yes, I think that it's very true that funders are very interested to see that you've had collaborations, that you've got assistance, which is money. Work is equal to money from other people in your community and that kind of stuff. Valerie Orlandini says that many times directors are reluctant to spend time with assessors and to delegate the work with folks that are in charge of collections. Actually, I think they should get over it. And I know that when I do a survey and I assume the same for you, Charlotte, I insist on meeting with the directors and explaining to them that they need to be involved in this. I always try to make contact of some sort, unless it's an enormous institution and it's totally inappropriate. But yes, most of the time I do. I try to make contact. I try to. And again, it's face-to-face contact. It's important. Yeah, especially if you're working in a small institution because everyone does everything and so the director really needs to be involved and to have a board. So, let's see. We have more people typing in stuff here. And I think that it's really important to do this kind of planning. It takes a lot of time, but it pays off in the end, is my experience. Yeah, I agree, Susan. It does pay off in the end. Yeah, Lynn Elias says it's good to hear that Helen Warren Smith, the HHS Board Director, was involved in the funding process for them and wrote grants. Yeah, it's good to give everyone a job because if you give everyone a job, they have buy-in. Right. And you may find, if you're the person who is in charge of the preservation project, that you need to be being a cheerleader and bringing it up. But that kind of stuff is really important, too. Let's see. One thing about... Here's another... Here's a comment from Nikki Garces, who is the Preservation Librarian, the new Preservation Librarian at the Hawaiian Historical Society. Do you see that, Susan? Yeah, I do. Do you want to read it? Yeah. One thing about HHS is that we work with our Landlord's Librarian Mission Houses Museum. We were trying to work with the Director and Board of the Mission Houses. When their Librarian saw the preservation plan, that's when the joint preservation tasks started being accomplished. He understood the importance of the plan. And thank you, Nikki, for contributing that. That's great. And also, it's an interesting situation, because since the Hawaiian Historical Society rents from the Mission Houses Museum, and they're in the same building, the Mission House Museum benefits from a lot of the actions that the Historical Society takes. And I think once... And that's probably true in other organizations as well. And when people see how they can benefit from the plan, I think you'll get a lot more cooperation. So again, Nikki, thank you. Yeah, so I don't see that we have any more questions coming in. Is there anything else you'd like to say? Mike, would you please post the evaluation link again? And Sharon Corey is typing something. Well, wait a minute. Mike's reposted the evaluation link. Do go to Connecting to Collections website and look at the new logo and let us know what you think. I want to remind you that the resources provided on that website are free to everyone. And there's one small thing that you can participate in anything, but if you want to post a question or be involved in a discussion, you need to register. But if you want to participate in a webinar, you just need to sign up. So that's just so you know that. And Sharon, do you want to say anything? No, I think that's it. I just want to thank everyone for attending the webinar today and for your input as I found your comments really interesting and helpful. So that's great. Thank you. And so I think that does it for today. Thank you all for coming. I'm not exactly sure when the next webinar is going to be, but it'll be sometime in April. And we'll keep going and you have the address, the email address to get in touch with me if you have a suggestion. And I'm pleased that we can go forward with this really important program. So thanks. Bye-bye. We're going to let these comments ride, but we're both going to go off. Mike, do you have anything to say? No, I do not. It went well. Thank you everybody. Okay. Bye-bye.