Alumni Spotlight
Kristen Overbeck Laise '93
Preserving the Past
Kristen Overbeck Laise '93 announces Heritage Preservation's findings on the state of America's collections in a press conference at the New York Public Library.
The same as with food, historical collections require proper preservation. Yet an astonishing number of the nation's artifacts - its nourishing past - are at risk of loss unless the institutions that store them find the means and ways to keep them safe from a host of environmental hazards.
These treasures include rare books and documents, photographs, art, scientific specimens, sound recordings, historic and ethnographic objects, and even modern digital materials. In other words just about everything in the stored memory of a nation that is worth keeping.
Sounding the clarion to the problem has been the recent career of Earlham alumna Kristen Overbeck Laise. With Heritage Preservation, a national non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., Laise recently led a two-year investigation into the state of the condition of America's artifacts.
Remarkably, the state of the country's collections had never been documented before. So in partnership with the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services and support from The Getty Foundation and other private donors, Laise '93 directed a team of 60 conservation experts. The team designed and implemented a survey of more than 3,000 museums, libraries, archives, scientific research collections and archeological repositories (among others) concerning the condition of their holdings.
Heritage Preservation announced its findings in December, with Laise as its spokesperson. You may have
heard her on NPR or read her comments in the New York Times. The survey's findings are summarized in a
report, "A Public Trust at Risk: The Heritage Health Index Report on the State of America's Collection."
The report is available online at www.heritagepreservation.org, and a hard copy may be purchased for a
small shipping fee. The survey tabulated these disturbing findings:
- 65 percent of institutions have damage to their collections due to improper storage.
- 80 percent of U.S. collecting institutions lack emergency preservation plans with staff trained to implement them.
- 190 million objects are in need of conservation treatment.
"We distributed the report around the country and sent it to every member of Congress as well as bulk copies to affiliated organizations we work with and to all state humanities and arts councils."
Laise affirms that the report has opened some eyes. "We've seen a lot of great feedback from community leaders - people wanting to show their board members, professors wanting copies for their students. We really want the report is to be used for a lay audience - city councils, boards of trustees, donors."
Just what is at risk? More than 4.8 billion artifacts are held in public trust by more than 30,000 collecting institutions. They include 4.7 million works of art, 153 million photographs, 189 million natural science specimens and 270 million rare and unique books, periodicals and scrapbooks.
The survey found that many collections are at risk of damage because of improper environmental conditions and storage. Fifty-three percent of collecting institutions admitted they have collections damaged by moisture; 59 percent reported damage by light, especially from ultraviolet rays.
The Heritage Health Index found that the most urgent preservation need at U.S. collecting institutions is environmental control. More than a quarter of the organizations surveyed reported no environmental controls or preservation of their collections.
The Index's summary report notes that collections are vulnerable to swift and catastrophic loss, especially in the 80 percent of institutions that lack emergency plans with staff to carry them out in case of disaster such as fires and flooding. Many museums and libraries on the Gulf Coast suffered enormously in the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina last August.
But collections can also be vulnerable to small, often preventable, disasters, such as a burst water pipe that damaged valuable artifacts stored by the New Mexico Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in March 2004 or the fire that destroyed irreplaceable motion picture films and photographs at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Washington, last June.
Laise has worked with Heritage Preservation for 10 years and described the organization's efforts in the Winter 2004 Earlhamite. The association has developed training publications on conservation and emergency preparedness and administers a technical assistance program for small museums while advocating national policies for preservation of the nation's artifacts.
Laise said her Earlham education, especially the College's museum resources, notably the art collection, the Joseph Moore Museum and Conner Prairie, fueled her interest in museums. To further prepare for her career she earned a master's degree in art history from the University of Wisconsin.
— Richard Holden
Now retired, Richard Holden is the former editor of the Earlhamite.
(Posted March 3, 2006)
Read the report and the media's response at www.heritagepreservation.org .
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Page updated: March 24,2006