91´«Ã½

CHICAGO – The (CPP), in recognition of its outstanding efforts to educate, preserve and protect California’s cultural institutions, is the recipient of the 2011 LBI George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg Preservation Award. What began as a collaboration among a few preservation librarians in the University of California System 10 years ago has expanded into a strong network of individuals and small, medium and large libraries, museums, archives, historical societies, records repositories and other cultural organizations all around the state.

The Preservation and Reformatting Section (PARS) of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) will present the award on Sunday, June 26, at the ALCTS Awards Ceremony during the 2011 91´«Ã½ Annual Conference in New Orleans. The LBI Cunha/Swartzburg Award is sponsored by LBI: The Library Binding Institute and includes a $1,250 grant and citation.

The California Preservation Program is composed of many dedicated individuals and institutions, working quietly, modestly and persistently toward ambitious preservation goals that currently include extended disaster preparedness services, expanded current building risk assessment services that include collection assessment, development of digital preservation education programs, creation of a statewide audiovisual preservation program, the integration of the California Preservation Program's services with regional and national preservation programs and centers to avoid duplicative costs, direct national expertise to help state needs and the development of a sustainability plan to ensure continuity of statewide preservation services.

The reach of the CPP extends beyond the cultural institutions of California. Its disaster planning and preparedness services and expertise has not only led to partnerships with emergency response communities, but has also led to an alliance with other Western states and territories in the form of WESTPAS, (Western States and Territories Preservation Assistance Services). The website, begun 10 years ago with a few modest resources, has grown to include a wide variety of tools that are used throughout the world. The tools, templates, training exercises and other resources are made freely available for anyone to use. CPP’s leaders are often called upon by folks across the nation to lead training workshops in their home states. As one of the nominators of the award wrote, "the California Preservation Program has defined collaborative statewide preservation in this decade."

Established in 2007, the award honors the memory of George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg, early leaders in cooperative preservation programming and strong advocates for collaboration in the field of preservation. The award acknowledges and supports cooperative preservation projects and/or rewards individuals or groups that foster collaboration for preservation goals.

The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) is the national association for information providers who work in collections and technical services, such as acquisitions, cataloging, collection development, preservation and continuing resources in digital and print formats.

ALCTS is a division of the 91´«Ã½.