Cooperative Preservation in the United States
A nationwide cooperative preservation programme has been launched in the United States with federal funding support with the aim of ensuring the responsible stewardship of published and documentary knowledge in all formats. The initial priority of this ambitious effort is a cooperative microfilming programme to capture the contents of three million brittle books in 20 years. This cooperative enterprise, requiring the coordination of selection and filming activities among many research institutions, will be financed by the coordination of funds from a variety of sources. An infrastructure of standards for format, bibliographic records, and appropriate quality controls to permit convenient access has been developed during the past 10 years. The programme includes an active effort to develop mechanisms to facilitate international cooperation in filming, sharing of bibliographic data, and exchange of master negatives.