2012

30 reel-to-reel tapes from the early 1960s performances of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan were digitized by Harvard’s Media Preservation Studio.  This project took 18 months to complete and now both the original and digitized files are housed in the New England Folk Music Archives. 

2013

Several foundational initiatives for the preservation services unit were completed.   

A Preservation Services website (accessible through Internet Archive) was produced by a team of staff members. The new website served as a staff communication tool and continued to grow as new services were established.   

Many libraries across Harvard completed a preservation needs assessment, and a Preservation liaison program was implemented.  25 repositories across Harvard were partnered with staff members from Preservation Services to identify preservation needs and risks to collections, and to build trusted relationships and preservation plans. 

New projects and programs for media and digital preservation started, including centralized environmental monitoring, a newspaper digitization program, and a collections stewardship program. 

2015-2020

The Colonial North America Project launched in November 2015.  Over five years, thousands of books and manuscripts that are scattered throughout 12 Harvard repositories were reviewed and conserved by Preservation Services staff.  Now 150,000 free, digitized images of diaries, notebooks, and other rare documents of the 17th and 18th centuries, are available to patrons worldwide. Preservation Services staff are continuing to work on this project, transcribing many of the manuscript materials.