BREAKING NEW GROUND IN FOSTERING PRESERVATION - THE SOCIETY-OF-AMERICAN-ARCHIVISTS PRESERVATION MANAGEMENT-TRAINING PROGRAM

In 1991 the Society of American Archivists (SAA) received a $600,609 g rant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Division of Preservation and Access to launch the SAA Preservation Management Trai ning Program (PMTP). This is the largest grant the NEH has awarded to a professional association for continuing education programming. The P MTP was a three-year nationwide program in which forty-four archival a dministrators were trained in establishing and maintaining comprehensi ve archival preservation management programs. The program's pioneering aspects are significant to the future of preservation education and t raining. The curriculum advocates integrating preservation administrat ion into all facets of the management of archives. Moving archival pre servation away from ad hoc decisions to well-planned management strate gies is the program's underlying philosophy. The training assignments are also designed to build elements of a functioning, tailor-made arch ival preservation program for the student's employing institution prio r to graduation. The SAA Preservation Management Training Program is u nique in professional education and training for library and archives management, and has created a benchmark for future training programs i n both fields.