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AERO conference 2007, Davis CA

Susan Garbarino, Librarian Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, University of California, Berkeley. AERO conference 2007, Davis CA. Preservation of rare USDA data, or. How I learned to stop worrying and love microfilm. Outline of the problem:.

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AERO conference 2007, Davis CA

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  1. Susan Garbarino,LibrarianGiannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, University of California, Berkeley AERO conference 2007, Davis CA

  2. Preservation of rare USDA data, or How I learned to stop worrying and love microfilm.

  3. Outline of the problem: • The Giannini Foundation Library owns the most complete set of the USDA’s Federal State Market News Service data in existence. • Daily, weekly, monthly, annual fruit and vegetable price data from 1915-1995 • Most of the data (~1100 reels) was on acetate, non-archival quality microfilm which was deteriorating. • microdots; losing data • brittle film; breaking

  4. Two faculty were interested in using this data for a research project... • Major grant from USDA/Giannini Foundation to study vertical/horizontal integration of fruit and vegetable prices • 18 students hired to collect price data from the film—very heavy use for this collection • Clearly, this was important data worth preserving

  5. Needed to preserve the data and make it usable • Digitization not an option yet • wouldn’t preserve the content • difficult to digitize from film • size of the collection is massive; 4000 pages per reel; digitization pricing was by the page • originals were typed on “onion skin” paper, so difficult to read digitized versions • just too expensive: $500 per reel (2003 estimate)

  6. Answer: Joint grant from USDA/ Giannini Foundation to put the data onto archival polyester silver halide microfilm • Funding obtained from USDA first, then GF—thank you AERO! • Film the best option for preservation given that the data was currently on film • Preserving film was ~16x less expensive than digitization (2003 figures) • With funds from the faculty grant, we purchased a new reader/printer/scanner, so we can digitize pages on demand

  7. Timeline: or patience is a virtue... • 2002-I began working at Giannini and was informed of the need to preserve this rare collection. • 2003-Faculty told me they were interested in using this data; we digitized a sample reel and realized we needed to duplicate film instead. • 2004-I asked the Giannini Foundation for funding for preservation of the film, but was turned down. • 2005-At the AERO conference at NAL I met Charles Parrot from USDA, FSMNS division. I told him we had this data and wanted to preserve it. • 2006- Ireceived grant from USDA for ½ of the project funding. I then approached the Giannini Foundation again and this time they said yes. • 2006/2007- I completed the project. Selected BMI as our vendor since they were local.

  8. Sample of the data

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