Heritage Health Index Results Announced
in New York
Speakers included (from left) Mary Chute,
Acting Director of IMLS; Lawrence Reger,
President of Heritage Preservation; and
Kate Levin, Commissioner of New York
City's Department of Cultural Affairs.
Photo: Gillis Photography.
Distinguished national leaders and New Yorkers participated in the December 6 announcement at The New York Public Library of A Public Trust at Risk: The Heritage Health Index Report on the State of America's Collections. Heritage Preservation Chairperson Debra Hess Norris, President Lawrence Reger, and Heritage Health Index Director Kristen Laise were joined by other speakers who testified to the significance of the findings.
Kate Levin, Commissioner of New York City's Department of Cultural Affairs, was among the speakers at the news conference. Calling A Public Trust at Risk a "visionary report," Levin said that the findings will create a sense of urgency about the future of collections. She also spoke of New York City's efforts to coordinate emergency planning among cultural institutions.
Marjie Gowdy, Director of
the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum,
spoke about her museum's
experience with Hurricane
Katrina. Photo: Gillis
Photography.
Marjie Gowdy, Director of the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum in Biloxi, Mississippi, attested to the importance of emergency planning for saving the museum's collections when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. Because the museum did have a plan, collections were saved even though structures were destroyed or damaged. The Heritage Health Index survey found that 80 percent of U.S. collecting institutions do not have an emergency plan to protect collections with staff trained to carry it out.
Acting Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Mary Chute said, "The Heritage Health Index can act as a call to action and inspire a new and renewed commitment to caring for America's collections." The IMLS co-sponsored the project with Heritage Preservation. Representatives of other supporters who participated in the event included Lisa Ackerman of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Robert Ashton of the Bay and Paul Foundations, Ellen Holtzman of the Henry Luce Foundation, and David Stam of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.
Heritage Preservation Chairperson Debra
Hess Norris shows an item in need of
conservation. Photo: Gillis Photography.
David Ferriero, the Andrew W. Mellon Director and Chief Executive of The Research Libraries at The New York Public Library, spoke of the NYPL's commitment to addressing 21st century challenges to caring for its own collections, and to serving as a leader in assisting others.
The results of the Heritage Health Index survey have received extensive national coverage, including an article in the New York Times, an Associated Press story that was carried in newspapers nationwide, and a feature that ran on NPR's All Things Considered. For more information, visit www.heritagehealthindex.org.