Keeping Important Documents Healthy
Corrections or additions?
This article was prepared for the April 24, 2002 edition of
U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Office Missionaries
A missionary in a third world country might try to help
villagers with such services as irrigation techniques. A missionary
working in an upscale business community could offer, instead,
techniques
for achieving business success while maintaining ethical standards.
"Today’s leader needs to have integrity 24 by 7," says
C. Maxwell of Maximum Impact, a motivational speaker and the author
of "Developing the Leader Within You" (www.maximumimpact.com).
"People don’t listen to leaders as much as they watch the way
they live today. They watch us like hawks. Whether they are customers
or co-workers, they react to what they see — because everything
rises and falls on leadership."
This advice is a sample of what will be dispensed at a simulcast
conference
being sponsored by a new mission church that aims its message to the
"unchurched" professionals in the Princeton business
community.
anyone to attend "Becoming a Person of Influence" on Saturday,
April 27, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at 246 Griggstown Road in Belle
Mead. The event is free but the church will accept donations to cover
the $79 per person cost. A complimentary preview tape is available.
Call 609-279-9777 to register.
"We hope this seminar can help get our values lined up so we all
can be a significant influence on others," says McNamara. An
alumnus
of Penn State, Class of 1996, McNamara went to Dallas Theological
Seminary and has a doctoral degree from Southwest Baptist Seminary.
He has pastored two large churches and started two churches, one in
Texas and the other near Erie, Pennsylvania.
"Ninety to 95 percent of professionals who live in the Princeton
area are not connected with a church," says McNamara, who opened
an office in Research Park last year (609-915-4022; fax, 609-683-9633,
www.thecrosspointe.com). He currently meets with his congregation
in private homes and will soon be renting a location. The funding
comes from a Baptist church that had closed down; the proceeds from
the sale of its assets were set aside to establish a new church in
the area.
"Our church is designed to be intradenominational," says
McNamara.
"It is our commitment to reach across lines. I consider Princeton
the Silicon Valley of the east. World citizens study here, work here,
and influence the world."
He views the Maximum Impact simulcast as a service to the community:
"The church should have its hand extended in giving, and we will
find as many different ways as possible." He also points out that
the material will not be religious. "It is the same kind of
presentation
that these speakers would make to Fortune 100 companies. The idea
is to establish a cordial relationship with those who attend —
and if someone is seeking a church affiliation we’d like to talk."
The session will be led by motivational speaker Maxwell, author of
"Developing the Leader Within You," and his guests will be
and a sports celebrity — South Carolina football coach
Holtz, known for his long record of building winning teams and
especially for taking Notre Dame to the national championship in 1988.
To achieve personal success, don’t focus on it, says Maxwell in an
interview on the preview tape. His tips:
engaging
characteristics of "peak performers," says Maxwell, "is
an infectious talent for moving into the future generating new
challenges
and living with the sense that there is more work to be done."
"Get out of what I call your environment box. As a pastor,"
says Maxwell, "I discovered very quickly was that I was in a
denomination
that had a nongrowth environment. Small thinkers. Suspicious of the
outside."
He quotes Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, known for
searching out better ways of doing things from other companies:
"We
never shut up about the great things that lie ahead for a company
whose people get up every morning and come to work knowing convinced
that there is a better way of doing everything they do and determined
to find out who knows that way and who they can learn it."
But growth demands a temporary surrender of security, he cautions.
For instance, Cal Ripken never missed a game for the Baltimore
Orioles,
despite any of his aches and pains, because he had conditioned himself
to "being comfortable being uncomfortable."
quotes Sidney Harris: "A winner knows how much he still has to
learn even when he is considered an expert by others and a loser wants
to be considered an expert by the others before he has learned enough
to know how little he knows."
get up to go up, or instead of leaving footprints in the sands of
time, you will leave butt prints in the sands of time. More elegantly,
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that for everything you gain, you lose
something.
who want to grow. "Winners run with winners; losers run with
losers; people who are going to accomplish something run with people
who are going to accomplish something. Look carefully, at the closest
associations in your life, for that is the direction in which you
are heading."
"If you really want to stop plateauing in your life," says
Maxwell, "you have to be more concerned with your personal growth
than with your personal success. The highest reward for our toil is
not what we get for it, but what we become by it. So many people
forget
that. Success does not bring growth, but growth does bring
success."
— Barbara Fox
Top Of Page
Keeping Important Documents Healthy
Keep that copier paper coming. The long-predicted
paperless
office is nowhere in sight. A lot of the paper in an office is
disposable
— as may or may not have been the case with the reams Andersen
auditors shredded while at work for Enron. Other paper, however, is
precious. Key contracts, vintage photos of the firm’s founders,
historical
documents, and tax back-up materials could fall into this category.
In a busy office, ensuring the security of this paper is often a
haphazard
affair.
Expert help is available. On Saturday, April 27, at 8:30 a.m.,
Dalton, director of field service at the Northeast Document
Conservation
Center, a Massachusetts-based non-profit, speaks on "A is for
Archives: Preserving Paper-Based Materials" at a meeting of Union
County Cultural & Heritage Affairs at Kean University Little Theater.
Cost: $15. Call 908-558-2550.
Those unable to attend will find a comprehensive, easy-to-follow plan
for preserving important paper at the Northeast Document Conservation
Center’s website, www.nedcc.org. Here are excerpts from the website’s
manual:
common material found in library, archives, and records collections.
Early paper made from materials such as linen and hemp was relatively
stable and durable.
Unfortunately, the quality of paper has steadily declined since the
late 18th century, primarily due to increased demand, which forced
greater mechanization and resulted in poorer quality paper. For
example,
between 1600 and 1800 changes were made in ways of beating the pulp,
resulting in a paper sheet with less strength. Also, bleaching
chemicals,
such as chlorine, were increasingly used to improve the brightness
of the page. Residual chemicals such as this could cause the paper
to become prematurely acidic.
Conservators generally consider the period from 1850 to the present
to be the era of "bad paper." This is primarily a result of
the increased use of alum-rosin sizing, and the use of plentiful
softwood
to make paper pulp. Most paper made with unpurified groundwood pulps
(e.g. newsprint) have a life expectancy of less than 50 years. Note
that fine quality materials also deteriorate over time, but are more
chemically stable and have a longer life expectancy if stored and
handled correctly.
of preservation can be a challenging process. Deterioration happens
slowly over a long period of time and is not immediately obvious,
especially if it is due to internal vice, which is caused by weakness
in the chemical or physical makeup of an object introduced during
the manufacture of paper, or environmental problems. But anyone who
has handled seldom-used books and been confronted with flakes of
yellowing
paper, knows that paper collections will not survive unless they
receive
special care.
Several strategies may be helpful in demonstrating the importance
of preservation to others. Documenting deterioration and showing
damaged
materials to others can be very effective; highlighting positive
evidence
when preservation actions are carried out may also have an impact.
If you are the person designated to take charge of preserving a
collection,
you must become informed about preservation issues and keep up with
recent developments in the field. You should try to share preservation
information with your colleagues in a non-threatening way — so
that they do not resent the "preservation police."
problems within an institution is to conduct a survey. The purpose
of a general needs assessment survey is to identify hazards to the
collection overall and to help preserve materials using preventive
maintenance strategies. For example, this type of survey examines
building conditions, storage and handling procedures, disaster
preparedness,
and policies that impact preservation.
of activity make up a preservation program. Even a small organization
— or a private collector — can undertake such a program.
Elements
include environmental control, providing a moderate and stable
temperature
and humidity, and controlling exposure to light; emergency
preparedness,
preventing and responding to damage from water, fire, or other
emergency
situation; security, protecting collections from theft and/or
vandalism;
storage and handling, using non-damaging storage enclosures and proper
storage furniture, cleaning storage areas, and using care when
handling;
reformatting, when reproducing deteriorating collections onto stable
media to preserve the informational content, handling should be
restricted.
on many fronts. The Northeast Document Conservation Center warns
against
light, pollution, excess heat, book drops, poor quality paper, and
much more, including insects.
There are an estimated 6 million species of insects, the center’s
website informs, and more than 70 different species have been
identified
as enemies of paper. The most common species affecting library and
archives material are silverfish, firebrats, psocids (booklice), and
cockroaches. Rodents are a problem.
Any company leaning toward complacency on the issue of preservation
might be jolted by the following information: Of course rats, mice,
squirrels, birds, and other small animals can cause significant damage
to paper collections. Rodents especially are attracted to environments
that are dark, wet, dirty, cluttered, and undisturbed.
Corrections or additions?
This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com
— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
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