Archival Science - Preservation in Archival Science

Preservation in Archival Science

Preservation, as defined by the Society of American Archivists (SAA), is the discipline of protecting materials from physical deterioration or loss of information, ideally in a noninvasive way. The goal of preservation is to maintain as much originality as possible while maintaining all the information which the material has to offer. Both scientific principles and professional practices are applied to this technique to obtain maximum effectiveness. In an archival sense, preservation refers to the care of all the aggregates within a collection. Conservation can be included in this practice and often these two definitions overlap.