Introducing the 2025 CARLI Preservation Survey

Patti Gibbons, University of Chicago, and Shelby Strommer, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The Preservation Committee would like to learn more about how we can support our member institutions in your mission to provide ongoing access to your collection materials. To that end, we’re excited to announce the upcoming launch of the 2025 CARLI Preservation Survey. This new survey coincides with the ten-year anniversary of the 2015 Preservation Survey, which gathered information about members’ preservation activities and challenges. This survey will allow us to learn more about your institutions and track how priorities may have changed over the past decade. 

Rationale and Goals

Since the CARLI Preservation Committee’s last survey happened a decade ago, we are interested in learning the scope of preservation work currently happening at CARLI member institutions and articulating the types of preservation initiatives members presently find a little out of reach. To benefit the consortium, the Preservation Committee shares expertise and resources with members. Having a clearer understanding of the present landscape and future aims will help us tailor programs and create training resources that address today’s most pressing preservation needs for CARLI member institutions. 

With the 2025 preservation survey, we hope to identify:

• Staffing models currently employed to address preservation duties
• Scope of preservation activities currently undertaken at member institutions
• Members’ most urgent preservation challenges
• Training formats members prefer for outreach events.

Through member participation in the survey, the Preservation Committee will develop workshops and training activities designed to address current members’ top preservation needs. As a group, the Preservation Committee is all ears and at the ready to share technical advice to help members keep library materials in the hands of researchers and readers. 

Stay Tuned!

January’s CARLI News will include a re-cap of the 2015 Preservation Survey results, as well as some of the programs and activities the committee developed based on those responses.
In early February, CARLI will distribute the survey to library directors to coordinate a single response from each institution. Responses will be due March 3, and the committee will share the results in an upcoming CARLI News article. 

Thank you in advance for completing our survey. We look forward to learning more about our members!

View additional articles in the Preservation Outreach and Engagement Series!