History

The Princeton Preservation Group: A Memoir

Gary D. Saretzky, President

Princeton Preservation Group

Susan Garretson Swartzburg (1938–1996), Preservation Librarian at Rutgers’ Alexander Library, founded the Princeton Preservation Group. In Fall 1981, I took Susan’s class, Preservation of Library Materials, in the School of Library Science, Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

At the time, I was Archivist at Educational Testing Service (ETS). As the class came to an end, Susan invited the students to talk about their term projects at her home in Princeton. We were joined by several librarians, archivists, and conservators. My theme was preservation of photographs. Subsequently, Susan invited me to attend the following sessions, either at her home or at her apartment near Rutgers.

When the group became larger, we began meeting regularly at Rider College (now Rider University), hosted by the college archivist.

Instead of reports by her students, Susan invited a featured speaker. The first meeting there was on October 13, 1983, when Ronald Becker, Head of Special Collections and Rutgers University Archives, spoke about the recent shelving collapse at Rutgers Library Annex in Piscataway. That meeting marks the first that I recall under the aegis of the Princeton Preservation Group. From that point, the group became more formalized with annual membership dues of $5, which has not changed. Also not changed has been the tradition of not paying the speakers. PPG began as a way for students and professionals to share knowledge with each other and this continues to be its purpose.

Susan would bring wine, cheese, and other refreshments to the meetings, which were well attended. She typically began meetings with introductions, light snacks and beverages, and then she gave detailed accounts about what was happening in the world of preservation, including news from conferences she had attended, as she was a member of many national and international professional associations related to archives, libraries, and conservation. When her professional colleagues from abroad were in the area, she invited them to attend and/or to present.

One of Susan’s passions was disaster preparedness and recovery. Over the years, PPG has had a number of programs related to this topic. The membership form in the early days of PPG included a question on whether the person was willing to volunteer in case of a disaster to a library or archives. As far as I can recall, the list of volunteers was never used and this question was later dropped from the form.

The Rider College archivist retired in 1984 and I offered to host the meetings at ETS, which had a fine conference room, Lounge A, that was unused after office hours. Meetings began there on October 10, 1984, when I gave a talk on my research on the effects of photocopying on modern photographs. PPG continued to meet at ETS regularly until 1999, although we sometimes met at other places, as indicated in the list of meetings on our website. After I left ETS in 1993, Timothy S. Corlis, my colleague at the ETS Archives, enabled PPG to continue meeting there. When he left ETS to work at Alexander Library, meetings began rotating among several locations, including at Rutgers and the Monmouth County Library, where I started working in 1994. There were also meetings that were actually tours, including at the New Jersey State Police Museum, Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial, the ReCap library storage facility in Princeton, and the Conservation Department at Firestone Library, Princeton University.

In the early 1990s, Christopher Bannister, a photographer in Hopewell who did duplication of old photographs, served as PPG Treasurer. Several other people served as Treasurer after Chris, including me from 1995 to 2005. Later, Jacqueline Haun, Lawrenceville School Archivist, served as Treasurer. After she stepped down, I became Treasurer again in addition to my other PPG responsibilities.

In the fall of 1996, Susan went on a trip to China to attend IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions). She contracted a virus and had to be hospitalized upon her return. A few days later, she died of pneumonia. Her death was both a shock and a huge loss to the preservation community. PPG was not the same after Susan was gone but it has succeeded in staying afloat. Betty Steckman, then preservation specialist at the New Jersey State Library, became the new PPG Convener/President, with Tim Corlis as Vice President, me as Treasurer, and Susan Lunas of the East Brunswick Public Library as Secretary. Mary Ann Kiernan of the Monmouth County Archives agreed to maintain the membership database, Eileen Meyer Sklar, then at the Plainfield Public Library, took responsibility for finding speakers, and Bonita Craft Grant of Rutgers Special Collections was in charge of refreshments. In 1997, PPG had 65 members.

All went well initially but in the early 2000s, there was a lack of energy in PPG and no meetings were held in 2001 and 2002. With no programs, membership declined significantly. I became a member of a PPG Program Committee in 2003 to keep the organization going. The others were Lynn Livingston at Rider College and Chrys Jochem at the Morristown and Morris Township Public Library. Meetings were held in various places around the state, especially Alexander Library, the Bunn Library at the Lawrenceville School, and the Monmouth County Library. In 2005, I became PPG President as no one else seemed interested in the job and Tim Corlis continued as Vice President. Thereafter, Tim and I planned most of the meetings. In 2010 and 2013, PPG programs included full-day workshops conducted by William P. Lull on topics related to environmental controls for archives, libraries, and museums. PPG met several times from 2017 to 2019 at the Princeton Theological Seminary, hosted by Library Director Evelyn Frangakis, one of Susan Swartzburg’s former students.

The next major change in the history of PPG occurred with the COVID-19 Pandemic that began to have a big impact in March 2020. After its last in-person meeting in February 2020, PPG did not meet again until June 2021, when it began to hold presentations live stream via Zoom. Melissa Ziobro, professor of public history at Monmouth University, became the meeting coordinator and facilitated the online programs. Alexandra DeAngelis, currently at the Bucks County Historical Society, took on the task of keeping the email list current and sending out the announcements. PPG went back to its origins and began inviting students to give presentations under the title, “Susan G. Swartzburg Memorial Lecture.” PPG also continued to host mature professionals for some of its lectures. With the speaker’s permission, sessions are recorded and posted on You-Tube. Some of the speakers and attendees at the Zoom meetings have been international and attendance has increased substantially.

As of May 2025, PPG has held 154 meetings on a wide variety of topics since 1983. The organization continues to provide educational programs of interest for those interested in the preservation of cultural materials.

May 5, 2025

The author expresses his appreciation to Tim Corlis for editorial suggestions on this memoir.