MacDonald Curator of Preservation

Charles MacDonald, W'81 wanted to make a lasting impact on the Penn Libraries for generations to come, so he provided a gift to create a new position in the Libraries — the MacDonald Curatorship for Preservation.

Previously, the Penn Libraries had relied on outsourcing for much of its preservation needs. As collections continued to grow and information formats evolved, the need for professional, in-house staff to oversee the work of preservation became critical. The MacDonald Curator develops and implement a total preservation plan for all the Libraries' resources: books, CDs, DVDs, rare manuscripts, and our growing digital collections. These items number in the millions!

Says MacDonald, "I have a long-standing interest in the preservation of original source documents. I feel it is important to have them available for future use by scholars."