Preservation of meaning

Preservation of meaning in library, archival or museum collections involves understanding spiritual, ritual, or cultural perceptions of value for specific objects, and ensuring these values are maintained and respected. Meaning is something assigned to objects of cultural or spiritual significance based on interpretations and perceived values by user populations, a process known as social construction of an object (Barker, 77). When moved to memory institutions such as libraries or museums, these objects of social construction require unique approaches to preservation and maintenance in order to remain relevant as representations of cultural or spiritual societies.

In many memory institutions of the Western World, including libraries and museums, focus is often placed on the informational content and physical attributes, or artifactual value, of collected materials. Preservation policies are primarily concerned with the maintenance of these two things, either through reformatting to preserve textual information, or repairs and environmental controls to ensure continued existence of their physical structure (Foot, 19). However, it is necessary to look beyond the physical and informational aspects of objects in order to ensure we are also preserving the integrity of the spiritual or cultural values which may be fundamental in defining the object.

Concerns arise when actions taken to preserve the physical object may compromise the spiritual or cultural integrity of a given object. Artifacts, including books, throughout history and the present were created and utilized according to rules and taboos that may not be inherently understood in today's world of mass consumer goods and material culture. While not all books, documents, and artifacts have rituals or socially constructed beliefs associated with their continued existence, it is a relevant issue for many cultural and religious collections.

An extreme example of how efforts to physically preserve may compromise the socially constructed meaning of the object is the Shinto Shrines of Ise Jingu, in Japan (Maré, 2004). These shrines are of significant cultural and spiritual value to the Japanese people, but every twenty years since the time of Emperor Temmu in the 7th century C.E. the buildings are completely destroyed and rebuilt. The rebuilding process is based on descriptions in the Documents on the rituals of the Great Shrine of Ise which dates from 804 C.E. and ensures that the recreations are exact replicas of the shrines taken down. Physical preservation of these monuments would damage the spiritual and cultural integrity of the process and purpose behind the continuous rebuilding.

Similarly, in the Buddhist faith, materials are considered to have a life, which must be allowed to progress and end naturally. Impermanence (anitya) in the Buddhist faith relates to the natural end of all things, nirvana, and acts of physical preservation would be contrary to this belief (Karlström).

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