Preservation of Methuen City Records

FAIN: PG-50229-08

City of Methuen (Methuen, MA 01844-3179)
Tina Touma-Conway (Project Director: May 2007 to March 2010)

A general preservation assessment and staff training in the care and handling of documents. The City of Methuen's archive of public records includes town meeting proceedings; tax lists; police reports; voter registrars; birth, death and marriage records; assessor's records; treasurer's records; deeds; annual reports; resolutions; atlases; school site plans; and a set of the Massachusetts Acts and Resolves dating from the town's inception in 1726 through the early twentieth century.

The City of Methuen proposes to use a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to undertake a city records preservation initiative that will include the following activities: 1. Performance of a preservation needs survey by the Northeast Document Conservation Center; and 2. Staff training in document care practice. In March 2006 the Mayor of Methuen appointed a commission to inventory, assess environmental conditions, and recommend appropriate housing for the city's heritage documents, including public records, archives and the museum collection. The proposed preservation assessment of the city's paper-based public records is an essential component of the initiative that will help ensure that the city's irreplaceable documents are apropriately housed and preserved.