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CHICAGO - During Preservation Week, libraries will be raising awareness of the role they play in providing preservation education and information.

Sponsored by Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures, a division of the ¾«¶«´«Ã½, and held annually during the last week in April, Preservation Week highlights the importance of preserving personal, family and community collections. A treasure trove of uncounted additional items is held by individuals, families, and communities. These include books, manuscripts, photographs, prints and drawings, as well as maps, textiles, paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, and furniture.

It will also call attention to library, museum and archive collections. U.S. institutions hold billions of items.

The 2022 Preservation Week theme is "Preservation in the Face of Climate Change." Celebrating the concept of climate resiliency, Preservation Week 2022 will highlight the effects of climate change on our shared cultural heritage materials. The papers, photographs, ephemera and other materials held by both institutions and individuals can be integral to telling the story of the human impact on the environment. During Preservation Week, we urge libraries, museums, institutions and communities to examine the effects on collections and their keepers, as well as resiliency strategies.

This year's honorary chair is Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of the Brooklyn-based Latinx community organization UPROSE. An internationally recognized Puerto Rican attorney and environmental and climate justice leader of African and Indigenous ancestry, she is a fierce advocate and trailblazer for community organizing around just, sustainable development, environmental justice, and community-led climate adaptation.

Sustainability will be a major theme of this year's Preservation Week. Highlights of this year's event include two webinars, "How to Implement Sustainability in Your Facility," from 1- 2 p.m. on Tuesday, April 26, and "Digital Preservation's Impact on the Environment."

For media inquiries, please contact Steve Zalusky, communications specialist, at (312) 280-1546 or szalusky@ala.org.

For more information, visit or the Preservation Week press kit.