Dominique Jean-Louis testifies on conservation needs

Good afternoon.

My name is Dominique Jean-Louis.

I'm chief historian of the Center for Brooklyn History.

I'll do my best to keep my remarks very brief.

You heard earlier from Roberta Pereira that we're in the business of forever, but I want to underscore that we don't have forever to fulfill our duty to the history of New York City and at the Center for Brooklyn History, specifically Brooklyn.

When I first began researching Brooklyn in the 1970s and listening to oral history tapes, I remember being reminded that these cassette tapes have a shelf life of 30 to 50 years, and they were reaching the end of their viability.

That was 15 years ago.

The materials in our collection, we do our best to preserve, but we currently don't have a conservation budget, meaning that even if we had the money to digitize everything in our collection, there are certain items that won't

be able to be digitized just because of wear and tear and the passage of time.

So our financial needs are not just prevalent, they're urgent.

We don't have the ability to wait forever to be able to expand the access to our collection.

And I just want to make one more point about the importance of conservation and the lack of a conservation budget.

Stacey just mentioned the New York City draft riots, the largest civil disturbance in United States history.

We hold in our collection an important piece of that history, a rope used to lynch a black man during that collection.

We are forced to choose between seeking out private money, grant money, if we're able to get it, or leaving that important piece of history tucked away in storage.

We don't have the ability to share everything we have because of the limitations of that conservation.

So our impact is immense, as you've heard, but also the need is also immense, and the need is urgent.

Left to wait, we won't be able to preserve this history for the future.

Thank you.