Education

  • Bachelor of Arts, BAENGL, Evergreen State College
  • Master of Library Science, MLS, Brigham Young University

Biography

Randy Silverman, Preservation Librarian at the University of Utah's Marriott Library, has worked in the field of book conservation since 1978. He holds a Masters degree in Library Science and teaches Preservation as adjunct faculty for Emporia State University (KS), Dominican University (IL), and University of Arizona (AZ). He is a founding member of the Western States Preservation Assistance Service and teaches disaster preparedness workshops throughout Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. He consults broadly, has 84 professional publications, and has presented professional lectures or workshops in 27 U.S. states and 11 countries internationally. He received the American Library Association’s Banks Harris Award in 2013 for “outstanding achievement in the field of preservation,” was selected for a Fulbright Specialists project in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, at Alisher Navoi National Library 2013-2014, and in 2016 received the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters’ Gardner Prize for “outstanding academic contributions.”

Research Summary

Research interests include: strategic methods for preventing damage to cultural property; disaster recovery techniques for library, archive and museum collections; and the history of the book as a physical object.