Less is more or more is more? Does access equal preservation?

The article is written in a lively opinionated tone, building an argument with each additional paragraph. This makes reading 30 pages of tightly spaced text, which could otherwise be an excruciatingly boring experience, go pretty fast.

To me, the issue of traditional preservation transitioning into a more access-oriented approach is an issue that begs for the middle ground, where both sides of the argument are presented along with the possible consequences of going in the direction of either extreme. But that might not have made for a very exciting article to read. Reactionary/revolutionary rhetoric of a bold vociferous minority speaking out against a less than lucid majority of old-timers is much more attractive on the page. Then again, "reactionary" might be an overstatement, we are talking about archives, the God's sake!

We all know what brittle, crumbling documents, punctured by rusty paper clips, look and feel like - they are unusable for research. So, in about 20 years most of the documents that had not received preventative preservation treatment, like refoldering and staple removal, are going to be extremely difficult for researchers to access. Just as gigantic backlogs are a consequence of inefficient processing practices, so is document deterioration and eventual disintegration a consequence of foregoing preservation treatment.

If broad quick description procedures, which target the maximum number of collections, are given priority over preventative conservation processing, then the researchers of today are significantly favored over the researchers of 20 years from now. The contemporary papers, plastics, transparencies, films and inks are usually of poor quality, permanence was not a goal in their production. These materials degrade quickly and in unpredictable ways, so they need all the preservation help that they can get.

I agree that archivists need to respond to the needs of the public in terms of access. It is a scary thought that if material is not available and is not described, it might as well be dead. But it seems unwise, to say the least, to abandon preservation efforts in order to increase descriptive processing productivity. The middle ground of balance and compromise has to be reached by each specific institution, taking into consideration their budget, their collection type and use, the mission of their institution and the core institutional beliefs. There is a great potential for variability of policies that may (and should, I think) be allowed to exist.

Mass Deacidification Initiative at New York University Libraries

It seems that New York University's Preservation division is following the same guidelines in their selection process as mentioned in the Pilette article.

NYU Libraries Link: http://library.nyu.edu/preservation/deacid/massdeacid.html

The books selected for deacidification must have flexible paper, most of the paper should not be coated or glossy, pH of the paper surface must be below 7, as indicated by a pH testing pen, and the bindings must be structurally strong. The policy is also to add a notation to each deacidified book's MARK record, entered into field 583:

$a mass deacidified $c 2007 $i MgO $2spt $5

The selection process and the records keeping system appears to be in complete agreement with the criteria offered by Pilette. The website article on mass deacidification on the NYU Libraries website is informative and to the point. The collection that was most recently selected for mass deacidification was the Russian literature collection. Although the rationale for this choice is not explained in the article, I could see a few reasons why this choice might have been made.

From what I know of Russian literature books (having grown up in Russia and having checked out more than one university library Slavic collection), the textblocks are typically made from medium-to-low quality paper that is a few grades above newsprint. The bindings and textblock quality for books published during the Soviet era are pretty high, as compared with contemporary bindings from the Middle East and from India. Nice cloth bindings with high quality textblocks and attractive, artistic illustrations are no longer produced in Russia. The books one can buy in Russia right now for a reasonable price are of much poorer quality and tend to be somewhat gaudy in the design department. It makes sense that there is a desire to preserve the older Russian literature volumes in usable condition for as long as possible, as replacing them would be very difficult.

It would be interesting to find out what kind of circulation demands exist for these books, as it is not mentioned in the article whether this collection is popular among the student body.

The article's authors are very confident about the benefits of deacidification (which would make sense, since this is a part of their preservation policy), and unequivocally state the following:

"An alkaline buffer neutralizes acids in the paper raising the pH to a range of 7.5 to 9.5 and leaving a buffer that is equivalent to about 1% by weight calcium carbonate. The process leaves no noticeable odor and independent testing has shown it to be a non-carcinogenic process. "

From reading up on deacidification, or just hearing differing opinions among conservators and preservation administrators, it seems that deacidification can be seen as a problematic mass treatment, which often creates side effects and leaves residues. The benefits of deacidification are difficult to quantify and trace through time, and the ambiguous nature of the treatment is not imparted in the NYU web description in any way.

First Impressions: first site visit at PCL Middle Eastern circulating collections

During our ffist visit with Roberta Dougherty (Robin), the Middle Eastern Collections librarian at PCL, we talked briefly about the history of the collection, where the various parts of the overall collection were located and specifically about the group of volumes housed on the 5th floor of

We started the visit in Robin's office area on the 3rd floor. There was a range of volumes there that she has recently received and was in the process of cataloging. Robin took this opportunity to introduce us to the types of bindings that were present in the collection. It quickly became clear that her main interest regarding the preservation assessment of the collection was to find out more about how the different classes of bindings fared over time and how they compared to each other in terms of the longevity of the materials they were made from.

The bindings in the collection can be divided into roughly 5 categories, each one representing unique structural and stylistic features. Some of the materials used in the bindings, like covering material and type of textblock paper, are shared between the categories, while others are particular to one specific category of bindings.

Even though the collection is a circulating one, damage from use was not the main concern, as most volumes do not get checked out very often. Taking into consideration the needs of the custodian, the defining features of the collection and the profile of use, we decided that it made sense to focus on the integrity and inherent vice of the materials in the various binding types, as well as the quality and structure of the bindings.

Below are the five types of bindings that we would like to examine in the course of the survey. There are volume in the Middle Eastern book collection that fall in between the categories specified, but most of the books fit one of these types. For the sake of keeping things simple, we decided that 5 categories was as much as we could deal with given our relative inexperience and the time allotted for the project.

1. Original binding=Books still in their original, unaltered Middle Eastern bindings.

2. Black and gold bindings = Books rebound by a contracted bindery in Egypt. Bindings are typically covered in black synthetic leather with raised bands and minimal gold tooling.

3. Library of Congress bindings = Books rebound by the Library of Congress.

4. Older bindings = Books bound in a quarter style binding with raised bands and minimal gold tooling usually on the spine. These books were usually bound in an earlier time period than the rest of the collection.

5. High-end bindings = Contemporary decorative bindings which feature gold embellishment and colorful covering material. These binding styles are typically found on religious or important editions of literary works.

Middle Eastern Book Collection-PCL

Management of Preservation Programs
Spring 2009
Sonya Issaeva & Kathy Lechuga


Letter of Commitment


As a part of the INF 392G Management of Preservation Programs course at the Kilgarlin Center, University of Texas at Austin, students are required to conduct a preservation assessment survey of a collection. The Middle Eastern Collection at the Perry Casteñeda Library was assigned to us by our instructor Dr. Maria Esteva. After meeting with the Middle Eastern Collection librarian Roberta Dougherty we decided that it would be appropriate to focus on modern and contemporary literary works housed on the sixth floor of the PCL building.

In this preservation assessment we will examine deterioration patterns of primary and secondary bindings. The binding types will be subdivided into five specific categories: original bindings, volumes rebound by a contracted Middle Eastern binder, older Library of Congress secondary bindings, high-end religious and literary set bindings, and volumes rebound earlier with false raised bands. Another binding category may be added after more careful examination of the collection. Within these sub-categories we will be looking at and documenting various aspects of damage and deterioration of paper, text block condition, and binding condition.

We will be working on site on the sixth floor of the PCL building during the course of several Saturday afternoons, gathering information for the survey and eventually conducting the survey, when our project design is complete. The preservation assessment document will be delivered on May 5th, 2009.The document will include a discussion of our observations regarding the preservation-related issues and possible needs within the collection, a summary of data gathered in the survey of volumes, our conclusions and possible recommendations.

We look forward to working with the Middle Eastern Collections material at the Perry Casteñeda Library and will maintain communication via email with the custodian of the collection, Roberta Dougherty, while working on the preservation assessment document. We would like to thank Roberta Dougherty for meeting with us on February 2nd, 2009 to answer our initial questions about the collection and for answering additional questions via email. She has provided extensive information on the types of bindings included in the Middle Eastern Collection, the overall profile of the collection and the pattern of patron use. She openly shared her preferences for what kind of information, mined by the survey, would be useful to her as the custodian of this collection. Without her input and guidance we would not be able to conduct this preservation assessment.

Sincerely,

Sonya Issaeva and Kathy Lechuga