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.