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Preservation - Everybody's Job


Elizabeth M. Schobernd

The preservation of information is central to the mission of libraries. The contents of libraries represent the cultural and intellectual heritage of the world and their loss would be tragic. Valuable materials must be saved from the ravages of time and use; from the effects of natural and man-made disasters; and from the deterioration of the chemically unstable products from which they are created. Preservation can be defined in many ways. For the purposes of this article, I suggest the following simple and practical definition: "Preservation is the activity that attempts to keep what you want and need for as long as you want or need it."1

In spite of the recognition of the importance of library preservation, very few libraries have full-time preservation personnel, and many do not even have staff for whom preservation activities are part of the job description. What happens in libraries where preservation is technically nobody's job? What should happen, and what can happen with a little effort, is that preservation becomes everybody's job. Even in libraries with full-time preservation staff, the goal is to make everybody aware of preservation needs and to encourage them to become active participants in the care and maintenance of the collection. Library employees handle the materials more often and spend more time in the building than anyone else. What better group is there to take primary responsibility for preservation?

Before accepting responsibility for preservation, there are a few concepts it is essential to understand.

1. Not everything needs to be saved. A library may have six copies of The Old Man and the Sea on its shelves because the local high school teaches it every year in sophomore English. Unless the library owns a first edition or an autographed copy, its primary interest in the book is for informational value. A new copy can be purchased at Barnes and Noble for $6.95. The library's copies of this book do not need to be preserved beyond their normal useful life.

2. Not everything that is old is valuable to the collection. If the library receives an 1880 etiquette book that falls outside its collection development policy and OCLC shows 127 other libraries own it, the library does not have to feel responsible for that book's perpetual care.

3. Preservation can be done by degrees. Any positive effort made is better than making no effort at all. Preservation can be enormously frustrating when undertaken with the hope of quickly fixing years of unsound conservation practice. Start now and move forward with the knowledge that a significant impact may be years ahead.

4. A library cannot afford to ignore preservation. A large portion of a library's budget is spent adding materials to the collection. The funding agency -state, municipal, private - expects that money to be spend wisely and that the materials purchased will be cared for responsibly. And the library has a responsibility to the world of knowledge to maintain the rare or valuable materials that collection may contain.

There is a wealth of literature available on every aspect of preservation. Given the nature of research and the allocation of grant money, much of what has been written was initiated in large libraries - libraries with large collections, large number of staff and large amounts of money. This does not mean that smaller, financially challenged libraries do not have valuable collections in need of preservation programs. Preservation applies to all types of libraries and all types of material. Many preservation concepts are solidly based in common sense and good housekeeping and cost little or nothing to do. There are preservation activities that every library can undertake.

A formal preservation program consists of eight components: environmental control, repair, binding,

* Elizabeth M. Schobernd, Preservation Librarian, Illinois State University, Normal. She can be reached at 309-438-3450 or emschob@ilstu.edu. This article is based on a presentation delivered at the Reaching Forward South conference in Decatur on September 25, 1998.

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reformatting, deacidification, disaster preparedness, education and administration. An examination of these components will demonstrate any library can be proactive in preservation. Realize that ideal conditions or best methods are goal to be striven for, and a library should not stop pursuing these goals even if they are not completely attainable. Working toward good preservation practice is better than not trying at all.

Environmental Control

The single most important thing a library can do for its collection is to give it a good place to live. Material in a clean, safe, stable environment will last a long time. When talking about environmental control, the first thing many people think of is air quality. Unfortunately, the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in many libraries are not designed to provide optimum environmental conditions for collections. The idea temperature and humidity conditions for both humans and library materials are a temperature of 70 degrees, plus or minus five degrees, and a relative humidity of 50 percent, plus or minus five percent. Very few libraries are able to maintain these conditions. The first step is to strive for consistency. A slightly too high temperature or too low humidity that is consistent is less harmful than conditions that fluctuate wildly. Using fans to bring down the temperature, or dehumidifiers, humidifiers or even carefully placed buckets of water to help control the humidity are all measures that can be taken to compensate for inadequate HVAC systems.

The primary condition that needs to be guarded against is high temperature combined with high humidity. These two factors can combine to promote a mold outbreak, every library's worst nightmare. Once mold invades a collection, there is no successful way to kill it. Mold spores become dormant when temperature and humidity return to a normal range, but will reactivate should conditions change. Mold is airborne and will rapidly spread from one book to another, causing stains, odors and, for some people severe allergic reactions. The best way to take care of mold outbreak is to avoid having one in the first place. This can only be done by controlling temperature and humidity.

Fortunately, the library environment is much broader than air quality. It also includes shelving methods, handling practices, protective enclosures and other library routines. Library staff handle materials more than any other group, often teaching others how to do so. How library staff perform their duties can have a direct impact on the longevity of collections. Damage to library materials is incremental; what each person does has minimal effect, but over time the collective impact can be enormous. Applying a few simple guidelines to routine work and to the training of new employees, student assistants and volunteers can have a tremendous positive effect on the longevity of library collections.

1. Develop good handling habits. Actions speak louder than words.

2. Keep food and drink away from materials. Spills and crumbs cause stains and can attract pests.

3. Keep hands clean. Food, ink, hand lotion and body oils can cause damage to materials.

4. Refrain from using tape, sticky notes, rubber bands or paper clips on materials. Tape is hard to get off, sticky notes leave dirt-catching residue, bands and clips cut into book paper.

5. Use acceptable book marks (clean, flat paper), and don't put an open book face down.

6. Handle and carry materials carefully.

7. Handle media by the edges to avoid leaving finger prints that can eat into the surface.

8. Shelve books upright. Shelving on the fore edge is equivalent to forcing a human to stand on his/her hands. If the book is too tall, shelve it on the spine and put the call number elsewhere.

9. Be sure there is adequate room on the shelf. A book shelved too tightly becomes distorted and the cover can be damaged.

10. Use book ends where needed. Leaning books become loose in their cases and can fall off the shelf.

There is a wide range of protective enclosures available that will help prolong the lives of videos, cassette tapes, computer disks, loose leaf or stapled publications, or those books that must be kept but are falling apart and cannot be rebound. Many libraries put media material in plastic boxes before shelving. These containers are a good idea as long as they are mad of one of the three "polys" - polypropylene, polyester and polyethylene. Plastics mad of these components are safe for library materials. The product to be avoided is vinyl. Vinyl lets off gasses over time that can disintegrate media materials, particularly magnetic tapes. Unfortunately, vinyl is the most widely available. Library supply catalogs are beginning to carry "poly" products, so look for them when ordering. When reinforcing or boxing paper materials, be sure to use products that are acid - free. This means the paper or board has been manufactured without using large amounts of

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wood fiber or chemicals that will in time cause the product to self destruct. Custom built boxes give deteriorating books sufficient support to allow them to be shelved in spite of their condition. Several library suppliers sell inexpensive box-making kits. Following even a few of these suggestions will vastly improve a library's environment.

Repair

The next component to be considered is repair. Before making any repairs, stop and think about the individual item's value to the collection. Not all items are of equal value. If the library will discard the item in the near future, do whatever needs to be done to get a few more circulations from it. If it is something the library will keep long term, be more careful about the choice of repair. Chose the least invasive procedure possible.

Few libraries are fortunate enough to have a trained conservator on staff, but there are some repairs that can be made by library staff following certain guidelines. One of the primary rules of conservation treatment is that it be reversible. With that in mind, adhesive tape can be considered one of the worst enemies of library materials. This includes cloth book tape, clear book tape, transparent tape, fiberglass tape, masking tape, strapping tape, duct tape - just about any kind of readily available tape. Everyone has seen what happens when the adhesive on these tapes dries out and lets go, or what happens when one tries to remove the tape. The results can be disastrous. Most libraries have at one time routinely used tape for repairs. Do not spend time in self-recrimination. Just stop the practice, now. There are document repair tapes available in library supply catalogs, as well as alternative repair options that are much less harmful than tape.

Two preventive maintenance measures that can be used greatly extend the useful life of materials, and serve as alternatives to tape. These are "tipping in" pages and "hinge tightening." Tipping in is the process for replacing pages that have fallen out.2 Hinge tightening is done when the end sheet has begun to pull away from the cover at the hinge area.3 A loose hinge is the first step in a problem that eventually results in the book falling out of its case. Directions for performing these repairs are available in any of several conservation manuals.

Binding

Most libraries use the services of a commercial binder to some degree. Some may bind just a few periodical titles, while others may bind all periodicals as well as new paperbacks and large number of worn monographs. The commercial binding budget is probably the library's largest preservation expenditure. There is a wide spectrum of quality available among binders and the careful selection of a commercial binder is critical to the well-being of the collection.

The Library Binding Institute (LBI) is an organization of commercial binders committed to offering high quality products. The preservation community has worked with the LBI for many years. Together, they have standardized the use of acid-free papers and boards, flexible glue and durable cloth, and have developed binding techniques designed to cause the least amount of hard to the original piece. The LBI Standard for Library Binding 4 lays out in great detail the acceptable materials and techniques for commercial binding. The Guide to the Library Binding Institute Standard for Library Binding 5 explains the LBI standards in layman's terms. If a binder is and LBI member or complies with LBI standards, the library can be fairly well assured of an acceptable product. There are always issues of quality to be monitored, even among LBI binders, but using an LBI binder ensures that the materials used in the product are archivally sound.

There are a few additional concepts to remember when preparing items to go to the bindery.

1. Be sure there is at least a 1/2" margin in the gutter. Some of the binding edge during the necessary trimming will be lost.

2. Resist the urge to bind too many periodical issues together to save money. Once a bound volume exceeds 2 1/2" it loses stability, becomes unwiedly and is often too heavy to be handled safely. The bindings frequently fail on these overly thick books, and staff or patrons can be injured if the books fall from a high shelf.

3. A brittle book cannot be rebound. The trimming and sewing processes involved in binding will further damage the paper. If the item must be kept, a custom made enclosure is preferable to rebinding.

Deacidification

Until the first half of the 19th century, paper was largely made from cloth fibers. The fabric content yielded paper that was supple, white and durable. As the demand for paper grew, manufactures looked for ways to make more paper more cheaply. Unfortunately,

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the method settled upon in the early 1800s introduced acid treated wood fiber into the paper making process, and the world has been suffering the effects ever since. Acidic paper turns yellow, becomes brittle and will eventually crumble.

Largely in response to complaints from the preservation community, publishers have begun using acid-free paper more often. Acid-free publications can be identified either by the infinity symbol (a prone figure eight) on the verso of the title page, or by the statement that the book is printed on acid-free paper. The future is looking brighter, but a tremendous amount of acidic paper already exists.

There are deacidification products available that neutralize the acid in paper, but they can be expensive and do nothing to strengthen already damaged paper. A few companies engage in mass deacidification, process that deacidifies large quantities of books in a pressurized vat. A number of research libraries are experimenting with this technology, but it is far from a wide spread practice.

Piece by piece deacidification of pamphlets and single sheets is much more common. Deacidification spray is available in cans for small-scale treatment and used frequently before encapsulation of maps and other flat documents. This may be a good option for some libraries.

Another alternative for controling acid deterioration is to store flat documents between sheets of acid-free paper. The alkalinity in the covering paper will help control the action of the acid in the document and slow down the deterioration processes.

Reformatting

Not all materials can be preserved in their original format. Sometimes the best alternative is to preserve the intellectual content and let go of the artifact. There are several options available for reformatting, and they all have their pros and cons.

The most widely accepted format for the conversion of black and white paper-based materials is microfilm. Microfilm has been around for more than 50 years and has proved to be durable when properly created and stored. Like binding, there are standards for preservation microfilming,6 and not every filming agency follows them. If the library decides to enter into a microfilming project, it will be important to select a microfilm company that follows the standards.

Preservation photocopying is another option for black and white and reformatting. In this process, double-sided photocopies are made, trimmed and bound together to look very similar to the original. Standards for preservation photocopying7 spell out the acceptable way to carry out such a project. In both microfilming and photocopying, the original is usually lost or at least heavily damages, due to the disbinding that must occur to get flat sheets to film or copy. Neither process is suitable for color materials.

Today, digitization is getting the most attention in reformatting technology. With a computer and a scanner, an astoundingly accurate reproduction of a document can be created with fairly faithful color reproduction. There is no question that digitization has a place in the library world, but it is not yet considered a preservation medium. Computer technology simply is not yet stable or durable enough for long-term storage. While scanning is better than losing the information completely, it is not an option to be entered into lightly. One of the advantages to scanning rare and valuable documents is enhancement of availability. The quality of reproduction in digitization is so high that many users are content to view the electronic image rather than insist upon seeing the original. In that sense, digitization serves a valuable preservation purpose.

Disaster Preparedness

A disaster is defined as any unexpected event that damages library materials. The definition allows for a wide range of possibilities, from a spilled cup of coffee on the cataloger's desk to a major fire in the stacks and everything in between. The best disaster strategy is to be prepared. The importance of a disaster preparedness plan cannot be stressed enough. It is also essential to keep it up to date. Phone number for freezer facilities that are closed or for people who no longer work at the library are useless in an emergency situation.

Writing a disaster plan can be an enjoyable and educational experience, and there are so many examples available that it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel. The plans from many institutions are available on the Internet. A library writing a disaster plan may find one or two sample plans that fit its needs and make adaptations.

As with other areas of preservation, much of the rest of disaster preparedness is common sense and housekeeping.

1. Keep floors and aisles clear.

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2. Use electrical appliances and extension cords responsibly.

3. Close windows at the end of the day or when it looks like rain.

4. Be thorough when closing the library. Be sure to check all possible hiding places for would-be vandals or arsonist.

5. Keep windows and roof in good repair.

6. Keep food and drink away from library materials.

7. Know the building. Know where the water runs when the drains back up. Know where the roof is prone to leaking. Know what flows through overhead pipes and where they go. Know where the shut off points are for gas, electricity and water. Know what the building looks like normally so that problems will be obvious.

8. Pay attention. Subconsciously, listen for the sound of water dripping. Know where that suspicious-looking patron is. Watch threatening weather.

Education

No preservation program can be successful without education. All library staff have opportunities to plant the seeds of good preservation habits during the work day. Take advantage of them. One caution, however. Nobody likes a zealot. Polite, well-timed suggestions encourage more preservation advocates than does preaching.

Start by incorporating a few tips on good handling habits into the training of new employees, student assistants and volunteers. At Illinois State University (ISU) the library's Education Committee provides a three-hour training program for all new student assistants. During this class, the preservation librarian teaches a session on materials handling. The students may not remember everything they hear, but they will probably remember the woman who talked to them about the dangers of dumping books trucks and the improper use of ketchup packages as book marks, and they may remember it is important to the library that they handle our materials carefully. Start small and increase awareness activities over time. Remember that the best training tool is a good example.

Bookmarks and signs with positive preservation messages are an effective tatic. There are some of these available commercially, but a library can also create signs of its own. These do not have to be fancy. Photocopies on brightly colored paper work fine. Keep the messages positive. Have a contest in the summer reading program or among library staff. Double contact is made this way. Not only will the winning entries be posted around the building, participants will have had to think about the concept while creating their entries.

Displays are good awareness tools. Use examples of damaged materials, such as coffee stains or dog chews, with statements to encourage proper care of materials. Talk about what it cost they taxpayer to repair or replace damaged items. Highlight some of the techniques the library uses to protect materials, like book jacket covers or video cases.

More ambitious libraries can bring in speakers or offer workshops, either just for the staff or for the general public. Libraries are always looking for something new and different for library week. Try something with a preservation theme.

Administration

The final component of the preservation program is administration. As with any new initiative, preservation needs the support of the library administration. When proposing preservation activities, start with the free and easy activities - little changes in training or shelving practices. Describe the long term benefits to the library, bot aesthetic and financial, that preservation can provide.

Once the director accepts the idea, the rest depends on the structure of the library. Many libraries carry out preservation activities by committee. At ISU the library's Committee developed and ran the preservation program for nearly five years before a full-time preservation librarian was hired. The committee wrote the disaster preparedness plan, recovered a fire, conducted a condition survey, held workshops and mounted displays. All it takes are a few interested people willing to do a little background reading and take on some fun work. Even if one is alone in the preservation effort, there are positive steps to be taken. Teaching someone to shelve carefully, keeping one's coffee cup away form materials, or discovering a leaky pipe, all prevent damage from happening and further the preservation efforts of the library.

Conclusion

Every library can improve its preservation practices. The activities may include only a handful of the suggestions detailed in this article, or may involve the development of an elaborate preservation program. Whatever path a library chooses, the important factor is

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that an effort be made to protect the valuable collections entrusted to its care. Preservation is everybody's job.

Notes

1. Robert DeCandido, "Out of the Question," Conservation Administration News no. 38 (July 1989): 44.

2. John N. DePew, A Library, Media, and Archival Preservation Handbook (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1991. Robert J, Milevski, Book Repair Manual, Carbondale, Ill.: Illinois Cooperative Conservation Program, 1987.

3. Carolyn dark Morrow and Carole Dyal, Conservation Treatment Procedures, 2nd. Ed., Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1986. Robert J. Milevski, Book Repair Manual, Carbondale, Ill.: Illinois Cooperative Conservation Program, 1987.

4. Library Binding Institute Standard for Library Binding, 8th ed., Austin, Tex.: Library Binding Institute, 1986.

5. Jan Merrill-Oldham and Paul Parisi, Guide to the Library Binding Institute Standard for Library Binding, Chicago: American Library Association, 1990.

6. Included among these standards are ANSI PH4.8-1985 American National Standard for Photography (Chemicals )-Residual Thiosulfate and Other Chemicals in Films, Plates, and Papers-Determination and Measurement. These standards are frequently revised and the most current should be consulted before entering into any microfilming agreement.

7. "Guidelines for Preservation Photocopying," Subcommittee on Preservation Photocopying Guidelines, Reproduction of Library Materials Section, Copying Committee, Association for Library Collections & Technical Services. LRTS 38 (3 July 1994); 288-292.

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