"Appendix 2: the Acidic and Brittle Paper Problem and Its Solutions" in "Preserving Harvard's Retrospective Collections"
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The Preservation Evolution a Review of Preservation Literature, 1999–2001
47(2) LRTS 59 The Preservation Evolution A Review of Preservation Literature, 1999–2001 JeanAnn Croft The literature representing 1999 to 2001 reveals that the preservation field is absorbed in an evolution. The literature demonstrates that trusted practices are changing to improve outcomes and further advance the preservation field. Simultaneously, in the wake of the digital revolution, preservation professionals dream about merging traditional and digital technologies in the hope that both long-term preservation and enhanced access will be achieved. This article attempts to relate the values of the discipline in order to inspire further research and persuade more work in formulating hypotheses to integrate preservation the- ory and practice. Finally, this overview of the literature will communicate the scope of the preservation problem, clarify misconceptions in the field, and docu- ment areas that warrant further investigation and refinement. he literature representing 1999 to 2001 reveals that the preservation field is Tcontinually absorbed in an evolution. This literature review examines the trends and customs of the preservation field as documented in the literature, and attempts to relate the values of the discipline in order to inspire further research and persuade more work in formulating hypotheses to integrate preservation theory and practice. Finally, this depiction of the literature will communicate the scope of the preservation problem, clarify misconceptions in the field, and document areas that warrant further investigation and refinement. Following up the preceding preservation literature reviews that have been pub- lished in this journal, this work provides a sampling of the preservation litera- ture and will not include book reviews, annual reports, preservation project announcements, technical leaflets, and strictly specialized conservation litera- ture. -
JAIC , Volume 39, Number 3, Article 1 (Pp
Paper Splitting: History and Modern Technology The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. Citation Brückle, Irene and Jana Dambrogio. "Paper Splitting: History and Modern Technology." Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, 39.3 (2000). As Published http://cool.conservation-us.org/jaic/articles/ jaic39-03-001_indx.html Version Final published version Citable link http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120743 Terms of Use Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. JAIC , Volume 39, Number 3, Article 1 (pp. to ) 28/10/2013 22:52 JAIC , Volume 39, Number 3, Article 1 (pp. to ) PAPER SPLITTING: HISTORY AND MODERN TECHNOLOGY IRENE BRÜCKLE, & JANA DAMBROGIO ABSTRACT—ABSTRACT—In the 19th century, restorers used paper splitting to separate recto and verso of double-sided prints or drawings. Today, the treatment is employed for strengthening weakened paper. Two German conservation centers are chiefly responsible for the development of the process to its current level of sophistication: over the course of more than 30 years, Günter Müller at the Thuringian University and State Library at Jena perfected manual paper splitting; over the same time period, Wolfgang Wächter, now at the Zentrum für Bucherhaltung in Leipzig, developed the paper- splitting machine. We outline the history of paper splitting and describe the contemporary processes from firsthand observations and interviews with the conservators at Jena and Leipzig. Technical evaluations of contemporary paper splitting are summarized, and some observations on objects that were split for the authors are documented (a 19th-century newspaper page, a 17th-century document written in iron gall ink, 17th-century book leaves). -
Mass Deacidification of Library and Archive Materials
Columbia University Libraries Mass Deacidification of Library and Archive Materials Final Report to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation September 2009 Principal Investigator: James G. Neal Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian Columbia University 535 West 114th Street New York, New York 10027 212.854.2247 Grant Period: May 1, 2008-July 31, 2009 Reporting Period: May 1, 2008-July 31, 2009 Mass Deacidification of Library and Archive Materials Final Report to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Columbia University Libraries received an award of $27,500 in April 2008 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a survey and report of the need for the deacidification of newly acquired print volumes in major research libraries. The study group included members from CUR, NYU, Yale, and the Mellon Foundation. In March 2009, the Mellon Foundation approved a no-cost extension through July 31, 2009 to host the originally scheduled March planning meeting in April and to allow additional time for the university's account department to process and pay all expenses charged to the grant. The result is the attached report, Mass Deacidifcation: The Needfor a National Program. The principal investigator, Jim Neal, and Columbia's Offce of the Controller worked together to complete the Financial Report, which was signed and submitted directly from the Office of the Controller. As indicated in the Financial Report, this grant was underspent by $6,647 (including interest income of $198), primarily due to significant savings in travel costs. A check in the amount of $6,647 wil be refunded to the Mellon Foundation. -
MUSEUM ARCHIVIST Is Issued Twice a Year by the Museum Archives Section of the Society of American Archivists
MMuusseeuumm AArrcchhiivviisstt Newsletter of the Museum Archives Section Society of American Archivists Volume 16, Issue 1 February 2002 FROM THE CHAIR Dear Section Members: The Museum Archives Section has had a dynamic year, and the following report submitted to SAA Director Susan Fox will show you the length and breadth of our activities. -------------------------- ANNUAL REPORT 2001 Museum Archives Manual At our annual meeting in DC in August (64 members attended), the Archives Manual Committee reported that the second edition should be in press some time next year. A general call for forms and other examples for the Manual's Resource Guide was held. Chapter authors also met in DC for an editorial consultation. Editorial duties have now passed to Deborah Wythe at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Many thanks to Ann Marie Przybyla for her hard work on the volume. Ann Marie will continue work as a contributor. Laurie Baty of the Publications Committee reported that the section had been given a publication deadline extension to March 2002. (Continued on page 3) Inside This Issue: • SECTION BUSINESS Pages 1-12 • NEWS, NOTES, & ANNOUNCEMENTS Pages 13-15 • EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES Pages 16-19 • CAREER OPPORTUNITIES Pages 20-26 MUSEUM ARCHIVIST is issued twice a year by the Museum Archives Section of the Society of American Archivists. News items, letters to the editor, and comments from the archives community are welcome. An online version of this newsletter is also available (see page 4 for details). Deadlines for submissions are the 1st of June and the 1st of December. Please send all submissions to the newsletter editor, Sammie Morris, at [email protected]. -
CONNECTING to COLLECTIONS PENNSYLVANIA a Five-Year Preservation Plan for Pennsylvania PROJECT OVERVIEW
CONNECTING TO COLLECTIONS PENNSYLVANIA a five-year preservation plan for Pennsylvania PROJECT OVERVIEW Imagining Our Future: Preserving Pennsylvania’s Collections, published in August 2009, includes an in-depth analysis of conditions and needs at Pennsylvania’s collecting institutions, a detailed preservation plan to improve collections care throughout the state, and a five-year implementation timetable (2010-2015). The analysis concludes that many of Pennsylvania’s most important historic holdings must be considered at risk. Millions of items comprise these collections, and the financial resources available to care for them are limited and shrinking. Pennsylvania is a state vibrant with world-class art museums, libraries, historic sites. Arts and culture play a substantial role in creating business, jobs, and bringing revenue into the state and stewardship of its artifacts is too important —to the state, to the people, to the history of country—to be ignored. This call to action is a rallying cry for all future generations of Pennsylvanians. With generous support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and in close partnership with three leading preservation organizations, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC), the Pennsylvania Federation of Museums and Historical Organizations (PFMHO), and LYRASIS, the Conservation Center for Arts & Historic Artifacts organized and led the assessment and planning process. The project was capably guided by a Task Force with representatives from the Office of (PA) Commonwealth Libraries, the Western Pennsylvania Museum Council, the Pennsylvania Caucus of the Mid- Atlantic Regional Archives Conference, Pennsylvania State University, the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries, the University of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University. -
Master Plan for the Preservation of and Access to Hingham' S Historical Collections
Master Plan for the Preservation of and Access to Hingham’ s Historical Collections December 2010 Cynthia G. Swank, CA, CRM Peter J. Parker INLOOK GROUP Table of Contents Introduction.......................................................1 Master Plan Summary..............................................3 Hingham History Hub.........................................5 Archives and Records Management Services [ARMS]. 7 Funding and Estimated Costs. .................................9 Comments about Summary of Recommendations and Work Plans. 1 1 Table 1 Summary of Recommendations & Participants’ Involvement.. 1 2 Table 2 Work Plan - Hingham Historical Society. 1 8 Table 3 Work Plan - Hingham Public Library. 2 1 Table 4 Work Plan - Hingham Town Clerk, Historical Commission / Historical Districts Commission, School Department. 2 5 Approximate Costs - Detail.........................................3 0 Federal Grant Funding Agencies....................................3 3 Federal Grants for Similar Projects in Massachusetts or Nearby States. ..............................................3 7 Similar Efforts in Other Municipalities. 5 7 Master Plan for the Preservation of and Access to Hingham’s Historical Collections Introduction In 2008 the Hingham Public Library and Hingham Historical Society began a planning effort to ensure the preservation of and access to their collections of historical materials. With the encouragement of the Board of Selectmen, three other participants with significant holdings and interest in the project joined the effort: -
IAQ2010 Th 9 Indoor Air Quality Meeting
IAQ2010 th 9 Indoor Air Quality meeting Chalon-sur-Saône, France 21-23 April 2010 2 Foreword The art and science of conservation We are proud and happy to have been chosen as the location for this 9th edition of the international conference of the IAQ Working Group - IAQ2010 which is taking place in France for the first time. Burgundy is a region which is famous for its heritage, its gastronomy, its wine production and its bucolic landscapes. All in all, a land which invites discovery. Chalon-sur-Saône has all of these. Our town has a strategic geographical position, a past punctuated by illustrious events and personalities, who contributed to a fascinating history. The birthplace of photography, we are quite naturally creating a centre of Higher Education and Research and Development geared towards new technologies of image and sound. We are favouring the establishment of businesses in the forefront of these areas which offer high added value. Conscious of the importance of the links with our cultural and historical past, our policy is to wish to prevent long-term degradation. Safeguarding our heritage is a major challenge for us all. Let us not forget that it constitutes the material of history for future generations. In a way, we are its guardians. By your work you are today contributing to conserve this heritage, to be able to pass it on for tomorrow. To this end you have chosen to work together to share, to make the most of your experience and your knowledge. IAQ is a positive and interactive coming together which is absolutely necessary when we know the irreversible damage which an inadequate environment can cause on collections, objects, works of art, archives or any historic building. -
CLR and Preservation
NANCY E. GWINN CLR and Preservation The deterioration of library materials has become an increasingly critical problem . Many of the programs devoted to finding solutions during the last twenty-five years have been sponsored by the Council on Library Resources (CLR), a private, operating foundation. CLR grants supported chemical. and applied research in the causes of paper deterioration, helped to establish conservation laboratories, and supported development of new equipment and tests. CLR also has assisted in attempts to establish cooperative pres ervation programs and to spell out a national strategy. Recent events show a heightened awareness of the problem; several new programs and promise of increased funding give hope for the future. IN A FULL-PAGE COLOR PHOTOGRAPH in the remains. "2 It persists because the deteriora April 1980 issue of Smithsonian magazine, tion is passive, largely unnoticed by the li Library of Congress restoration officer Peter brary user until a book or journal is re Waters stands enveloped in a shower of quested and the pages begin to crumble in paper fragments, the remains of a scholarly the hand. work blown from his open hand by a puff of Much of what has been accomplished in exhaled air. No more dramatic testimony is the last quarter of a century has been made needed to illustrate the danger the United possible through an array of grants fur States is in "of losing its mind. " 1 The his nished and programs administered by the tory of why millions of books, journals, Council on Library Resources, Inc. (CLR), manuscripts, and other paperbound records an independent, private, operating founda of our cultural and intellectual inheritance tion established in 1956 by the F6rd Founda are deteriorating has been carefully tion. -
Book Preservation Technologies (Part 3 Of
Introduction PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY Millions of books at the Library of Congress and other libraries around the world are deteriorating. What Is The Library of Congress? Many books published since the mid- 1800s are cur- ● The largest center for information storage in the rently, or will soon become, too fragile to handle. world. The paper these books are written on becomes brittle ● Collections include 19 million volumes and 58 over time and crumbles. The primary cause of this million pieces of stored data on phonograph deterioration is acid. Chemicals used in the manu- records, motion picture reels, computer tapes, facture of paper from wood pulp, which stay in the manuscripts, maps, prints, and photographs. paper, convert to a variety of acids and slowly de- ● Three Canons of Selection established in the stroy the strength of the paper’s fibers over time. 1940s to define the collections: —materials necessary to the Congress and to Other factors such as oxidation, varying or extreme the U.S. Government officers in performance temperature and humidity, exposure to light, air of their duties; pollutants in storage areas, and the amount of use —materials that express and record the life and also contribute to the destruction of the books. achievements of the people of the United States; and The Library of Congress has been working to —records of other societies and peoples, espe- solve the problem of acid paper in books since the cially those of most immediate concern to the early 1970s, developing a mass deacidification proc- people of the United States. ess that would inhibit the deterioration of book pa- ● Less than 25 percent of the collection is in per. -
Preservation in the Digital Age a Review of Preservation Literature, 2009–10
56(1) LRTS 25 Preservation in the Digital Age A Review of Preservation Literature, 2009–10 Karen F. Gracy and Miriam B. Kahn This paper surveys research and professional literature on preservation-related topics published in 2009 and 2010, identifies key contributions to the field in peri- odicals, monographs, and research reports, and provides a guide to the changing landscape of preservation in the digital age. The authors have organized the reviewed literature into five major areas of interest: tensions in preservation work as libraries embrace digital resources, mass digitization and its effects on collec- tions, risk management and disaster response, digital preservation and curation, and education for preservation in the digital age. his review article critically examines the literature of preservation published T during a two-year period, 2009–10. Almost a decade has passed since the last review of the preservation literature appeared in Library Resources and Technical Services, covering the period of 1999–2001.1 In the interim, the evolu- tion of the preservation field noted by Croft has accelerated, encompassing whole areas of practice that were in their infancy at the turn of the twenty-first century. In her review, Croft identified ten areas of emphasis in the literature: clarifying preservation misconceptions triggered by the publication of Nicholson Baker’s Double Fold; the continued importance of the artifact in the wake of new digital reformatting technologies; remote storage; mass deacidification; physical treat- ment -
Brittle Paper
2/2/2016 preservationhistory Brittle Paper Brittle Paper (/Brittle+Paper) Edit 0 (/Brittle+Paper#discussion) 11 (/page/history/Brittle+Paper) … (/page/menu/Brittle+Paper) Brittle Books, Bad Paper The “brittle book” phenomenon has been one of the main preoccupations of preservationists and conservationists since the 1930s, but it has roots far deeper. Resulting from changes in papermaking that developed in the modern era, papers containing the (acidic) cause of their own early demise worried librarians and book lovers alike. Many of the preservation trends of the 20th century have emerged in response to the “inherent vice” of papers produced from the 1850s through the 1950s Why this paper crisis developed and how the library community has attempted to deal with the consequences of acidic paper is the subject of this section. Papermaking and the Creation of Acidic Paper In order to understand why brittle paper became such an issue of concern to preservationists, it is essential to learn a few basics about the papermaking process and how it has changed over time. Certain kinds of paper do not present serious or specific conservation issues because the processes used to produce them have created a relatively stable paper. The major concerns of preservationminded librarians developed out of paper produced beginning in the 1850s (approximately), which were created using chemicals and processes that contain the seeds of embrittlement and can greatly shorten the life of documents printed on them. The cellulose content of paper and the chemicals used to process it have much to do with how well the paper ages and how long it remains in good, usable condition. -
Mass Deacidification: a Preservation Option for Libraries
World Library and Information Congress: 69th IFLA General Conference and Council 1-9 August 2003, Berlin Code Number: 030-E Meeting: 100. Preservation and Conservation Simultaneous Interpretation: - Mass Deacidification: a Preservation Option for Libraries Roberta Pilette Yale University Libraries Yale University New Haven, USA Abstract: The library and archive worlds are inundated with acidic paper. Institutions have been trying to ensure the long-term preservation of items on acidic paper for years. Now there are dependable, effective, reasonably priced commercial vendors that can neutralize the acids without time consuming and limiting selection criteria. But how to chose where to start and what to send? This paper outlines the physical selection criteria being used by most institutions in the United States sending materials to a commercial vendor for mass deacidification. Discusses different approaches in how to select where to start deacidifying in a large collection and what other workflow issues must be considered when including mass deacidification as another preservation tool in preserving our cultural heritages. The library and archive worlds are inundated with acidic paper. While it is true that many areas of the world have made great strides in producing alkaline paper, there are still many other areas that are producing paper that would not be considered a good choice for permanence. Ultimately this acidic paper becomes brittle and unusable. Unfortunately this acidic paper has been and is used in a wide variety of materials that libraries have acquired in the past, are still acquiring, and will continue to acquire into the future. All acidic papers do not become brittle at the same rate, but it is know that even the most flexible and whitest of these papers left in an acidic state will deteriorate and become brittle.