Brittle Books Research Articles

Surely, We’ll Need Backups

Abstract For 20 years the U. S. Newspaper and Brittle Books Programs focused national resources on a singular approach to preserving acidic paper in research libraries—converting printed “information” to microfilm. In many cases, the original historical material was discarded in the process. This method failed to address the root problem that could have been solved more effectively and more economically through preventive conservation. Such conservation was ignored because an ulterior motive to the brittle books “crisis” was to establish a national digital library. A serious consequence arising from this subterfuge is that today mid-sized research libraries are not committed to—and perhaps fail to comprehend the importance of—preserving their general collections. Collectively these diverse, paper-based collections represent a huge swath of the nation’s historical record. Falsely believing digital media will make paper obsolete, and motivated by a need to create space in libraries, today’s vigorous weeding for non-rare, paper-based general collections threatens to destroy evidence that will be required for research and future digitization projects. These materials will be needed as backups to accurately regenerate screen copies; as master copies to augment, enhance, or correct faulty screen copies; and, as authentication to verify original production techniques and determine provenance. Without careful coordination and item-level verification, today’s isolated weeding practices could eviscerate American general collections with devastating results for future scholarship, repeating the mistakes of the U. S. Newspaper and Brittle Books Programs.

Double Trouble or More: A Response to Double Fold

Double Fold created shock waves and controversy in the general public and in the library community when it was published early in 2001. In it Nicholson Baker attacks librarians and preservation ad ministrators for what he sees as a failure to protect a part of the cul tural heritage: printed newspapers. He condemns them for selecting microfilming as a preservation method rather than preserving the originals. He expands his criticism to suggest that microfilming brittle books and discarding the originals is unconscionable. He draws a somewhat more positive portrait of library conservators, but his un derstanding of both professions is limited and flawed. On the sur face Baker's criticisms seem fair and logical, but it is regrettable that he chose to work in opposition to rather than in cooperation with those who have the greatest sympathy and understanding of the prob lems he describes. Baker is an extensive researcher, as evidenced by the 257 notes and 19 pages of references at the end of the book. One might guess that most of those sources were originally referenced in a library, perhaps with the assistance of a librarian. One might also speculate that without some of the preservation planning of recent years, some of those sources might not have been available to him. Yet Baker chooses to vilify the very profession that has as its mission to make information, in all its many forms, freely available to all for as long as it is needed.

The preservation of printed music collections in libraries: a review of the literature

A survey of the literature identifies unique challenges relating to preservation of music collections. Historically, preservation of printed music was largely neglected until the mid-19th century. There is evidence that Australian librarians still do not regard preservation of music collections as worthy of high priority. Music librarians encounter preservation problems identical with those of other collections: acidic paper, brittle books, adverse environmental conditions and problematic bindings. To these are added important differences, including international sources of paper, storage and handling, varied formats and sizes, music notation, reformatting methods and performance acceptability. Much of the more recent literature describes successful solutions to some of these problems, and Australian music librarians are urged to work together to raise consciousness of preservation issues.

Lessons Learned in the Trenches: Preservation Microfilming After Thirteen Years

In response to the need for preservation of research materials, the Cornell University Library Department of Preservation and Conservation has been actively replacing brittle books with preservation microfilm.

Mapping the Intersection of Selection and Funding

The question of how libraries can develop a program of systematic funding capable of supporting a sustained digital-reformatting effort and meeting institutional priorities for what should be digitized is not easy to address. While thinking of this earlier in the week, I was also listening to a CD of Stephen Sondheim hits. Ethel Merman's familiar, huge voice belted out tunes from her hit Gypsy, which, as you all know, is based on the life of the famous stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. You gotta have a gimmick,' an older and wiser stripper tells a young Gypsy, if you wanna get ahead. Of course her kind of gimmick-dazzling lights, or even pizazz-is not what libraries are necessarily after. The digital world already has plenty of pizazz. The question is, how can libraries frame or shape programs that will attract funding, whether from external sources or redirected from internal budgets already stretched thin, sufficient to warrant the time and energy required? Are we even ready for systematic funding if it becomes available? And if so, what is our gimmick? Libraries have been down this road before, of course, when they began to look for systematic funding for preservation microfilming. The same question arose of the contention between what foundations and the federal government were interested in preserving and what local institutions saw as their preservation priorities. This conflict was never completely resolved, nor will it be in the new digital world unless the procedures become so easy and the costs so low that external funding support for digital projects is not required. There are no ready answers to these questions. Libraries can be proud of what has been accomplished in the reformatting programs of the last 15 to 20 years, both in terms of the product (over 700,000 rescued brittle books) and raising public support for and awareness of the paper deterioration problem. We should take our success in that arena seriously. It may be instructive to see if experience can provide any ideas that will work in the digital world. Then we can look at what makes the digital world different and what might affect funding and support.

Selecting Microfilm for Digital Preservation: A Case Study from Project Open Book

Project Open Book is Yale University Library’s multiyear, multifaceted study exploring the feasibility of converting preservation microfilm to digital imagery and enhancing both physical and intellectual access to the resulting collection of digital files. Selection is the central intellectual challenge; challenges are outlined from Yale’s case study that will also have bearing on content-oriented selection for digital conversion of books that have been microfilmed in the nation’s Brittle Books Program. The approach outlined here for building a digital library from microfilm of the nation’s most important brittle books places collection managers under the same umbrella with the other parties interested in creating and then preserving the availability of digital resources. The lessons from Project Open Book about selection of microfilm point to very concrete and achievable solutions for everyone involved in preservation microfilming and the digital conversion of that film.

Use-Based Selection for Preservation Microfilming

The national brittle books program and, by extension, the development of a nationally preserved collection have followed a very narrow selection approach that excludes those portions of the nation's research libraries that are used. Sole reliance on the collection-based, or subject-based, approach to preserving brittle books has dominated microfilming activities in the nation's research libraries. Even though use has served historically to trigger other preservation treatments, such as repair, it has become practically extinct as a method of identifying brittle books for preservation microfilming and, thus, contributing to a nationally preserved collection of scholarship. The author questions the sole reliance on the collection-based approach to preserve brittle books and, at the same time, argues for the development of a more coherent strategy for the long-term preservation of brittle, circulating materials.

The strengthening of embrittled books using gamma radiation

The embrittlement of papers, manufactured through processes introduced in the mid-19th century, has caused many millions of books to become fragile, even to the point of being unusable. During the 1980s the British Library funded a research programme, carried out at the University of Surrey, to develop a technology which could be used to treat brittle books on a large scale, with the goal of greatly extending their useful life. The process developed, known as graft co-polymerization, involves three stages:i)application of a cocktail of monomers to the book's pages;ii)equilibration of these monomers throughout the text block;iii)a low, slow dose of γ-radiation to effect polymerization.The work at the University of Surrey studied various combinations of monomers, as well as equilibration times and dose régimes; it also examined the environment necessary to achieve polymerization within the pages of the book, whilst leaving it in an otherwise original condition.In collaboration with the British Library, Nordion International has designed a full-scale bookstrengthening plant capable of processing between 200,000 and 500,000 books per year, with estimated prices to customers in the region of £8–£10 per volume (US S12–16). In order to test the equipment and procedures that would be involved in such a plant, pilot-scale equipment has been designed and assembled on the premises of Isotron plc, where use is made of a conventional irradiator. This paper gives details of the graft co-polymerization process, and some results of the pilot-scale work, in terms of both efficacy and controllability. It also discusses the technical and economic feasibility of building and running a full-scale plant.

Cornell/Xerox/CPA Joint Study in Digital Preservation — Progress Report Number 2

Cornell University and Xerox Corporation, with the support of the Commission on Preservation and Access, have been collaborating in a project to test a prototype system for recording brittle books as digital images and producing, on demand, high quality and archivally sound paper replacements. The project goes beyond that, however, to investigate some of the issues surrounding scanning, storing, retrieving and providing access to digital images in a network environment.

Brittle books

What can be done about the threat of “chemical censorship” that hangs over millions of printed works throughout the world?

Selection for Conservation

A system is presented to reformat (microfilm) brittle books when they are called for use and to restore them when they are detected to be of intrinsic value only. It is claimed that this system, if only followed consistently, is superior to any system of selection based on philosophical principles

“Brittle Books: What Order of Preservation ?”

“Brittle Books: What Order of Preservation ?”

Saving Brittle Books

Sources of information concerning paper deterioration and approaches to researching the preservation literature are offered as an aid to administrative decision-making. A suggested list of readings keyed to a study outline allows an overview of the issues and factors involved in the current brittle books problem. Though designed to give a broad background of basic information, the annotated bibliography can also be used to develop a shelf of reference materials for preservation managers.

Cooperative Preservation in the United States

A nationwide cooperative preservation programme has been launched in the United States with federal funding support with the aim of ensuring the responsible stewardship of published and documentary knowledge in all formats. The initial priority of this ambitious effort is a cooperative microfilming programme to capture the contents of three million brittle books in 20 years. This cooperative enterprise, requiring the coordination of selection and filming activities among many research institutions, will be financed by the coordination of funds from a variety of sources. An infrastructure of standards for format, bibliographic records, and appropriate quality controls to permit convenient access has been developed during the past 10 years. The programme includes an active effort to develop mechanisms to facilitate international cooperation in filming, sharing of bibliographic data, and exchange of master negatives.

Preservation Programming in Major Research Libraries

Preservation of library materials in the general collections of major research libraries is a pressing concern today. In order to discover the status of preservation programming in major libraries, a questionnaire was sent to all ARL library directors. The results of the survey produced valuable information concerning brittle books and about general and national preservation programming. Based on the results of the survey, the author recommends that a national set of standards for preservation programming be established and that a journal devoted to general collection preservation be created.

Brittle books in our nation’s libraries

Aspect general de la politique suivie par les bibliotheques americaines pour la conservation et la consultation des livres fragiles: le role joue par l'etat et les institutions privees dans le financement du microfilmage des documents

Vapor Phase Consolidation of Books with the Parylene Polymers

AbstractIn a previously published paper on the application of parylene technology to conservation, the author proposed that parylene vapor polymerization might have applications in the consolidation of bound books which have become weakened or embrittled due to the high acid content of the paper. When applied to paper substrates, this process is irreversible. It is not known at this time whether the benefits derived from use of the material will be great enough to overcome the reluctance to use such an irreversible procedure.The princpal purpose of the present paper is to introduce to the conservation community the basic concept that weakened or brittle books may benefit by gas phase treatment with the paraxylylenes. Areas under discussion are: explanation of parylene, characteristics of the polymer, the deposition process, response of books to the application of a medium vacuum, technical problems posed by bound volumes, the gaseous diffusion phenomenon, the problem of polymer thinning, determination of ...

Selecting Rare Books for Physical Conservation: Guidelines for Decision Making

When funds are limited, librarians and curators responsible for selecting rare books for conser­ vation treatment must base their decisions not only upon physical condition, but also upon the ''value'' assigned to each physically deteriorated book. This article discusses the rationale for, and possible uses of, guidelines designed to facilitate conservation decisions by systematically evaluating and weighing such factors as monetary, intellectual, and aesthetic value, projected use, and usability. eciding which books in a library collection should receive con­ servation treatment is rarely simple. Particularly in a special collections department or rare book li­ brary, conservation is a complex process of analysis, evaluation, and resolution, as the physical requirements of each volume must be weighed against its intellectual and intrinsic value, the availability of fi­ nancial resources, and the priorities of the institution. Although any consideration of book conservation by librarians generally focuses on the technical aspects of diagno­ sis and treatment, another level of deci­ sion making is usually required: in a time when severely curtailed budgets are the norm, librarians, curators, and conserva­ tors are forced to select for treatment only a few of the many potential candidates in a collection. The failure to consider this essential ad­ ministrative aspect of the book conserva­ tion process is clearly apparent in the liter­ ature. It is not news that library materials are physically deteriorating and that li­ braries must accept the responsibility for their preservation. The problem of unsta­ ble and brittle books has become a major topic in ~brary lit~rature. · Book conservation has emerged as an independent and growing subfield of librarianship with a literature of its own. But, while technical problems have received considerable at­ tention, the role of the librarian or admin­ istrator in conservation has been all but overlooked.

Repair Brittle Books with Polythene

Repair Brittle Books with Polythene