Exploring

What is Preservation?

Historical Context: Libraries

While activities designed to keep collections in usable condition, including binding, repair, and reformatting, have always taken place in libraries, the evolution of systematic preservation practices for paper-based collections began during the 1950s and '60s. By the early '70s, the convergence of an obvious need for preservation and the development of infrastructure to carry out preservation activities resulted in the growing recognition of preservation as a separate library specialty.

Greater attention to the need for preservation in libraries and archives was driven by several catalytic events that occurred during the '50s and '60s. These fall into two general categories: the problem of brittle books and paper, and the recognition of the dangers disaster poses to collections. At the same time, preservation organizations began to spring up, and information and funding for preservation activities became more readily accessible.

The Brittle Book Problem

The 1950s and '60s were a time of rapid growth of collections in research libraries, and librarians could not help but notice that materials in their collections were becoming yellowed and brittle. William J. Barrow, a pioneer in the research of the deterioration of paper collections, carried out the first major study of the condition of book paper in the late '50s. He found that only three percent of the volumes studied (items published between 1900 and 1949) would last more than 50 years.

In 1962, the Association of Research Libraries commissioned a survey of book deterioration in ARL libraries, conducted by Gordon Williams, which confirmed Barrow's findings. Late in the 1970s and into the '80s, additional studies were conducted at specific libraries, including Stanford University, the Library of Congress, and Yale University, which consistently showed that up to a third of collections were already dangerously embrittled.

The Dangers of Disaster

Several prominent disasters involving library and archival collections occurred during the 1960s and '70s, emphasizing the danger of disaster and culminating in the development of systematic techniques for disaster planning and response.

In 1966, the Arno River flooded Florence, Italy, damaging or destroying many valuable library and museum collections. Conservators from around the world joined in the salvage efforts and learned much about the effectiveness of various disaster response techniques. Flooding from Hurricane Agnes in Corning, New York, in 1972 and a water main break at Stanford University's Meyer Library in 1978, in which 50,000 volumes were damaged, drew additional attention to disaster planning and response in the United States. In both cases, wet library collections were frozen and drying techniques were tested, with vacuum-freeze drying emerging as the most effective strategy.

Development of Infrastructure for Preservation

For preservation action to occur, information, organizational support, and financial resources must exist, not merely the awareness of a problem. The Council on Library Resources (CLR), founded in 1956, and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) both played a prominent part in early efforts to study and combat the brittle paper problem.

In 1961, CLR funded the creation of the Barrow Research Laboratory, headed by William J. Barrow, to study the permanence of the book. Other important research organizations include the Canadian Conservation Institute, founded in 1972, and the Image Permanence Institute, founded in 1985 to pursue scientific research on the preservation of visual materials and related collections. During the 1970s, two regional conservation centers were established—the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) and the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA)—which provided conservation treatment and preservation education services.

Professional organizations also played a large part in the advancement of preservation programs. The Research Libraries Group (RLG) was founded in 1974 by the New York Public Library and Columbia, Harvard, and Yale Universities. It has played an important role in conducting cooperative microfilming projects and devising guidelines for preservation microfilming. The American Library Association (ALA) established its first subcommittees on library preservation in 1970 and has continued to play an active role. The Book and Paper Group (BPG) of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) was established in 1980. The result of all these developments has been increased cooperation among libraries, archives, historical societies, museums and conservators.

Federal organizations—in particular the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Office of Preservation, later reorganized into the Division of Preservation and Access—have played a leading role in providing funding for preservation activities in individual libraries and on the national level over the past 20 years. The independent Commission on Preservation and Access (CPA) was created in 1987 with a mandate to raise awareness of the brittle book problem and to encourage national efforts to address it. In 1995, CPA and CLR merged to become the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). With the support of the NEH over the past two decades, a successful cooperative microfilming program for brittle books and newspapers has grown. Local preservation programs continued to develop as well, with the number of full-time preservation administrators in ARL libraries growing from three or four in 1971 to 52 in 1991.

See The Future of the Past: Preservation in American Research Libraries for more information on the brittle book initiative and a discussion of some of the challenges libraries currently face in selecting collections for preservation and dealing with the increasing amount of new media and formats in their collections.