Conservation in Special Collections 1

Running head: CONSERVATION IN SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

Annotated Bibliography:

Conservation in Special Collections

Monique Lloyd

Emporia State University

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 Conservation in Special Collections 2

Introduction

In his rather testy article first published in 1937, Randolph Adams describes

special collections as a library within a library whose function is not access, but

conservation (Adams, 1937). A more conventional definition would be a repository of

primary source and rare materials with a limited scope and definite purpose which is

maintained separately from the rest of the library. A very broad definition of the term is

provided by Prochaska:

The term can be a convenient definition for any research materials that fall
outside the main collections of current publications, serials, and monographs. It
can be used to mean almost any library material that is more than 100 or 150
years old. In some libraries, newspapers also fall within the category. In others,
certain electronic materials (for instance in art history and related fields) come
under the special collections purview. Area studies collections may be termed
"special," either in their entirety or in respect of the nonstandard materials they
contain. Sometimes archival materials are included under the rubric, but in certain
libraries they will be distinguished from special collections; and often they will be
separated institutionally, with archivists and manuscript librarians belonging to
two quite distinct professional groups. Beyond the English-speaking world,
although often the terms used translate into "special collections," there are yet
further permutations. Generally but not always, rare books and manuscripts are
brought together as special collections. Beyond that, the term is almost infinitely
elastic. (Prochaska, 2003).

What constitutes archival conservation is provided is this list (McCrady, 1985) which is

presented in outline form and includes many factors which fall into the preservation

component. The National Archives, however, provides a succinct definition of archival

conservation, as opposed to preservation, on their website:

Conservation attempts to preserve records in their original format. Conservators

examine records and assess their condition and the materials which comprise
them. Conservators then recommend remedial treatments to arrest deterioration or
 Conservation in Special Collections 3

to improve condition. As they perform the recommended treatments, conservators

carefully document the condition of the record as well as the procedures
performed and materials used. (National Archives website)

Conservators generally look at artifacts and documents at the item level while

preservationists are more concerned with issues such as physical and environmental

factors which impact the collection as a whole.

This topic was chosen to better understand the difference between archives and

special collections as well as the differences between conservation and preservation.

Some key learning outcomes obtained include how those in different cultures

value conservation, how digitization will impact special collections by allowing more

researchers access to the intellectual content of primary source and rare materials and

how that might impact conservation efforts, and methods conservators can use to evaluate

the needs of their collections and use that information to obtain grant funding to save

their collections.
 Conservation in Special Collections 4

Annotated Bibliography

Clavir, M.(1996) Reflections on changes in museums and the conservation

of collections from indigenous peoples. Journal of the American

Institute for Conservation, 35, 99–107.

Clavir, a Senior Conservator at the Museum of Anthropology, University

of British Columbia, begins this article by stating that many

traditional conservators feel that their commitment and loyalty is owed

to their organization and view the irreplaceable objects as their

fundamental clients. The function of repositories changing to

supporting the preservation of living cultures rather than preserving

their material culture is a profound change and some believe that this

exposes objects to physical risk in order to serve people today. The

author discusses what is being preserved when only the physical object

is being preserved, how do we decide whose system of values takes

precedence, and if the qualities of an object that conservators seek to

preserve and maintain are intrinsic to that object or reflections of

subjective cultural values. She suggests the development of a

multidisciplinary team which cultural representatives as well as

conservators when making conservation decisions about cultural objects.

Conservation OnLine (CoOL) Retrieved July 8, 2008 from

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu

Conservation OnLine or CoOL, a project of the Preservation Department

of Stanford University Libraries, describes itself as “a full text

library of conservation information, covering a wide spectrum of topics

of interest to those involved with the conservation of library,

archives and museum materials". The site includes links to a wide

 Conservation in Special Collections 5

variety of conservation sites including conservation topics such as

copyright, digital imaging, electronic materials, presentation and

training tools, and surveys. The cumulative author index is extensive,

providing researchers with links to articles on a variety of technical

topics. The site also includes a directory of professional

conservators, including guidelines on selecting a conservator, and

links to suppliers providing materials. The site is well-organized,

easy to navigate, and is updated regularly. Links to a variety of e-

mail lists focused on specific conservation topics including moving

images, books, and textiles are provided.

Dean, J. F.(2003).Digital imaging and conservation: Model guidelines.

Library Trends, 52 (1), 133-37.

This article by John E. Dean, the Director of the Department of

Preservation and Collections Maintenance at Cornell University, focuses

on the problems faced when conservation and digitization meet and

suggests some ways to address them, pointing out that those doing the

digitization may not be experienced in the proper handling of artifacts

and believe that, once it is digitized, it is preserved. Conservation

requires care in both stabilization and treatment of objects.

Digitization brings with it a number of issues, including long-term

file maintenance, authenticity, and copyright. Dean suggests that

objects be assessed before scanning, that an evaluation be conducted

regarding what type of scanning mode to use (book scanner, digital

camera, flatbed scanner); and to remain aware of the importance of the

physical conditions of the scanning area such as temperature, humidity,

lighting, and security, as well as making a determination of how to

 Conservation in Special Collections 6

properly store objects after scanning.

Hain, J. E.(2003). A brief look at recent developments in the

preservation and conservation of special collections. Library

Trends, 52(1,112-117.

Jennifer Hain, a Conservation Librarian at the University of

Illinois-Urbana Champaign, describes the traditional approach of

treating special collection items as collections of individual

artifacts with conservation done at the item level. In this article,

she discusses the idea of viewing the collection as a whole, referred

to this as collections conservation, and describes how technological

advances have changed the way special collections are preserved. Three

mechanical and technical developments which have changed the role of

the conservator’s work are the development of mechanical paper

splitting, computers-assisted leaf-casting, and mass deacidification.

Other technological advances include the development of products which

make monitoring special collections environments simpler such as

dataloggers, the Preservation Calculator developed by the Image

Permanence Institute, control and eradication of pests and molds with

limited use of chemicals, as well as products to aid in long-term

storage which allow enclosures to trap harmful off-gassed materials.

The author ends the article by stating that conservators can expect

additional tools to be developed and made available to preserve special

collections.
 Conservation in Special Collections 7

Etheredge, S.(2007).Preserving a special collection. AALL Spectrum, 11

(4), 8-9.

This basic article about preservation and conservation of special

collections was written by a reference librarian and directed towards

librarians who are not trained in preservation issues, but are in

charge of small special collections. The author presents ten

preservation issues for special collections which the librarian needs

to consider. These are: temperature, relative humidity,

lighting, food and beverages, micro-environments such as display cases

and archival objects, storage and handling rules, air quality,

repairing what can be repaired and what to leave to conservators, a

security policy, and a disaster plan. Her article is written in a

relaxed and easy style and intended to provide librarians with basic

tools to safeguard their collections using a common sense approach

based on a little thought and some fact-finding. She acknowledges

staff and funding problems and ends her article by stating that it is

better to do the best we can with what is available

then not doing anything at all and allowing collections to be damaged.

Hirtle, P.(2002). The impact of digitization on special collections in

libraries. Libraries & Culture. 37,(1),42-54.

Peter B. Hirtle, the Intellectual Property Officer for the Cornell

University Library, questions the value of conserving original

documents when most users prefer surrogate, digital copies

rather than originals. While researchers enjoy handling the physical

book, document, or artifact, they are more interested in reading the

text at hand. Hirtle asks if the costs of maintaining, preserving, and

 Conservation in Special Collections 8

conserving such collections can be justified under these circumstances.

He makes the point that the strength of special collections is

through value-added services. In other words, the real value is not

the physical items themselves, but instead the value archivists and

special collection librarians provide users through their skills and

knowledge. It is this information archivists and librarians have about

their records and other holdings; the abilities, knowledge, and skills

of the person providing access, and not the physical assets

themselves, which are truly valuable.

Green, P. R. (2003). A method for undertaking a full conservation audit

of special collections of books and manuscripts. Collection

Management, 28 (4). 23-42.

This article describes a method used to do conservation audits of

special collections which includes not only condition ratings of

various collections, but using statistical methods, provides treatment

costs estimates for each collection. Data bases were prepared by

assigning scores ranging from one to four to each item with one being

an item in good and stable condition and a four given to an item that

was so fragile and damaged it would suffer further if handled. The

method was successfully used at Leeds University Library to obtain

grants for the work. Treatment costs were then estimated by using

invoices from previous conservation work going back for four years.

After adjusting for inflation, tables were made using Excel software to

determine projected costs for repairs. The results were used to obtain

a grant to do conservation repairs and the authors feel that this

method would be useful for other special collections to use in order to

 Conservation in Special Collections 9

prepare bids for grants to restore their collections.

Library of Congress Collections Care and Conservation. Retrieved July

6, 2007 from http://www.loc.gov/preserv/pubscare.html

This well maintained and extensive website is a part of the Library of

Congress Preservation site and provides links to information and

resources of use to both members of the public and professional

conservators. There are links to a wide variety of articles on subjects

such as newspapers, photocopies, books, photographs, scrapbooks,

leather, magnetic media, oral recordings, and film. These articles are

well-written, concise, often include links for further information, and

are updated regularly. For example, some have a list of references and

others include links to bibliographies on the topic, standards, and

suppliers. One of the more interesting articles discusses ownership

marking of paper based materials, ending with an offer to make the

Library of Congress manuscript marking ink available, free of charge,

to library, archive or museum institutions

Ogden, S. (2007). Understanding, respect, and collaboration in cultural

heritage preservation: A conservator's developing perspective.

Library Trends, 56,(1), 275-287.

Sherelyn Ogden, the author of the book Caring for American Indian

Objects: A Practical and Cultural Guide, discusses her views regarding

conservation and how it addresses cultural heritage issues in this

article. While conservators view cultural items as objects or

artifacts, which have value in and of themselves and that is necessary

that are properly preserved so they can be seen and studied although

not used or handled, American Indian people see these items as part of
 Conservation in Special Collections 10

human society and useful to it. In their view, cultural artifacts are

not inanimate things; they are a part of everyday

life. American Indians believe that care and conservation is about

people and human societies, not intangibles and their goal is not to

preserve the item itself, but to preserve the culture the item is a

part of. Odgen notes that, in response to these views, the perspective

of repositories of these collections is now slowly beginning to shift

from preserving and conserving single items or collections of items to

preserving and conserving them as an aid in preserving cultures.

Pickwoad, N. (1994). Determining how best to conserve books in special

collections. The Book and Paper Group Annual, 13. Retrieved

June 29, 2008 from

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/bpg/annual/v13/pickwoad.html

Pickwoad’s article is a paper first delivered at the Book and Paper

Specialty Group Session, AIC 22nd Annual Meeting on June 11, 1994. He

discusses what good repair entails as well as how to find treatments

which are effective while disturbing as little as possible of the

items’ historical worth. Using a question and answer model, Pickwoad

uses a checklist method which allows the conservator to make decisions

based on factors taken into account in a systematic and logical order.

He states that decisions need to be made must take into consideration

the interests of the curator, the researcher, and the conservator and

decisions about how a book is repaired can also influenced by money or

rather, the lack of it. Pickwoad ends his discussion by stating that

while repairs can be reversed, what cannot be reversed is that the

books have undergone repair. Once the structure is changed it cannot be

 Conservation in Special Collections 11

returned to its original state and it is for this reason that repairs

should only be made after informed and reasoned decision has

been made and the repairs are done as well as possible.

Stewart, E. (2000). Special collections conservation. In Preservation

Issues and Planning. Paul N. Banks and Roberta Pilette, eds.

Chicago: American Library Association, 285-306.

This book chapter begins with a discussion about special collections

and what they are: unique collections of often unique personal papers

and books as well as other mediums used as resources for scholarly

research. These items are valued not only for the information they

contain but as objects of the culture and time where they originated as

well. The author contends that reproductions can never replace

originals and, for this reason, conservation is an important

responsibility of special collection repositories. Among the topics

discussed are conservation science, ethical considerations, and

treatment documentation, as well as reviewing various treatment options

for paper and books. A brief overview of how to establish conservation

treatment programs and factors which should be examined to evaluate

different treatment methods is also provided. A brief list of selected

readings as well as information about formal standards for conservation

is included.

Teper, J. H. & Erekson, S.M. (2006). The condition of our "hidden" rare

book collections: A conservation survey at the University of

Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Library Resources and Technical

Services, 50 (3), 200-213.

Using a random survey sample, conservators at the UIUC Rare Book and
 Conservation in Special Collections 12

Special Collections Library examined the condition of the hidden

(uncataloged) backlog. They then began establishing guidelines to use

for immediate efforts that could be integrated with the cataloging

function for little cost while also determining ways to prioritize any

future treatments. The survey results aided in future grant planning

by statistically quantifying the physical condition of the collection

as well as examining the types and numbers of efforts needed with the

aim of finding ways to lower costs. For example, the more affordable

rivet-and-string phase box was more cost effective for vellum bindings

than clamshell boxes along as the former had the ability to increase

tightness over time, which can help bring misshapen vellum back to its

proper shape.
 Conservation in Special Collections 13

References

Adams, R.G. (1937). Librarians as enemies of books. Library Quarterly. 7

(3), 317-331.

McCrady, E. (1985). Outline of archival conservation. Abbey Newsletter. 9 (1)

Retrieved July 24, 2008 from

http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/abbey/an/an09/an09-1a/an09-a108.html

National Archives. Preservation programs at the National Archives. Retrieved

July 24, 2008 from http://www.archives.gov/preservation/internal/

Prochaska, A. (2003). Special collections in an international perspective. Library Trends

52 (11), 138-150.