The Obsessive Librarian

It was not until the 1930s that major efforts to reformat brittle books and documents began in earnest. Although experimentation with microphotography had begun as early as 1839, and was patented in 1859, it was not until the 1920s that it was treated as anything other than a novelty, when it was expended for use in keeping copies of bank records. (University of California) The 1930s saw a rapid expansion of microphotography into preservation efforts.

With a perfected 35mm microfilm camera, Recordak in 1935 expanded and began filming and publishing the New York Times in microfilm. Two significant events in 1938 hastened the use of microforms for archival preservation in American libraries and institutions. Because of rapid deterioration of the newsprint original and the numerous difficulties in storage and use of newspapers, Harvard University Library began its Foreign Newspaper Project. Today this project continues and the microform masters are stored at the Center for Research Studies in Chicago. This same year also saw the founding of University Microfilms, Inc. (‘UMI’) by Eugene Power. He had previously microfilmed foreign and rare books, but in 1938 his work became a commercial enterprise as he expanded into microfilming doctoral dissertations. (University of California)

Microfilm came to be seen as somewhat of a godsend in the library community.

“Microfilm in addition to its importance in replication of worn-out materials reduces the need to handle materials that are important as objects. It saves space and is the only sensible method at this time to maintain newspaper collections … Microfilming makes storage, retrieval, and speedy dissemination of great quantities of records possible with efficiency and economy. It is probably the best answer for brittle books and newspaper collections.” (Cunha & Cunha, pp. 71-72)

“According to the preservation plan for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), for instance, ‘about 75 percent of the documents have no intrinsic value – that is, they need not be retained in their original form to preserve the information.’” (quoted in Gertz 1992, pp. 163-164)

But there was a downside to microfilming as well. It needs special storage conditions in order to survive as long as its proponents state.

“The finest microfilming available is wasted if the finished product … is not kept in a carefully controlled … environment. That requires stable temperature and relative humidity (65[degrees]F and 40%RH) day and night year-round; with filtered air and in constant darkness. All of the care expended in preparation, filming, processing, and quality control is for nought if the storage of the finished film is neglected.” (Cunha & Cunha 1983, p. 72)

In many cases, poor storage conditions led to deterioration of the film stock onto which many items had been microfilmed.

“Microfilm, coming along as it did in the 1930s, soon took its central place as the penicillin of the library world. Suddenly, diseased materials could be photographed and renewed in sterile, compact, and pristine form, while the sick old husks were discarded. Here was a permanent cure, which, while not inexpensive, could be manufactured in great quantity and made available all over the country …

But as with penicillin, the wonder cure was not always properly administered, some people were allergic to it, and over time it was found to be in some ways less potent than had first been assumed.” (Gundersheimer, 2002, p. 23)

Gundersheimer points to the microfilm held at his own library, the Folger Shakespeare Library: “In 1994 we suspected that there might be problems with the older acetate film … some parts … were clearly affected by what has come to be known as ‘vinegar syndrome.’” (Gundersheimer 2002, p .24)

Critics, most notably the author Nicholson Baker, have been harsh in their critique of librarians’ reliance on microfilm, particularly in the case of newspapers, which were often cut up and discarded in the process of microfilming them.

“The notion that printing work of the highest level of technical sophistication, produced in four and five colors in multimillion-dollar plants tended by teams of pressmen working around the clock, would necessarily become the casualty of a crude, error-prone, parallax-warped miniaturizing process, was one that became very attractive to library managers, simply because they didn’t want to store the newspapers.” (Baker 2001, p.26)

Richard J. Cox of the University of Pittsburgh points out that Baker neglects other issues than space-saving:

“One of the greatest challenges not addressed by Baker is the immensity of the intellectual control over the thousands of newspaper titles published and the volatility of titles, runs, and other aspects of their publication. Baker, in assailing the turn to microfilm, ignores that the first step of the U.S. Newspaper Program was creating accurate union lists of all American newspapers, from national and regional publications to the most local imprints. What Baker misses in his Romanticizing of preserving the originals is the enormity of the task involved in maintaining accurate bibliographic control or even in acquiring complete runs of most newspapers; it has been through the process of trying to create complete microfilm runs that both bibliographic control and more complete archives of the newspapers have been developed.” (Cox 2000)

Preservation and conservation in libraries, as viewed from today’s lens, is a very young science, and was hardly even a consideration until about 140 years ago. In the waning days of the nineteenth century, “preservation activities consisted largely of custodial measures … Efforts were made to keep volumes clean and dry, books were bound and mended, penalties were assessed for damage and late returns, and libraries were swept and aired.” (Higginbotham 1990, p. 2) The reason for low levels of preservation activities was basic - it wasn’t generally seen as necessary. “Although deterioration in the quality of book papers had begun to accelerate, most collections were small and grew slowly; no significant number of poorly made volumes had yet accumulated on library shelves and aroused serious concern about library preservation.” (Higginbotham 1990, p. 8)

But by 1876, library collections had begun to grow and paper deterioration had clearly become an issue. At that time, the Bureau of Education published its report, Public Libraries in the United States of America: Their History, Condition, and Management, which included a chapter on “Binding and Preservation of Books.” In that report, “collection maintenance, binding, and the care and handling of library materials [were included] under the general umbrella of preservation.” (Higgenbotham 1992, p. 2) Tips for preservation included such statements as “[r]eaders should never be permitted the vulgar and deleterious practice of folding down the corners of leaves … or of wetting the fingers in turning over the pages of a book. All writing upon margins should be visited with the penalty of exclusion from library privileges.” (Department of the Interior, p. 678)

Around the same time that issues of preservation were getting noticed by libraries, photographic reproduction of books became technically feasible. Prior to this, reproductions were rarely made, because to do so actually required the resetting of type. In 1893, in a speech before the International Congress of Librarians, “Dr. O. Hartwig … first suggested international cooperation in the photoreproduction of manuscripts. (Higginbotham 1992, p. 10). The suggestion was widely ignored until 1904, when the National Library of Turin (Italy) burned. Several European countries set aside funds to begin reproducing major works, and an international conference was held in Belgium. These attempts did not go far, but they “represent [a] … practical recognition of the possibility of separating the preservation of an item’s intellectual content from the preservation of the artifact itself.” (Higginbotham 1990, pp. 170-171)

The methods used by librarians and private individuals in maintaining their collections of books has evolved over time from a minor housekeeping role to one which requires an understanding of all aspects of paper and book creation, including the chemistry of paper and other materials as well negotiating a vast industry of products and services meant to aid in that maintenance.

This short series will use terms which are often used interchangeably by the general public to describe the general maintenance and repair of books – preservation, conservation, and restoration. However, in reality, these three terms have radically different meanings, and one in particular is generally scorned by the library community. The reader will find it useful to have definitions in mind while reading.

Preservation can be described as the general maintenance of books on a collection-level scale. Some of the things which would fall under the rubric of preservation would be environmental controls, security measures, and integrated pest management, which will be described in more detail later. Preservation can also be taken to have a second meaning whereby the content of the book is prioritized over the physical structure of the book. So also falling under the rubric of preservation would be digitization, and preservation microfilming and/or photographing. As Abby Smith describes it, preservation “is the art of managing risk to the intellectual and physical heritage of a community and all members of that community have a stake in it. Risk management is dynamic, and in practice, preservation becomes an ever-changing assessment of value and endangerment.” (quoted in Cline, 2002, p. 8)

Conservation can be described as the item level care and repair of books. Generally this involves some physical alteration to the book. Some things which would fall under the rubric of conservation are paper repair, deacidification¹, and rebinding. The goal of the conservator is to make any of these physical alterations reversible at some time in the future should better methods be devised.

Finally, restoration can be described as an attempt to return the book to its original state. This may include such things as replacing pages in one book with pages from another copy of the book, or simply copies of those pages made to look as realistic as possible, or recasing the book with the case from another copy of the same book. This practice is generally frowned upon by the library community because in many ways it is similar to forgery – there is an attempt to make an item appear fresh and new where no such item actually exists.

1Although mass deacidification is also possible, this process belongs more properly under the rubric of conservation than preservation due to the actual physical alteration of the artifact.

crossettlibrary:

++ Click to Enlarge Image ++

Source: Masters Programs Guide

Why compare librarians to registered nurses? I don’t get it. And “Librarians are regular people who have interests in all sorts of different things” seems a bit, well, offensive.

Everyone knows about Gutenberg. But have you ever heard of Ottmar Mergenthaler?

Mergenthaler invented the linotype machine in 1886. Linotype was the biggest advance in printing Gutenberg. Before linotype, printers had to set each character of type individually before being able to print a page. This was a slow, cumbersome task which led to lots of errors and “stop-press corrections,” where a mistake would be found partway through printing and corrected on the spot, leading to numerous different variations of the same book - known as “points of issue.” Anyhow, Mergenthaler was able to develop a machine that would automatically make a slug which would contain not one character of type, but an entire “line of type.” (Hence the name of the machine.) This sped up printing considerably. After his death in 1899, Merganthaler faded into relative obscurity.  Biographies appeared every decade or two, but they did little to raise Mergenthaler’s profile.

Doug Wilson is hoping to change that. He’s currently finishing up filming on a documentary about linotype, called, appropriately enough, Linotype: The Film. Here’s the trailer. I can’t wait until this comes out.

I’m not exactly sure how to start this blog off, so I figured I’d start with a picture of the place (other than my home, of course) which first instilled my love of books and reading into me - the Lyndhurst Public Library, in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. I’d like to just say thank you to the children’s librarians there, who never questioned me when I wanted to take something out of the “adult” section or gave us book challenges, or held our summer “preschool” classes. I don’t remember your names, but you helped make me the person I am now. So thanks!

And welcome to anyone who actually reads this. I hope this can turn into something interesting. Always let me know what you think and how I can make things more interesting.