Questions and Answers

1. What is preservation?

Preservation is about managing resources -- acquiring, organizing and distributing money, space, equipment and people to ensure the protection of historical and cultural materials for access by present and future generations. Preservation also encompasses a host of policies, procedures and processes that together renew the usability or prevent further deterioration of the materials we choose to save. Some of the most common preventive strategies include environmental controls, security and handling guidelines, and preparations to minimize the likelihood that water emergencies will damage library and archival materials. Typical renewal procedures include high quality library binding, copying brittle and broken books and papers onto microfilm, and producing photocopy facsimilies; neutralizing the damaging acids in book paper; repairing damaged bindings; and conservation treatments on rare and special materials.

2. How do preservation and conservation differ?

Preservation is the umbrella term for many policies and options for action that the library may take in order to ensure that research materials will be available for as long as they are needed. Conservation is one of the preservation options for action and is usually viewed as those treatments carried out on individual items.

3. What is digital preservation?

In the past few years, significant progress has been made to define the terms and outline a research agenda for preserving digital information that was either "born digital" or transformed to digital from traditional sources. "Digital preservation refers to the various methods of keeping digital materials alive into the future," according to a recent statement from the Council on Library and Information Resources. Digital preservation typically centers on the choice of interim storage media, the life expectancy of a digital imaging system, and the expectation to migrate the digital files within future systems while maintaining both the full functionality and the integrity of the original digital file.

4. How do I send a book to preservation?

If you've spent any time in the library at all, you've seen thousands of books in poor condition. You may even wonder why you've passed the same poor volume in the same spot on a shelf for most of your time at Yale. Since the library has a Preservation Department, why wasn't that book repaired? Since the number of books that need attention is much greater than the funds available to repair or reformat them, the Preservation Department focuses its resources on the care and repair of books that are used. If a book you are using is in poor condition, the fastest way to get it to Preservation is to return it to the Circulation Department.

5. How do I request a book that was sent to preservation for treatment?

When items are in a variety of technical services units, including Preservation, you will most likely see the following message in Orbis: "Status: - In Process. Click Place Requests above, choose recall option." Please request the item through the normal process. If you have any further questions, go to http://www.library.yale.edu/pubstation/opachelp/requestspr.html, or ask someone in Circulation to help you.

6. How do I make photocopies without damaging books?

Most of the copiers around these days were designed to copy flat sheets of paper in an office, not books in a library. If you find yourself wishing you could sit on the lid of the copier to get at the print down in the gutter of a book, you're not alone. Before you do this, are you sure you or anyone else will never need to use that book again? Pressing books flat on a copier strains the sewing or glue that holds the pages in place. If the sewing breaks or the glue cracks, then the binding fails, the book falls apart, and the pages get lost. If you've ever pulled a book off the shelf and opened it only to find a lot of loose pages, someone probably copied it before you.

The job of keeping more than 11 million books in YUL in good condition is too big for the Preservation Department to do alone. The way the books are handled from the moment they're removed from the shelf determines whether they make it back there for the next reader. The next time you need to photocopy a book, consider this:

• Ask for help! Some volumes are really quite large and hard to handle. If your're trying to copy a fold-out or map you may need an extra set of hands to keep from tearing the paper on the sharp bits of the copier. Some volumes were bound so tightly that they are impossible to copy under normal circumstances. If you need help, please contact or have someone contact the Preservation Department at 2-1803.
  
  
• Don't panic! If a book falls apart while you are copying it, please don't leave it by the copier! Bring it to the Circulation Desk. Circulation staff will send the book to the Preservation Department.

7. How do I prevent mold from growing?

Tiny mold spores are floating in the air all around us all the time, just waiting for the right environment to bloom. Controlling the environment is the key to preventing mold growth on books.

• Keep the room humidity below 55% and provide air circulation. When the humidity rises in the summer, use a fan to circulate the air around your books and a dehumidifier to lower the humidity. High humidity and stale air are the reasons that books tend to mold in basements.
  
  
• Don't store books packed in cardboard boxes. The packing materials and the box itself will absorb and concentrate moisture from the air around the books.
  
  
• Resist the temptation to eat while reading. This is particularly true if you have to pick up what you're eating with your hands and then touch the book. Oils and starch residues will transfer from your hands onto the paper and binding providing a starter culture for mold growth.
  
  
• Freeze wet books! If your favorite library book should fall into your bath, put the book in a plastic bag and put it in your freezer. Bring the book (still frozen) back to the SML Circulation desk. Ask them to contact the Preservation Department and explain the situation. Freezing the book prevents mold from growing and the water from doing any further damage to inks or the binding.
  
  While you will be charged for the book, the cost of salvaging it is less than replacing it after it's covered with mold. Remember, accidents do happen and honesty is the best policy.

8. Can the department treat privately-owned books and manuscripts?

No. However The American Institute for the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) provides a web site that will help you to identify the type of conservator needed, a list of conservators' names and contact information, and what questions to be sure to ask the conservator.

9. Does all preservation at Yale happen in a single department?

No. About two-thirds of the resources allocated for preservation by YUL are concentrated in the Preservation Department, but preservation activity is widespread on the Yale campus. Conservation Laboratories in the Yale Center for British Art, the Yale Art Gallery, and the Peabody Natural History Museum handle works of art and natural history collections, respectively.

10. Is Yale's new Library Shelving Facility (LSF) for preservation?

Absolutely. The main shelving module of the Library Shelving Facility maintains a steady temperature of 50 degrees Fahrenheit and 30% Relative Humidity. Items are shelved by size to increase storage efficiency and the security of the collections. Each item is cleaned thoroughly before being placed in the shelving facility to keep the accumulation of dust and grit to a minimum. Selection guidelines for the facility emphasize low use as the primary criterion but allow for the shelving of special collections that would benefit from the tightly controlled environmental conditions.

11. Do other research libraries have preservation programs?

According to recent statistics compiled by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), 116 research libraries in the U.S. have formal preservation programs in place that are managed at least half-time by a preservation professional. Established in 1971, Yale's preservation program is the second oldest (after New York Public Library) in the United States. The Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, and the Smithsonian Institution also maintain extensive preservation and conservation programs in the Washington D.C. area. Formal preservation programs are prevalent in private research libraries in the United States including the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the Newberry Library (IL) and the Getty Institute (CA).

12. How does the community of preservation professionals communicate?

The preservation community is made up of conservators who specialize in paper-based materials, conservation scientists, engineers who look after the full spectrum of audio and visual media, and librarians and archivists who coordinate and manage the preservation of a wide range of materials and their care. There are a number of professional organizations including The American Institute for the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC), the American Library Association (ALA), the Society of American Archivists (SAA) as well as many associations for sound and visual media engineers. Each provides information about the issues concerning long term preservation of the range of media in library and archive collections. There are also a number of listserves that are open to anyone with an interest in preservation. One such forum is the Conservation DistList.

13. What is the best online source for preservation information?

Conservation Online, commonly referred to as CoOL, is the extensive web-based information resource. The site assembles and organizes electronic documents on an array of preservation topics and provides links to the home pages of the principal preservation organizations in the United States and Western Europe. The archive of discussions on the Conservation DistList is also available. Other strengths of the site include a powerful search engine and access to an extensive directory of preservation professionals.

14. How do I prepare a time capsule?

You will need to consider five issues when preparing time capsules.

1. Time: Determine how long the capsule will be stored. The length of time will come to bear on the significance of the following four items. For instance, in 20 years, less degradation will occur than in 100. If your goal is really long term, choose the most conservative options available to you.
   
   
2. Environment: The two environmental factors that cause degradation are heat and humidity, which should be limited as much as possible.
   
   
3. Item selection: Selecting items with long term qualities is important for the success of your time capsule. Acid free paper and stainless metals are examples of materials with good keeping qualities.
   
   
4. Storage of items within the capsule: Storing paper items as flat and with as few folds as possible will make it more likely that they can be handled safely when your capsule is opened. For all materials, consider additional wrapping and boxes within the time capsule to protect items from each other.
   
   
5. Choosing a container: The features you should use to evaluate time capsule containers include material, size, seal, labeling and expense.

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