BPG update

As you may remember, one segment of the BPG (Book and Paper Group,
American Institute for Conservation) update scheduled for this year's
AIC conference was entitled "Philosophical Considerations in
Reformatting for Libraries and Archives";  this segment has now been
fused with an update on book conservation treatments, including general
collection/collection maintenance repairs. The revised title is "New
Techniques, New Issues:  Recent Developments in Book Conservation
Treatment and Library Collections Care".

Anyone who has developed a new treatment technique, or who knows of one
developed by somebody else during the last 4 years or so, may contact me
*soon* by phone, US mail or e-mail for inclusion in the update.  I will
contact you in a few weeks if I need slides or other visual aids.  (If
you had already made arrangements with TK McClintock to send material to
him, you should now send it to me)

I am also interested to hear about trends in the field that people have
observed over the last few years.  Examples of trends already cited are:
A trend away from major treatment toward minor treatment and rehousing -
a trend dictated at first by lack of funds and manpower, but now perhaps
more by choice; there are several new techniques out there for board
re-attachment, other than traditional rebacking;  after years of living
with a bad rep, protein adhesives (ie gelatin & animal glue) are being
re-investigated as book conservation materials, valued for their extreme
reversibility and good adhesion; parchment size is also being used in
this way; efficient "collection-oriented" repair techniques have been
developed for production-line settings.  A possible trend:  Away from
concertina guards and other non-adhesive binding options?

Reformatting issues will still be addressed as part of the update, so if
you haven't put your 2 cents in on that subject, now is the time.  So
far much of the input on this topic has come from librarians and
preservation administrators, not from the membership of AIC.  And I KNOW
that conservators have opinions about this.  Send me your comments on
photocopy vs. microfilm, exploration of digital technologies, the
transfer of "artifact" status from the original to the microform master,
etc.

To get in touch with me:
telephone (302)888-4633 days
us mail  Winterthur Library, Winterthur, DE 19735
e-mail  bm.wic [at] rlg__bitnet, with my name in the subject field (the
account name is Katharine Martinez)

Thanks in advance for your help in putting together this update.
Maria Fredericks

    **** Moderator's comments:   Maria wrote back to suggest that people
    might also send their comments to the DistList as well, which
    suggestion I heartily endorse

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 4:41
                Distributed: Wednesday, January 30, 1991
                        Message Id: cdl-4-41-002
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