Re: preservation and processing dept.

[Annie Armour <aarmour@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Gretchen wrote:
>
>>I am interested in finding out whether many librarys
>>combine their processing and preservation dept., or
>>whether they are separate entities.  Univ. of MD
>>has a preservation dept.(under Tech Serv.) which includes
>>processing within it.
>


At Sewanee our preservation unit is combined with Archives and Rare Books
in public services.  That's because we're a smallish library with fewer
than 30 fte's and because I was the one who was interested in Preservation
(my title is head of Archives, Rare Books, and Preservation).

We have a large lab and I have student assistants and interns who do book
repair and also preservation for archival materials.  We prepare monographs
for the bindery because they come to us from Circulation with all the other
repair books.  Technical Services does any labeling and end processing, and
they send to us any new items that need pam binding, tip ins, or repairs.
Since the two departments communicate pretty well, this system works for
us. We have worked on many brittle books issues and work flow issues and
we're running smoothly at the moment. It has been a little awkward at times
because I have been aggressive about wanting to change binderies and the
serials/binding guy doesn't (he controls the binding budget, and I'm glad
not to do that), but we're finally in a bid process.

The main reason it works well for us to be a public service is that we
provide lots of classroom support for the college.  I have enough room
(don't get jealous!) to teach a class for up to 23 people.

We toyed with the idea of placing preservation in tech services (supposedly
my job will split and preservation will be separate from Archives/Rare
Books--Right!  Not in my lifetime!), and I see many advantages to that,
too.  But for us, the association with Public Services and with Archives
and Rare Books in particular is more important (even if we do split,
Preservation will continue to provide preservation for Archival
materials--mostly housing of art, artifacts, tapes, maps, etc.).  I hope
we'll always teach classes, too.

No matter where you end up, coordination among departments will still be
essential.  That's one of the things that make preservation so much fun.

Annie Armour
University of the South
Sewanee, TN
aarmour@xxxxxxxxxxx