repair of brittle books

[Joanne Veronica Martinez <joma@xxxxxxx>]

Hello,

To contribute to the recent exchanges on the repair possibilities of brittle books I can explain a little about
what we have dealt with in the Collections Care Section of the Library of Congress.  We find that a high
percentage of books that are sent for "repair" are actually too brittle or fragile to undertake leaf repair that
will not simply break again at the edge of the repair support (heat set tissue or Japanese paper).  However, 
there are books with paper that is not flexible and intact text blocks that we do recase if they are reference
volumes that are out of print or annotated.  (Of course we are very careful that the endleaf structure on
these books does not place any stress on the shoulder areas of the text block.)

We house the fragile items that come to the section and hope that the staff of the library are gradually
learning to see what the possibilities in terms of preservation treatment are.  Often a book that we are
boxing has just one or two leaves detached or a few tears in the fore edge area of the introductory pages. 
We would consider doing some careful leaf repair in the fore edge area with upmost concern to creating a
minimum breaking edge or doing a careful hinge in.  We would consider doing these repairs only if we knew
that the book was from a reading room, otherwise, the bulk of repairs on brittle things would be
overwhelming.

We feel that in order to better serve the divisions and patrons of this library it is becoming very important to
educate staff and users of the irrepairable fragile nature of so much of our collections.  So much is brittle or
fragile and the reality is that not all of it can be reformatted or replaced.  Much of it must simply be stabilized
on the shelves (housed in protective enclosure) and used carefully.  We are working on the wording for
notices to be placed on all of our enclosures to ask those handling the books to handle them with care, to
return them to their enclosure, and to avoid photocopying if possible.  Plans are underway to serve brittle
and fragile items in a Special Materials Reading Room that will have restricted photocopying.

Hope this info is helpful.

Jo Anne Martinez
Collections Conservator
Library of Congress