CD processing and preservation

[Sara Williams <saraw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Good morning, everyone -- We are receiving more and more CDs that come as
inserts, so to speak, with books, journals, etc. You know the kind of
thing I mean: a book arrives with a CD that contains some material to be
used in conjunction with the text. The question has been raised about
whether any extra preservation measures should be taken to protect the CD.

Right now our Systems Office makes backup copies of any floppy disks where
the content is thought important enough to require it. Apparently the
capability now exists to digitize a backup copy of a CD-ROM and store it
on our server. Leaving aside questions of copyright, workload, and disk
space, do any of you do this? Do you take any other special measures for
the protection of CDs that weren't ordered as such, but have been received
with an item in some other format?

I'm a little cynical about this issue, having served on a task force at
another library that spent months discussing the topic and eventually
decided to do nothing. If anybody has a neat, elegant, and
conservationally-sound system for handling this type of material, I'd
appreciate knowing about it. 

Thanks in advance for your help.

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Sara R. Williams			Phone: 	423-974-6949
Collection Management Coordinator	FAX:	423-974-9242
University Libraries			E-Mail: Sara-Williams@xxxxxxx
552B John C. Hodges Library
University of Tennessee
Knoxville TN  37996-1000
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