[PADG:886] Re: ALCTS PARS Discussion Group

[BruceArnld@xxxxxxx]

Mr. Walls:

In response to your question as to where to go with preservation activities 
in the 21st Century, I would like to offer some comments regarding paper 
preservation.  I am Chair of a group of 33 sponsoring organizations that have 
been supporting a paper aging research program through the American Society 
for Testing and Materials (ASTM).  We are nearing the end of a five year 
effort to develop scientifically sound accelerated aging test methods.  We 
have pursued the development of three test methods.  They include elevated 
temperature, elevated light flux and elevated concentration of the most 
common atmospheric pollutant gases as means to accelerate the aging.

Five laboratories have participated in our program.  For the temperature 
aging studies, the US Library of Congress Preservation & Research laboratory 
and the Canadian Conservation Institute laboratory have been the 
investigating arms.  At the LOC, Dr. Chandru Shahani has been the principal 
investigator.  At CCI, Dr. David Grattan and Mr. Paul Begin have been the 
principal investigators.

With respect to the light aging method, the USDA Forest Products Laboratory 
in Madison, WI and the Finnish Pulp & Paper Research Institute in Espoo, 
Finland have been the contractors.  At FPL, Drs. Rajai Atalla and James Bond 
have served as principal investigators.  At KCL, Dr. Ingegerd Forsskahl is 
the principal investigator.

The pollutant aging study is at the Image Permanence Institute at Rochester 
Institute of Technology.  Mr. James Reilly and Dr. Peter Adelstein are the 
principal investigators for that study.

We believe our research program is the most comprehensive ever undertaken to 
develop scientifically sound paper aging test methods.  I am pleased to 
report that the findings are pointing strongly to the fact that we will, 
indeed, show such convincing science that all parties will be able to agree 
that the methods are scientifically sound.  In order to make such a 
statement, we have challenged ourselves to show that the physics and 
chemistry of changes due to aging are essentially the same for the 
accelerated process as they are during natural aging.

When our results are translated into new test methods within the ASTM process 
for creating standards, we believe we will have provided all stakeholders 
with means to evaluate any paper and to be able to predict whether it will be 
stable, only moderately stable or unstable for its intended end uses.  In 
part, however, to make such an assessment, the end users of the paper will 
need to define those points at which the paper will no longer be useful to 
them.  Such points will need to be objective and quantified physical (and 
possibly chemical) limits of acceptability.

Our laboratories are beginning to submit their draft final reports.  We are 
engaging a separate panel of ten distinguished independent people from the 
fields of paper science and paper conservation to peer review each of the 
reports.  To ensure that the issues raised are dealt with in an impartial 
manner, we are engaging an independent editor or referee for each of the 
programs to ensure that relevant issues receive proper response by the 
laboratories before they are allowed to publish their final reports.

A further fact you should know is that we made a very large supply of fifteen 
special papers for our study.  They ranged from acidic, lignin-containing 
stone groundwood paper (essentially unprinted newsblank) to alkaline cotton 
paper that contained an alkaline reserve of calcium carbonate.  The 
production of these papers on a pilot paper machine at the Herty Foundation 
in Savannah was very thoroughly documented.  The freshly made papers were 
rigorously and extensively tested to characterize their properties when 
freshly made.  I should point out that Herty was unable to produce the two 
cotton papers need for the study.  We were very pleased that Crane & Co., 
Inc. in Dalton, MA (the producers of the cotton-fiber based US currency) 
donated a day of production time on one of their production machines and 
provided the same thorough documentation as we were able to undertake at the 
Herty Foundation.

Because there has never been an extensively documented and explicitly 
controlled long-range study of natural paper aging, we are pleased to 
announce that ten distinguished libraries in the US and Canada have agreed to 
participate in a centurylong study of the natural aging of our papers.  This 
study began late in 1998.  There will be ten intervals of testing of the 
papers for their aging properties.  Because much of the aging occurs early in 
a paper's life, the testing will be more frequent in the early years than 
toward the end of the century.  The four labs of our program in North America 
have promised to perform the tests to monitor the aging properties at least 
for the next 30 to 40 years.

I have given talks to the ALA, SAA, AIC and CITRA on this program and 
continue to look for venues where those who will benefit by the use of our 
new test methods can understand what we have done and will provide.  We 
believe our work will provide a major benefit to both manufacturers of paper 
and to its end users.

When the new test methods are available, we believe that end users will no 
longer have to rely on paper composition prescriptions to ensure paper 
longevity, but can rely on the test methods to ensure the required 
performance of any paper for its intended end use and for the interval of 
required use.

If you can share some of these ideas with your discussion group on the 16th, 
we would be most grateful.  If you would like, I can email you a brief 
history of our program to date and a copy of the presentation I have given at 
several of the above mentioned venues.

Very sincerely,

R. Bruce Arnold
Chair: ASTM Paper Aging Research Program