News

Kress Foundation Supports Individual Training

An information sheet entitled "Samuel H. Kress Foundation Fellowship for Independent Advanced Training in Conservation or Restoration of Works of Art" is reproduced below in full:

This program is open only to citizens of the United States.

The applicant is asked to please submit the following by November 30:

A current resume which describes training and previous work in field.
A description of the proposed program of study, including project length and costs. The costs should be broken into a justified budget.
Letters of support from three qualified individuals.
A self-addressed postcard which will be returned to the applicant to verify receipt of the complete application.
All of the above materials should be placed in one envelope and mailed to:

Conservation Fellowship Program
Samuel H. Kress Foundation
221 West 57th Street, 8th Floor
New York, MY 10019

Please note that it is the applicant's responsibility to gather all necessary documents, including the letters of support and to mail the completed package to the Foundation offices. The Foundation will consider only completed applications.

To insure confidentiality, persons writing letters of support for applicants may sign across the seal of the envelope.

Formal decisions will be mailed to the applicants by March 1.

Cooperstown Program Becomes Department

On July 1, 1983, the Cooperstown Graduate Program in the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (P0 Box 800, Cooperstown, NY 13326) became a graduate department of the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. It bad been a graduate program at Oneonta. In July 1985, it plans to move to Buffalo.

Philip Smith Open House for Overseas Binders Planned

Dorothy and Philip Smith invite overseas binders to visit the studio at 83 Nutfield Road, Merstham, Redhill, Surrey at the close of the "Horizons in Bookbinding" Brighton conference on April 14, 1984. To celebrate the event, copies of The Book: Art & Object will be on offer at a much reduced price of £5 per copy (about $7.60). The visitors will also be presented with a free set of 16 color cards of Philip Smith's bindings. The studio is seven minutes' walk from Merstham station. Redhill and Merstham are situated on the Brighton-to-London railroad and just off the M23 Motorway.

HRC's 1984 Seminar to Cover Photographic Preservation

Photographic preservation will be the theme of the Third Annual Seminar in Conservation of Archival Materials, at the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, April 4-6, 1984. This lecture-supported workshop series will address the needs of professionals and technical staff who administer and care for photographic collections. Hands-on workshops will cover the techniques and identification of photographic processes, deterioration, stabilization, preservation housings, and exhibition display techniques. For further information contact Siegfried Rempel, Conservation Scientist in Photography, Humanities Research Center, Box 7219, University of Texas, Austin TX 78712.

Leather Conservation Centre

The Leather Conservation Centre (Leather Trade House, Kings Park Road, Moulton Park, Northampton, NN3 IJD, England) has recently appointed a conservator, Christopher N. Calnan, to carry out fundamental research into leather conservation with funding from the Leverhulme Trust. Mr. Calnan received his BSC in chemistry from King's College, London, in 1974, and his MAC in archaeological conservation from Queen's University, Canada, in 1976. Prior to his present appointment he worked for York Archaeological Trust and Norfolk Museum Service.

The Centre aims to provide a permanent organization to coordinate and improve the state of knowledge, methods and working standards applicable to the conservation of leather. The Centre will initially be concerned with the evaluation and improvement of present methods and techniques used to conserve leather with particular regard to their long-term effect. Later it is envisaged that the Centre will act as an agency for leather conservation and will provide short practical training courses for conservators as well as continuing research.

Two monographs published by the Centre are now available for £5.00 each (postage paid), in pounds sterling by international money order or foreign draft:

Leather Conservation--A Current Survey
The Fibre Structure of Leather

A third monograph entitled Oils and Lubricants Used on Leather will be published shortly. Other monographs projected in this series are:

The Manufacture of Leather
Fungicides and Preservatives Used on Leather

The monograph on fiber structure was reviewed by T. Stambolov in the August Studies in Conservation.

The Centre moved from its London office recently when arrangements were made with the British Leather Manufacturers' Research Association to use facilities at Moulton Park, Northampton.

LBI Moves to Minnesota

The Library Binding Institute, the trade association of library binders and the publisher of the New Library Scene, moved in October from Accord, Massachusetts, to the neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The address is:

Library Binding Institute
Suite 51
1421 E. Wayzata Blvd.
Wayzata, MN 55391

The LBI's annual meeting next April 29-May 2 will focus on preservation/conservation issues, for the first time.

GBW Continues to Grow

The membership of the Guild of Book Workers (663 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10022) has been increasing for the last 12 years.

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Conferees Tell How to Find Money for Preservation

Last April's ALA (RTSD)/LC seminar for library administrators is reported in the July/August RTSD Newsletter by Jan Merrill-Oldham of the University of Connecticut. This five-page report contains a number of suggestions made by speakers for finding the wherewithal to initiate and carry out a preservation program.

Peter Sparks recommended Marketing for Non-Profit Organizations by Philip Kotlar (Prentice Hall, 1982) as a guide to systematic pursuit of funding.
David Stam (New York Public Library) suggested selling duplicates; funneling royalties from micropublishers back into programs; establishing endowment funds restricted to preservation use; encouraging individual donors to provide funds for collections in which they have a personal interest; making the funding of necessary conservation treatment a condition for the loan of exhibition material; diverting resources from other programs; seeking government grants; and undertaking cooperative ventures with other libraries.
Margaret Child (Smithsonian Institute Libraries) felt that a great deal could be accomplished through lobbying for government funds through groups such as ALA and ARL; that more money would be made available for conservation if grant programs were deluged with applications; and that foundation program officers must be befriended and educated.
James Morris (Mellon Foundation) recommended making the case to donor agencies that the preservation problem can be addressed in a sustained, reasonable, coordinated and economical (although not necessarily inexpensive) manner.

David Weber of Stanford University Libraries said that according to a survey he had made of 18 libraries, most were devoting 4 to 8 percent of their total budget to preservation.

The RTSD Newsletter is published by the American Library Association, 50 East Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. Single copies cost $2.00. The Resources and Technical Services Division (RTSD) is above the Preservation of Library Materials Section (PLMS) in the ALA hierarchy.

PPFA Developing Formal Standards

The Professional Picture Framers Association (P0 Box 7655, Richmond, VA 23231) has a Standards Committee which is a reincarnation of the old PPFA Guild. At Atlanta in July it met with two attorneys general to discuss the steps and criteria for adoption of formal standards, as used by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). These steps and criteria include a statement of the standard in a form that allows testing, field testing by volunteers, and voluntary conformity to the standards as finally formulated. (More information in the September 1983 Framer, published by PPFA.)

National Archives and Records Service

The Director's Report of the National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History (400 A St., SE, Washington, DC 20003) for October 19 contains the following two items about the Archives:

National Archives Independence (NARS) House Bill. On September 27 Rep. Jack Brooks (D-TX), the Chair of the House Government Operations Committee, introduced with Rep. Glenn English (D-OK), H.R. 3987, a bill to restore independence to MARS by separating it from GSA. Brooks noted in his introductory remarks that MARS has experienced many problems over the years under GSA since the Hoover Commission's efforts on bureaucratic consolidation. English went on record opposing the depth of GSA control over Archives activities and personnel. Work is now beginning to secure cosponsors for H.R. 3987. This bill closely parallels S.905, introduced into the Senate last March by Senator Eagleton. S.905, which now has 41 cosponsors, is expected to come to the Senate floor for a vote in November.
Archivist deprived of personnel control. On October 14 the archival and historical community learned that Gerald Carmen, Administrator of the General Service Administration (GSA), had made several top level appointments at the National Archives (NARS) without consultation with U.S. Archivist Robert Warner. The most recent appointments include the position of Deputy Assistant Archivist for Public Programs and Exhibits and Associate Archivist for Management. With little or no control over top personnel, Robert Warner is in an extremely difficult position. No one can be expected to effectively manage an agency in which he is surrounded by people who are not of his own choosing....
The Coalition to Save our Documentary Heritage sent out a more detailed bulletin on October 24, which reads in part:
NARS independence. ... Two weeks ago, the GSA Administrator was ready to make his own appointment of someone who was not professionally qualified as Assistant Archivist for Presidential Libraries, over the objections of the Archivist of the U.S. When the Archivist put his objections in writing, the Administrator changed his mind on this issue, but then proceeded to begin to make sweeping changes by filling top level jobs at MARS (such as the position of Assistant Archivist for Records Centers) with his own choices and moving to transfer certain individuals at MARS to other positions outside MARS (such as the detailing of the Public Information Officer to GSA). He has also threatened to transfer the Federal Records Centers to GSA by administrative order. There are also rumors that the White House Personnel Office has been requested to find a candidate for Archivist of the United States. This is clearly an attempt to destroy the management team that Robert Warner has chosen and either force him out or remove him. Additionally, the removal of the Office of Federal Records Centers from MARS would further dismember the agency before independence is achieved.
The Washington Post for October 21 gives more details.

Old Post Office Is New Home for NEA, NEH, and IMS

1100 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20004 is the new home of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum Services, all of which have supported conservation of books and paper in the recent past. The building is a grand romanesque structure built in the late 19th century for the Post Office, and recently renovated and renamed the Nancy Hanks Center. It stands north of the Mall, between the Library of Congress and the White House.

SAA Has New Office Address

As of November 1, 1983, the headquarters offices of the Society of American Archivists will be located at 600 S. Federal, Suite 504, Chicago, IL 60605. The telephone number will remain the same: (312) 922-0140.

Limited Treatment Service to Be Offered By Morris Library

Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, has been awarded $76,766 in Library Services and Construction Act funds through the Illinois State Library to conduct the third phase of the Illinois Cooperative Conservation Program. During Phase 3, ICCP will continue its publication and information services and hold two series of hands-on workshops. The archival techniques workshops will be in the spring and the simple book repair workshops will be in the summer. (Workshops for simple book repair were reported as the focus of Phase 2; see AN July 1983, p. 41.)

Also emphasized during this phase will be the development of modest conservation treatment services for local history materials. For more information contact Hollis Onken, Illinois Cooperative Conservation Program, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901 (618/453-5122).

Carolyn Clark Morrow, author of Conservation Treatment Procedures (1982) and The Preservation Challenge (1983) is conservation librarian at Morris Library.