Volume 8, Number 6
Dec 1984

National Preservation Program Office Expands

[The following report is taken from the Library of Congress Information Bulletin for November 5.

Merrily A. Smith and Carolyn Clark Morrow have been appointed specialists in a major expansion of the National Preservation Program Office (NPPO) as part of the Library of Congress response to the growing need for information and educational support and coordination among cooperating institutions engaged in preservation activities around the country.

Ms. Smith, who joined NPPO on October 1, is a well-known conservator who has been on the staff of the Library's Conservation Office since 1978. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Minnesota, she worked in the conservation laboratory of the Newberry Library in Chicago, and was in private practice for several years before coming to Washington. Ms. Smith is a Fellow of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, and has been active in the Washington Conservation Guild, currently serving as its president. She is also active in the Education Committee of ALA/RTSD's Preservation of Library Materials Section, chairing the subcommittee which is conducting a three-year series of conferences, jointly sponsored by ALA and NPPO, for senior management, preservation administrators, and conservation technicians. An author and editor, she has taught "Conservation of Library Materials" for the library school at Catholic University, and has conducted many workshops for the Professional Picture Framers Association.

Ms. Smith's responsibilities for NPPO will include developing the Preservation Reference Service and Audio-Visual Loan program, through which the Library provides information and training aids to other libraries, individuals, and professional groups; designing and conducting conferences, seminars, and workshops on preservation-related topics, both within the Library of Congress and in cooperation with other national and regional organizations; coordinating the Preservation Office intern education program; and serving as contributing editor to the National Preservation Program Office NEWS.

Carolyn Clark Morrow, who will join NPPO in December, has been conservation librarian at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale since 1978, and is project director for both the Illinois and the Midwest Cooperative Conservation Programs. She holds the MLS, and a Certificate in Advanced Study with a specialization in preservation, from the University of Illinois. A prolific author, Ms. Morrow has published The Preservation Challenge (Knowledge Industries Publications, 1983), Conservation Treatment Procedures (Libraries Unlimited, 1982), a major bibliography, a model conservation policy statement, and numerous articles in state and national journals. A frequent speaker at conferences and workshops, Ms. Morrow also chairs the Visiting Committee to the Preservation/ Conservation Education Programs at Columbia University, has taught for both the University of Illinois and Southern Illinois University, and is active in ALA's Preservation Section, currently serving as vice chair/chair elect.

Ms. Morrow will coordinate the NPPO's publication program, which produces monographs, leaflets, audio-visual programs, and fact sheets on a variety of preservation topics; assume editorship of the National Preservation Office NEWS which is expected to debut this winter; develop the Library's participatory role in national cooperative microfilming projects such as that of the Research Libraries Group; and, with Ms. Smith and National Preservation Program Officer Peter C. Sparks, represent NPPO at conferences and professional meetings.

In the coming year, Ms. Smith and Ms. Morrow, assisted by NPPO secretary Joan Georges, will begin implementation of some of the plans developed by Mr. Sparks and Pamela W. Darling (special consultant for NPPO), who have worked for the past year and a half to redefine the Library's role in an emerging national preservation program.

Carolyn Clark Morrow	Merrily A. Smith

Mellon Interns

Joining the Preservation office team for a year is Robert Milevski, a 1984 graduate of the Preservation Administration Advanced Certificate Program at Columbia's School of Library Service, former branch librarian in the Chicago Public Library, and workshop coordinator for the Illinois Cooperative Conservation Program. Mr. Milevski serves as preservation administration intern, the first of three at the Library of Congress funded by the Mellon Foundation, which is also supporting preservation interns at the Mew York Public Library and the libraries of Columbia, Stanford, and Yale universities.

A second Mellon-supported internship, in conservation science, is held by M. Susan Barger, who came to the Library October 1 from the Materials Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University, where she has been research associate since earning the doctorate degree in 1982. Ms. Barger, whose earlier work included research and workshop planning at the Rochester Institute of Technology, has conducted research in the nature and deterioration of daguerreotype images, and will assist in the development of the Library's research program in photographic materials.