Literature--ANL Sep 1996

"Maintaining State Records in an Era of Change: A National Challenge. A Report on State Archives and Records Management Programs." COSHRC, July 1996.

This is the third in a series of biennial reports prepared by the Council of State Historical Records Coordinators. These reports review and summarize the status of historical records program in the states, and promote national priorities addressing records concerns. The 1996 report includes five recommendations:

Administrators and staff of state archives and records programs need ongoing professional development and training.
State archives and records programs must provide records creators in state and local agencies with sufficient guidance and training on long-term requirements for records management in all media.
Users must be informed about what records are available and how to access them.
Archivists and records managers must promote the identification and adoption of best practices among all government archives and records programs.
Archivists and records managers at all levels of government must foster effective strategic partnerships and cooperative projects to achieve common goals.

One of the recommendations, #2, concerns preservation, two (#1 and 4) concern good management (which makes good preservation possible), and one (#5) should result in better preservation during the time the records are in the care of the records managers.

A limited number of the reports were printed, but the full text should be available by now on the NHPRC Web site: http://www.archives.gov/nhprc_and_other_grants/about_nhprc/council_reports.html#maintaining (1D4.1)

International Journal of Forensic Document Examiners. v.1 #1- Jan/Mar 1995- . ISSN 1198-8975. Published quarterly by Shunderson Publications, PO Box 42057, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1K 4L8 (613/830-4750; fax 830-9654). Subscription fee: $30 US in Canada and the US. Joel Harris, Editor. The average issue has about 90 pages; nicely spiral bound.

This journal has a 16-member editorial board, so its articles are probably all juried; but it also has seven departments, including events, commentary and literature abstracts, so it also provides current news like a newsletter. There are many black-and-white illustrations, including photographs. The fourth issue of the year includes a six-page index.

Articles and literature abstracts occasionally cover topics of interest to paper conservators, including security marking, determining the age of inks, early papermaking techniques, forged and fake documents, deciphering opaqued (blacked-out) writing, analyzing photocopy toners by IR, and the Writing Equipment Society and its activities. The Literature section gives long abstracts, but not date of publication, number of pages, or the telephone number of the publisher. (1E3)

"Draft Statement of Principles of Preservation and Long Term Access to Australian Digital Objects." AICCM National Newsletter No. 59, June 1996, p. 5-7.

The National Preservation Office, in the National Library of Australia, is coordinating the development and discussion of this statement, which is based partly on the Draft Report of the U.S. Task Force on Archiving of Digital Information. It is also consistent with the policy statements endorsed by the Australian Cultural Ministers Council in 1995, especially the parts about the need to "conserve and preserve Australia's movable cultural heritage" and the people's right to have "a reasonable and an equitable opportunity of access to their movable cultural heritage.…" It emphasizes migration and copying strategies, and says that "Commonwealth and State government regulatory, legislative and policy regimes are essential." (1G5)

"Model for the Recording of Preservation and Conservation Activity." The Australian Conspectus, Information Sheet No. 9. National Library of Australia, DNC [Distributed National Collection] Office, June 1996. 21 pp. Copies are available from Rachel Jakimow, Australian Conspectus Manager, DNC Office, National Library of Australia, Canberra ACT 2600, Australia (+61 6 262 1522, fax +61 6 257 1703, r.jakimow@nla.gov.au). The National Preservation Office has a Web site: http://www.nla.gov.au/3/npo/. (This is a new one.)

The Australian Conspectus, like the American Conspectus, lists all the important subjects by which library materials are classified, and each library decides on the "collecting level" for each subject. So far, the Conspectus has been used only to show the intensity of collection effort for each subject. Intensity is graded at six levels, from "Out of scope" (0) to "Comprehensive" (5). The National Preservation Office has collaborated with the DNC Office and the Preservation Services Section of the National Library to propose a standardized means of recording national, regional and local preservation and conservation activity in the Conspectus, particularly in relation to electronic resources. This would benefit both the individual library and national preservation efforts. Benefits would include facilitation of cooperation, identification of institutions with primary preservation responsibility, and assist location of vulnerable "at risk" collections.

The Distributed National Collection is defined as "the aggregation of all collections in Australia which are recorded in generally accessible databases and are accessible, either in person or via inter-library loan, to users with bona fide reasons for access." It is comprehensive for Australiana and selective in relation to the rest of the world. Collections, but not individual publications, are recorded in the Conspectus Database.

There are sample filled-out forms and a glossary and bibliography in the back. (1G5)

Advances in Preservation and Access. Vol. 2. Edited by Barbra Buckner Higginbotham. Learned Information, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055-8750 (609/654-6266); 1995. Hard cover, 427 p. ISBN 0-938734-88-1. Alkaline paper. $49.50.

There are 25 papers grouped under seven headings:

Preservation's Future-Present
Science and Technology Assisting Preservation
Technology as a Tool for Managing the Work of the Preservation/Conservation Unit
Preservation Planning, Condition Surveys, and Needs Assessment
Preserving Special Formats
Preserving Special Collections
Education and Training for Librarians, Archivists, and Readers

Some papers describe single projects or events from the recent past, while others describe the state of the art in an aspect of preservation, or serve as literature surveys. Some of those that deserve special mention are:

"Preservation as Vanishing Act (and Art?): Print-Era Organizations in the Electronic Age," by Dan C. Hazen. The author reviews the present trends and pressures on preservation: the common tendency to see a single solution to all problems or for all libraries; outside funding and charging fees for library services; the shift of emphasis from "micro" to "macro" treatments; strategic implications of mass deacidification; and finally, the "new paradigm" of digital records. This is a cool-headed analysis, with some conclusions and recommendations. It identifies the choices and dilemmas that cannot be resolved yet, but also identifies other developments that may make resolution possible in the future.

"Library Air Pollution: Sampling and Mitigation," by Randy Silverman, Constance K. Lundberg and Delbert J. Eatough. The authors review the literature, with 105 references, and briefly review the history of pollution detection. They systematically and thoroughly review the effects of pollutants (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone, formaldehyde and particulates) on materials; summarize the problems in mitigation; and describe two air sampling projects.

"Comprehensive Production Software (That Works!) for Preservation," by Errol Somay and Marc Reeves. The New York Public Library's Preservation Database was developed using the multi-user relational database Helix Express and is used in a network of 16 Macintosh workstations. The software is described in detail, with the system configuration, an overview of operations, and its function in the preparation of books for microfilming. It sounds wonderful, and it has saved money for the NYPL, but it is not available outside the library. (2.4)

Preservation of Collections: Assessment, Evaluation, and Mitigation Strategies. Papers presented at the AIC workshop in Norfolk, Va., June 10-11, 1996. 75 pp. $10 (members) or $15 (nonmembers), + $3 postage, from American Institute for Conservation, Washington, DC, 1996 (202/452-9545). The published volume contains 11 papers. Two other papers on the program (by Paul J. Marcon and Jan Merrill-Oldham) were not included in the volume , but were distributed as separates at the workshop.

There were five papers on planning and priority-setting:
Jan Merrill-Oldham - Assessing Conservation Needs in Libraries
Robert Waller - Preventive Conservation Planning for Large and Diverse Collections
U. Vincent Wilcox - Long-Term Implications of Building and Environmental Control Options
Arthur Beale - Environmental Control Options: Evaluating Macro, Micro, Active, and Passive Methods
Lisa Mibach and Meg Loew Craft - Evaluating Data and Setting Priorities

One paper dealt with handling of objects:
Paul J. Marcon - Mitigating the Effects of Shock and Vibration

Three dealt with pollutants:
Cecily M. Grzywacz and Norman H. Tennent - Monitoring Pollutants: Methods and Survey Goals
William P. Lull - Mitigating Gaseous Contamination with Building Systems
Pamela Hatchfield - Mitigating the Effects of Internally-Generated Pollutants

Four dealt with environmental monitoring and control:
Ernest A. Conrad - Environmental Monitoring as a Diagnostic Tool
Stefan Michalski - Environmental Guidelines: Defining Norms for Large and Varied Collections
Robert Herskovitz - Realistic Expectations and Usable Results from Environmental Monitoring
James M. Reilly - IPI's Environmental Assessment Technology (2C)

"The Allowable Temperature and Relative Humidity Range for the Safe Use and Storage of Photographic Materials," by Mark McCormick-Goodhart. J. Soc. Archivists (Canada), v. 17 #1, 1996, p. 7-21.

The author says that allowable ranges of temperature and relative humidity are the same for old brittle material as they are for new material, because the elastic limits (yield points) do not change with age. However, the risk involved in going outside that range (exceeding the glass transition temperature or Tg) is greater for brittle material, because it loses the ability to plastically deform. Also, when the RH is too high, gelatin absorbs a great deal of water, which allows the silver to move away from its original location, permitting ferrotyping and redox blemishes to form. Emulsions may stick to neighboring objects and mold may form on the surface.

A trapezoidal diagram shows the chemically and physically safe range for keeping of photographs, between -35° C and +25° C. A higher RH range (35% to 60%) is permissible at the warmer end of the diagram; but only 20% to 40% at the cold end. Within those temperature and RH limits, the author says conditions can vary freely without damaging photographic materials chemically or physically. (A wider range of RH, but not T, is permissible if one's only concern is physical stability.)

The big problem with use of a cold storage vault for photographs is the length of time for a box of photographs to reach RH equilibrium when it is removed to be consulted, or returned to the vault. It may take days, months or years. The solution is "to maintain two distinct but physically safe climates, one to impart superior chemical stability in storage, the other to ensure a reasonable level of chemical stability during use or exhibition." The photographic materials should be warmed up slowly, with moisture barriers if necessary, to avoid high RH or condensation on the film while it is cold. The materials should stay in the safe range and the package should not contain too much air.

This publication is hard to categorize. It is not a scientific publication, because it is addressed to archivists, who are practitioners; but on the other hand it gives little practical advice, so it is not a "how-to" publication. It does not review previous research on the topic by other workers, or even refer explicitly to any of the publications in the endnotes. (One of the endnotes contains 15 references, all of them by members of the author's research group. Out of a total of 26 references, only three were by authors not in that group.)

It does describe and explain the rationale behind the author's recommended conditions for storage of photographic materials. This is an important topic, and the paper is well written, by and large. Some things seem to be missing, though. The author refers several times to chemical stability of the material, but does not specify what kinds of chemical changes he has in mind, aside from one mention of mirroring being caused by the oxidation-reduction process when the gelatin passes into the gel state. When he says "There are no limitations on the frequency or magnitude of the environmental change as long as the change does not fall outside region #1 [the trapezoid]," one wonders whether he knows about Shahani's work on paper degradation caused by cycling RH in the aging oven (ACS, 1988).

On p. 16, he discusses the problem of slow RH equilibration in materials removed from the cold storage chamber, but says nothing about how long this equilibration should take, given the principles he has described, except that it could take years. And how can a person tell when the contents of a package have equilibrated? This may not be what the author wanted to talk about, but it does become a nagging question, once the subject has been raised. (2C1.7)

"Report: Mass Deacidification for Paper-Based Collections," by Jean Schoenthaler and Masato Okinaka. New Jersey Library Association Preservation Section Newsletter, v.12 #2, Winter 1996, p. [7-9]. This is a report of the two-hour video conference last October from Pittsburgh, sponsored by William Morris College and the Pittsburgh Regional Library Center. The panel of experts was composed of Kenneth Harris, Chandru Shahani, Sue Kellerman, Sally Buchanan, Randall Russell (of PTI, which has the Bookkeeper process), and Robert DeCandido (moderator).

Each site (location where "attendees" could interact with panelists by phone, fax or e-mail during the video transmission) had a site coordinator, who saw that each attendee got an agenda, list of panelists and a bibliography beforehand.

The first few presentations provided basic information about deacidification. British, German, French and Japanese procedures are in various states of development. No process is equally suitable for all kinds of material; each process has its faults and advantages. None of the processes will also strengthen book paper, though the British and French processes include a planned strengthening function.

Some libraries were already budgeting for mass deacidification.

Russell demonstrated the Bookkeeper process. This was possible because it can be done under ambient conditions and does not use a toxic solvent. It left a residue on coated papers which has to be removed by hand.

The panel discussed what a library has to do to get involved in the process: work out criteria for selection of materials, safety criteria and a system for tracking of materials and evaluating the effectiveness of treatment. Sue Kellerman described Penn State's experience with this. Returned materials should be tested randomly, and the treatment recorded in MARC tag field 583.

The authors had two complaints: 1) PTI's service (Bookkeeper) was the only one represented; this made the program appear to be an endorsement. 2) The audio transmission was faulty, and was not corrected on the tape sent to site coordinators until two months after the conference. (2D5)

"Halting Paper Decay." Du Pont Magazine - European Edition no. 1, 1996, pp. 16-17. (PBA Abstract 5388, 1996)

The abstract does not name the deacidification process, but it has to be the Battelle process, because it "involves drying the documents with microwaves and soaking them in a solvent with magnesium and titanium carbonates which react with the acid." A disadvantage of this process, it goes on, is that the chemicals used corrode the metal fastenings securing the paper in files. (The abstract does not say whether it is referring to the fastenings in the institution that owns the documents, or those in the deacidification plant). Oekopack of Switzerland has developed the Dura-Perl document binder system which uses fastenings made from DuPont's polyester based elastomer, Hytrel, which is resistant to the chemicals used in paper deacidification as well as being tough, resilient and highly flexible. (2D5.9)

"Studies in Scarlet," Research Libraries Group News No. 40, Spring 1996, p. 3-9.

This article, together with several short features before and after it in the issue, describes RLG's first major, international digitization project, which will create a single digital collection drawn from the collections of seven RLG members. The full title of the project is "Studies in Scarlet: Marriage and Sexuality in the United States and the United Kingdom, 1815-1914." It will test the proposition that a "virtual collection" for scholarly research can be created cooperatively, made widely available, and be responsibly maintained for future use.

Although "Studies in Scarlet" is expected to be "a rich source for historians, sociologists, criminologists, political scientists, legal and other scholars," it grew out of an exhibit at Harvard Law School called "Trials of Love" about popular trials of the past. The project is centered on legal issues: antimiscegenation laws, polygamy, birth control, divorce, and so on. Materials of all sorts (popular as well as formal material, and photographs and other nontextual material in addition to printed or manuscript material) are being contributed by the seven participating libraries. Each library has a project team of three. Some preservation librarians are on these project teams: Will Meredith and Jan Merrill-Oldham of Harvard, and Joan Gatewood of New York Public Library.

There are two task forces for the RLG project: one for content and one for technical matters. Peter Graham, Nancy Gwinn and Mark Roosa are on the Technical Task Force, which has seven members.

RLG has three related digital projects: Arches, an archival server and testbed; FAST, a project to improve access to archival collections by helping its members encode their finding aids with SGML; and WebDOC, a location and delivery service designed for the World Wide Web. WebDOC is also being tried out in the Netherlands and Germany. Readers who want to follow the development of these projects can point their WWW browsers at RLG's Web site (http://www.rlg.org). (2E4)

Disaster Management in British Libraries. Project Report with Guidelines for Library Managers, by Graham Matthews and Paul Eden. (Library and Information Research Report 109) British Library, 1996. 176 pp. ISBN 0 7123 3306 1. Available for £15 from Turpin Distribution Services, Blackhorse Road, Letchworth, Herts SG6 1HN, UK (fax 44-1462-480947, e-mail turpin@rsc.org).

This is not just another book on disaster management, but a report of a research project, so realistic, complete and well-written that it is hard to put down. The project was funded by the British Library Research and Development Department "to achieve an overview of current disaster management practice in British libraries and to produce guidelines on disaster management based on good practice for library and information service managers."

The fact that it was written by managers for the use of managers accounts for the attention it gives to matters not normally covered in disaster manuals, and for the frankness with which it points to common shortcomings of disaster preparation revealed in their interviews and visits, their survey of the English-language literature, and in the six conferences, seminars or meetings they attended.

The shortcomings noted by the authors may be due to managers' low participation in disaster management.

Part 1 of the book (the first 65 pages) is a report of the project's main findings under 41 headings (e.g., insurance, communication, conservation advice), and Part II (p. 71-176) is an explicit manual for managers under the main headings of Prevention, Reaction and Recovery. Under Prevention there are several pages on "Buildings, contents and facilities"; one of the duties under this subhead is "Keep a defect book," in which malfunctions, problems and disasters are written down; the Disaster Manager, it says, should inspect and sign the defect book each month.

The book is printed on alkaline paper, but there is no index. (2F3)

"Stachybotrys: Fungus Makes News Again," ACTS FACTS, June 1996. The Department of Transportation (DOT) closed a gymnasium in its Washington, DC, office building after discovering two kinds of fungus. One was the common aspergillus which causes allergic reactions and infections in people with suppressed imune systems. The other was the toxic Stachybotrys chartarum. (Stachybotrys atra, another variety, was discussed in ACTS FACTS, May 1994).

Stachybotrys chartarum can cause dermatitis, burning sensations in the mouth and nasal passages, coughs and congestions, and neurological damage. While stachybotrys is found all over the world, it only exists in buildings in association with standing water, heavily wetted wall board, or similarly damp conditions. According to the DOT, renovation workers will wear respiratory protection, the area will be sealed to prevent contamination of the rest of the building, and air will be released into the atmosphere only through high-efficiency filters. Identifying molds before planning renovations is crucial to worker safety. [This news appeared originally in BNA-OSHR (Bureau of National Affairs Occupational Safety & Health Reporter), 25(48), May 8, 1996, p. 1667.] (2H1.1)

"Polyvinyl Acetate Adhesives for Double-Fan Adhesive Binding: Report on a Review and Specification Study," by Robert J. Strauss and Barclay W. Ogden. April 17, 1992. 32 pp. Available from the Library Binding Institute for $10.

This is a review of what is known about PVA adhesives for bookbinding, specifically for double fan binding. The study, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered from the University of Minnesota, was prompted by the binding community's realization that the adhesives nearly every binder was using were homopolymer PVAs, not the copolymers endorsed by most research since William J. Barrow, and specified in the 8th edition of the Library Binding Institute Standard for Library Binding. The literature was reviewed and experts were interviewed.

Homopolymers were thought by most scientists to be unsuitable because they all contain plasticizers, which theoretically could migrate out and affect the bond with paper. German manufacturers and others, however, said no plasticizer would migrate out because it was present in such small quantity (less than 15%). The authors worked with another expert to develop a performance-based specification that could be used for any binding adhesive, but there was little they could do, without further research, to resolve the question of what adhesive to use for double fan binding.

Both authors have managed library binderies in the past. (3.73)

"Performance Measures for Library Binding. Final Report," by Barclay Ogden and Robert J. Strauss. 22 Sept. 1995. 17 pp. Available for $10 from the Library Binding Institute.

On behalf of the NISO Standards Committee ZZ: Library Binding, the LBI sponsored a project to identify performance criteria for library bindings. (The present LBI standard emphasizes the materials of which the bindings are made, and the procedures by which they are assembled, rather than performance.)

The investigators looked at five characteristics in a total of 198 test volumes:
Openability
Joint strength
Strength of leaf attachment
Endcap strength
Overall durability.

Testing was done by United States Testing Company, Inc., whose report, including all the data, makes up the last 10 pages of the booklet. Eighteen findings are summarized on pages 2 and 3, among them the following:

Volumes that were sewn through the fold were stronger if rounded and backed and given a standard hinge width than if they were flat backed with wide hinges. On adhesive-bound and oversewn volumes, however, backing and joint width made little or no difference.

The bond between protein adhesive and PVA in the joint [presumably when the case was made with animal glue but casing-in was done with PVA] was substantially less strong than the bond joining PVA with PVA.

Notching appeared to add substantial strength over milling only, or milling and sanding.

Endcap strength was little affected whether it was reinforced or not, and whether the reinforcement was braid or cord. (3A4)

"Bloom on Leather," by William McLean. CBBAG Newsletter, Summer 1996, p. 10-11.

The author is a director of J. Hewit & Sons, Tanners and Leather Dressers, suppliers of bookbinding leathers for nearly 200 years. This technical note, describing the nature and control of bloom, as far as it is known, originated as a post to the Book Arts Liston the Internet. He says bloom is of two sorts: microbial growth and crystalline surface deposits, called spues in the trade. The spues in turn are of two sorts: waxy and salt. Salt spues dissolve when wetted, but come back when the leather dries unless the grain surface is covered with an impervious sheet, to force the moisture to migrate away from the grain. Waxy deposits will usually melt when held near a match. Sometimes they can be removed by swabbing with a solvent, if they can be dried "into the leather." (3D3)

Volume 20, Number 4-5 Sep 1996

Literature

Volume 20, Number 4-5
Sep 1996