NARRATIVE REPORT
Introduction
This report covers preservation activities performed in the University Libraries for the period July 1, 1999 through June 30, 2000. During the year priority was given to collection conservation, disaster preparedness, and Preservation staff training. State aid was used to fund the salaries of technicians and hourly wages paid to student workers, to purchase supplies needed for conservation treatment, preservation photocopy activities, and disaster preparedness, and to support preservation microfilming.
Collection Conservation
The work of our outstanding technicians who provide treatment to the Libraries' circulating collections through book repair, rehousing, and rebinding and through the reformatting of brittle books through preservation photocopying continued to be the hallmark of our conservation activities. Identification of damaged books continued to be done in unit libraries through the circulation process while brittle book review and reformatting decisions continued to be done by subject bibliographers. A combination of well-developed internal procedures and highly capable and motivated staff enabled us to stay current with conservation and reformatting activities. Special attention was given to constructing protective enclosures for two specialized collections--the George Kelley Paperback and Pulp Fiction Collection and the Joseph H. Brennan Collection of early metallurgical publications. Preservation staff also repaired a large number of specialized and rare holdings of Orthodox Catholic material. Work continued with the reformatting and rehousing of the University Archives' holdings of the records of the Ecumenical Task Force of the Niagara Frontier relating to the Love Canal and the other hazardous waste issues for Western New York in the period 1979-90. For another year student assistants paid by the University Libraries prepared the extensive number of newspaper articles included in the collection for photocopying, used the Xerox DocuTech to reformat the clippings, and began the project to digitize this material. The project to produce a preservation microfilm edition of the Law Library's holdings of the Buffalo Law Journal and its predecessor the Buffalo Daily Law Journal was successfully concluded. The result of this effort is a complete microfilm edition of the official source of legal notices for Buffalo and Erie County. Preservation Resources produced the microfilm. Once again this year efforts to reformat or rehouse the Music Library's extensive collection of manuscript material continued. Preservation staff constructed wrappers, portfolios, and envelopes for many of the non-traditional size scores. Also, additional scores were photocopied and pamphlets bound in-house. State aid was used to purchase a variety of supplies needed for this operation. The presence of the archivist/librarian in the Music Library has created the momentum for this effort. The University Libraries continued to make a significant contribution to the staffing for preservation activities. In addition to the time of the Preservation Office, a Library Clerk III continued to work full time as conservation manager, and her presence has had a positive impact on conservation and preparedness activities. We are also using part of the time of the Head of the Cataloging Department in Central Technical Services to help oversee the conservation activities and to work with unit library staff in the area of disaster preparedness and recovery. The Director of Central Technical Services continues to be the administrator overseeing the preservation program.
Disaster Preparedness
In 1999/2000 we continued to be very concerned with disaster preparedness. The University Libraries Disaster Prevention, Response, and Recovery Team met quarterly. One meeting was devoted to fire prevention and response and included a presentation by the University's fire marshal. We also used state aid to upgrade disaster preparedness supplies, including supplying all unit libraries sufficient plastic sheeting to allow them to respond immediately to potential water damage to collections.
Preservation Staff Training
A combination of state aid and University Libraries' funding was used to support attendance at conference and workshops. In addition to the Preservation Officer's attendance at meetings of New York State preservation officers, Preservation staff attended the three-day Bookbinding 2000 held at the Rochester Institute of Technology, a bookbinding workshop in Toronto presented by Stuart Brockman, and a two-day conference Preservation Planning offered by the Western New York Library Resources Council and taught by staff of the Northeast Document Conservation Center. In order to develop expertise in creating web documents for staff training and preservation awareness initiatives, Preservation staff took advantage of HTML classes offered locally.
The Preservation Council and Preservation Awareness
The Preservation Council's role was continued. All areas of the University Libraries are represented on this group which is charged with 1) monitoring goals and objectives of the preservation program; 2) advising how best to realize the goals and objectives of the preservation program's current five-year plan; 3) assisting in the compilation of an annual preservation calendar; 4) assisting in the preparation of an operational plan, budget, and report; 5) participating in the identification of projects for which grant funding would be appropriate and in the identification of possible sources of external funding; and 6) assisting in the preparation of successive five-year plans. One of the Conservation Technicians presented a session on simple book repair techniques at the 2000 SUNYLA Conference. Considerable progress was made toward developing a local web site on preservation awareness. We plan to introduce the site to University Libraries staff early in the 2000/2001 fiscal year. The University Libraries are optimistic that the year 2000/2001 will be another successful and eventful one for our preservation program.
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