Introduction
This report covers preservation activities performed in the University
Libraries for the period July 1, 1998 through June 30, 1999. During the
year priority was given to collection conservation and disaster
preparedness. State aid was used to fund the salaries, including benefits,
of technicians and to purchase all supplies needed for conservation
treatment, preservation photocopy activities, and disaster
preparedness. Because of the way in which state aid was made available in
1998/99 the amount of funding available for student was greatly reduced.
Collection Conservation
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. The operation
continued to benefit from refinements to internal procedures for tracking
material awaiting conservation treatment which were implemented in
1997/98. A return to full staffing for conservation activities enabled us
to eliminate a backlog and to maintain the shorter processing times
introduced in 1997/98.
The work of technicians providing routine treatment to the Libraries'
circulating collections through book repair and rebinding and the
reformatting of brittle books through preservation photocopying
constituted a major focus of conservation activities.
Special attention was given to the conservation of maps, oversized
posters, and architectural drawings. We take great pride in the highly
competent and motivated staff in our preservation program. This
assessment is shared by others in the University Libraries as evidenced by
a recent letter praising the work done by our conservation technicians
with Frank Lloyd Wright architectural drawings. "Once the drawings were
flattened, they did a marvelous job of cleaning, repairing tears, and
encapsulating them in mylar. The work was on the level of many of the
professional paper conservators I have worked with in the past."
Progress was made in several reformatting and rehousing projects in the
University Archives and the Law and Music Libraries. All of these
projects involve significant collections, and we are pleased that use of
the material has increased as a result of reformatting or rehousing. The
University Archives is a repository 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 a
second year Archives staff continued to organize and catalog much of the
correspondences, reports, photographs and other materials, and student
assistants paid by the University Libraries prepared the extensive number
of newspaper articles included in the collection for photocopying and used
the Xerox DocuTech to reformat the clippings. State aid was used once
again to purchase supplies and paper needed for this project.
Another project which continued for a second year was the microfilming of
the Law Library's holdings of the Buffalo Law Journal and its predecessor
the Buffalo Daily Law Journal. An article about this project, the
importance of these publications, and how the project is being funded with
state aid appeared in the Autumn 1998 issue of access! the University
Libraries' publication for donors and others.
We continued to work with the firm of Preservation Resources to produce
the microfilm. It will take several years to microfilm the holdings of
the two titles back to 1929. We did not film as much in 1998/99 as had
been anticipated. The number of missing articles and pages from the Law
Library's holdings has been extensive, and the time required to obtain
replacement pages has delayed our progress. Consequently, we spent less
for microfilming than we had budgeted.
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 University Libraries increased its commitment to this
material with the hiring of an archivist/librarian who is responsible for
organizing and providing access to the material.
In July 1998 we were pleased to be able to hire Peggy Pajak as manager of
the brittle books/photocopy operation. The fact that her position is full
time and classified at the SL-2 level (her predecessor was part time and
the position was an SL-1) indicates the importance which we place on
reformatting of brittle material and the recognition which we have of the
complexity of the process. During 1998/99 we reclassed the positions held
by the two conservation technicians, Judith Jungles and Kimberly Wagner,
to SL-2s. Ms. Wagner's position was transferred from University Libraries
funding to state aid. Having all three of these positions at the SL-2
level gives us more flexibility with assigning duties. During the year an
unanticipated opportunity arose for the two technicians to attend a
workshop on intermediate book repair sponsored by the Northeast Document
Conservation Center. This increased the amount we had budgeted for
travel.
Staffing for preservation activities was enhanced by using additional
positions funded with University Libraries funding. A Library Clerk III
has been assigned full time to the program as conservation manager. Half
of the time of two Clerk I positions is being used to support conservation
activities (packing and unpacking material sent for treatment, controlling
material which is awaiting treatment, and call numbering material which
has been repaired). Finally, we are 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 1998/99 we also emphasized disaster preparedness. Several activities
were pursued: 1) we undertook a review of our disaster manual and
converted it to a web document
(http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/cts/preservation/manual.html);
2) we worked with unit libraries to develop individual unit disaster
prevention and response teams; 3) we formed a University Libraries
Disaster Prevention, Response, and Recovery Team.
In May 1999 team members and other staff underwent a half day disaster
response training session conducted by Karen Brown of the Northeast
Document Conservation Center. The lecture and hands-on sessions were
valuable exposure to the area of disaster recovery. Within a week of the
training a fire started on the roof of one of our libraries. Fortunately,
there was no harm to staff, patrons, or library collections. Taking place
so soon after the training, the experience with the fire did reinforce
very clearly the need for disaster preparedness.
We realized that we needed to purchase additional disaster response
supplies for individual unit libraries and for the training sessions. We
were able to use some of the funds budgeted for the microfilming
activities to cover these purchases.
Early in 1998/99 a Preservation Council was formed. 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.
The University Libraries look forward to the coming year and to the
opportunity to continue to pursue the goals of our preservation program.
August 24, 1999
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