A combination of State aid and institutional funding will be used by the University at Buffalo Libraries in 2004/05 to pursue specific operational goals which support the Five-Year Plan for 2000/05 and the results of the comprehensive review of the Libraries’ preservation program. The review was concluded in December 2003, and steps toward the implementation of the four critical recommendations set forth in the report should make for an exciting year. Recruiting for a Preservation Officer is the most important of these critical recommendations; the remaining three critical recommendations and the numerous action items set forth in the report depend on the presence and leadership of a dynamic Preservation Officer.

State aid for preservation activities will cover the salaries of Conservation and Reformatting Technicians and the hourly wages of student assistants engaged in conservation and reformatting activities. State aid will be used for the salaries of the staff most directly involved in the day-to-day activities of conserving and reformatting damaged or deteriorated material; institutional support will provide all of the training, space, equipment, and supplies required for those activities. Institutional or competitive grant funding will be used for and all activities related to digitization.

The University at Buffalo Libraries will provide funding for all other staffing and activities related to a comprehensive preservation and conservation program. This support will offset the salaries of other staff engaged in preservation activities, provide funding for all supplies equipment, pay for all reformatting activities including digitizing, and cover the expenses associated with disaster prevention and recovery, travel, and staff training. All Preservation staff are entitled to take advantage of general and specialized staff development and training opportunities provided by the Libraries' and the University and participate in an ongoing strategic planning process.

The projected number of items to receive conservation treatment is in line with numbers for previous years.

It is anticipated that in excess of 17,000 volumes will be processed for commercial binding at institutional expense.

A new five-year bindery contract will be awarded on April 1; adherence to the ABI standard for binding of library material is required of any bidder who wishes to be considered.

Preservation staff continue to review material sent to the Center for Book Preservation and to determine the appropriate method of conservation treatment. In support of the goal to train staff throughout the Libraries in the identification of damaged materials, we will use a web site and other sources for illustrating damaged material.

During 2004/05 we expect to provide conservation treatment for more than 7,000 research level items. Although we will continue to give high priority to rapid turnaround for material from all unit library circulating collections, we will once again increase the amount of attention given to specialized collections including rare print materials. As part of the implementation of the recommendations from the review of our program we plan to increase the presence of Preservation staff in the major special collections area.

In 2004/05 we plan to continue the extensive project to repair or place in protective enclosures volumes of sets which anticipate will be transferred to remote storage in 2004.

Work will also continue rehousing the extensive archival collections of the Music Library.

We plan to maintain the current standard for prompt treatment and return of damaged material and construction of enclosures.

It is anticipated that in 2004/05 the Libraries' Xerox DocuTech Publisher 135 will be used to produce a total of at least 210,000 preservation photocopies. Emphasis will be on brittle material of a research level from the circulating and specialized collections of all libraries. Once again the number of copies will be less that the level seen in 2002/03 as a result of plans to purchase a greater number of replacement copies in lieu of photocopying.

We do not plan to initiate any new preservation microfilming projects in 2004/05. We will continue to produce periodic reels of the current issues of the two University newspapers, the Reporter and the Spectrum, and current volumes of the Buffalo Law Journal. Microfilming services will be provided by Preservation Resources, Inc., in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Institutional support will be used to pay costs associated with storing all archival masters by Iron Mountain.

The Libraries' reformatting program will continue to be supported with State aid by funding student assistants. Institutional funding will be used for the purchase of archival and acid free xerographic papers, toner and developer supplies, as well as the outsourcing of color copies to Makin' Copies in Amherst, NY and the purchase of the Savin copier maintenance service contract with Town and Country Office Machines in Cheektowaga, NY.

Relying solely on institutional support, we plan to continue with our limited use of digitizing as a means of preserving material. We will also continue our use of digitization as a preservation and access solution through the local initiative to digitize popular government documents issued as folders and brief pamphlets and to digitize lengthy tables of contents for commercial print material. The long-awaited DIGIT project will be launched as campus-wide approach to building a database of images for instruction and research purposes.

In 2004/05 we will continue to maintain the local web site "Resources for Digitization" will be continued.

The Preservation Officer will work with the Preservation Officers in the other ten comprehensive research libraries in New York State in the development of grant proposals. In particular, the University at Buffalo will continue to work closely with the Preservation Officers in the other three SUNY center libraries.

Preservation staff will continue to maintain a web site illustrating conservation and preservation techniques ranging from hydration to digitization.

In 2002/03 a major revision and expansion of the content and scope of the local preservation web site was accomplished. We will continue to keep the site current in 2004/05.

Institutional funding will be used to purchase a limited amount of educational material for the use of staff.

The University at Buffalo Libraries will continue to provide a significant amount of institutional support to supplement the annual state supported funding.

Salaries

The salary of the Preservation Officer is funded by the University Libraries.

Library staff who engage in commercial binding or rebinding preparations, collection development officers who screen brittle materials before any conservation activity takes place, curators of special collections, and administrative staff who set direction and assist in overseeing the preservation program are paid from the University Libraries' regular budget.

Other forms of institutional support

All supplies needed for conservation treatment, preservation reformatting and disaster prevention and recovery activities are provided with institutional funding.

The University Libraries also pay all charges for commercial binding and rebinding, the purchase of new copies, editions, or microforms acquired to replace damaged or brittle books, and for the space occupied by, and services provided to, all preservation/conservation activities.

All general office supplies and equipment are provided by the University Libraries.

The University Libraries support the preservation photocopy program by paying for the maintenance contracts for the Xerox DocuTech Model 135 Publisher and the Savin copier.

All staff and equipment costs associated with the creation of digital collections are assumed by the University Libraries.

Except for the technician positions the salaries of all staff who serve on the Preservation Council or the University Libraries Disaster Prevention, Response, and Recovery Team are paid from the University Libraries' regular budget.