Tag Archives: Preservation

Library Preservation Dept. Open House — You’re Invited!

To mark National Preservation Week, the Preservation staff in Davis Family Library is hosting an Open House from 1-4:30pm on Thur., April 26th.  Stop by our workshop in LIB135 to see the various ways we preserve the library’s collections  and to watch our conservation technician at work.  Bring in your own book and paper preservation problems for evaluation by the staff.

See how a book goes from this…

…. to this!

Preservation Week is a collaborative effort supported by the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association, Library of Congress and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.  To learn more about it see http://www.atyourlibrary.org/passiton

Consider coming by the Preservation Dept. on your way to the Annual Rucker Lecture at 4:30! 

For more information contact Joseph Watson,  jwatson@middlebury.edu  443-5487

Recent article by Robert Darnton

Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the Harvard University Library, describes many of the issues facing libraries – from digital books to the rising price of journals in this article published November 23, 2010 in the New York Review of books.

LIS Collection Management has a new name!

With the merger of Collection Management and portions of Academic Consulting Services, it became clear that the area needed a new name to reflect its expanded scope.

I’m therefore pleased to announce that the name for this area is now Research and Collection Services (RCS). While many portions of the website still reflect the old names — and it will take a while before we’ve eradicated all remnants of Collection Management/Academic Consulting Services from the website, email distribution lists, HR/Banner information, etc. — please consider the name to be effective immediately.  We’ll try to get the changes made expeditiously.

As a reminder, RCS includes:

  • Reference and Instruction Librarians
  • Special Collections
  • Vt. Collection
  • Government Documents
  • Inter-library Loan
  • Cataloging/Acquisitions/Serials
  • Preservation & Processing
  • Collection Development

Preserving Our Valuable Collections

Ginny Faust in the Conservation Workroom.

Ginny Faust in the Conservation Workroom.

While some of the work of LIS varies with the semesters and seasons, other work continues quietly at a regular pace and sometimes goes unnoticed. Ginny Faust, Binding and Conservation Technician, works to maintain and improve the condition of both the circulating and special collections of the libraries. Routine preservation activities like binding and reinforcement of new materials, repair of worn and damaged items, and repackaging of media materials have gone on for many years and the result of these activities is a library collection in generally excellent condition of which Middlebury can be proud.  In recent years we have expanded our work to include the conservation of selected Special Collections materials.  Ginny has taken classes and independently studied to improve her conservation skills.  We are now able to cost effectively complete conservation treatments in-house that we could not afford to outsource to a professional conservator.  To see examples of this important work please see the overview and gallery here.

Question: Why don’t you keep the book jackets on books?

Answer: (provided by Joseph Watson) We understand and agree that some book jackets are desirable, but to be pragmatic, especially in these times of tight budgets, we do not feel like we can justify the extra time and expense required to retain the jackets permanently. The old fashioned library answer might be “Book jackets are used by the publisher to sell the book in a book store setting and they are not necessary in an academic research setting where most people consult the library catalog to find books rather than browsing the shelves.” and to a great extent this is still true. In fact, we recently enhanced the catalog so it is now possible to view book covers, dust jackets, author biographies, table of contents, and sometimes even reviews for most newly published books. Dust jackets stay with the book until it is removed from the New Books shelf and anyone borrowing the book at that point is welcome to keep the jacket. Discarded jackets are left for reuse on a bulletin board near LIB140… they’re great for making collages or decorating dorm rooms.