Preservation supplies budgeting

The following topic has come up several times recently here at Princeton
and I would like to know what you all do at your institutions with the
same situation or one similar to it.

Our Department of Rare Books and Special Collections is large and has a
number of special collections and curators.  Several of the curators
carry on their own collection preservation projects, more or less
independently of the Preservation Office for which they require services
or supplies or the funds to purchase them, eg, contracting for rare
book/ms boxes, or rehousing manuscript, archives, or photograph
collections, or matting graphic art.  (This can also be true for
collections in the library system which are not part of rare books and
special collections, such as map and sheet music collections.)

Where do the funds come from in your institution to fund these projects,
assuming they are funded?  Out of the Preservation Office budget?  Out
of the Special Collections budget?  Out of other funds in the Library?
Out of some combination of the above?

Do you provide services or supplies from your departmental inventory in
lieu of diminishing your or any one else's budget in the Library?

I recall, perhaps inaccurately, that at LC the various curatorial
divisions were individually assigned funds out of the Preservation
Office budget to purchase preservation supplies and that these
supplies were requested through and ordered by Preservation Office
staff for the divisions as needed.

IMHO, it seems logical (although somewhat arcane) for the Preservation
Office (here) to supply the funds for these projects (but probably not
the staff power), but that things can get out of hand (on the
requester end) if you seem like a Santa Claus or an easy mark or a
Daddy Warbucks.  If you apportion your preservation budget for these
non-preservation office sponsored/based projects, how do you do it?  A
fixed amount or percentage of your budget per year?  An as-needed system
with a fixed top limit?

Any thoughts on this matter will be helpful.  Thank you in advance. I
posted this query on another list recently but received only one
response, for which I am grateful.  It is hard to believe that no one is
in any of the situations I describe above.

Robert J. Milevski

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 6:40
                 Distributed: Friday, January 29, 1993
                        Message Id: cdl-6-40-007
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