RBMS Curators and Conservators Discussion Group

The next meeting of the RBMS (ALA Rare Book and Manuscript Section)
Curators and Conservators Discussion Group will be held on Sunday, June
27, 1993, at the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans, in Burgundy Room ABCD
(whatever that means).  It will be from 9:30 to 11:00 a.m.

The topic for the meeting has come once again from the questionnaire
that was distributed two years ago, asking people what they wanted us to
cover in these meetings.  The subject this time will be surveying
collections for conservation needs.  We should consider such things as
what forms are available from various institutions that we might use for
our own conservation surveys?  What kinds of assessments are there?  How
does an assessment for a special collections department differ, for
example, from that done for the general stacks?  What kinds of
information should be collected?  If the entire collection is to be
surveyed (or even just a part of it), should it be done item by item or
can a sampling be done?  What sampling techniques are appropriate and
practicable?  How is the assessment to be used?  How will it be affected
by the money available to do it and by the funds available for the
actual treatments or repairs to be done?  And so on.

There are naturally many other topics that we might cover.  The idea is
not so much to teach the participants in the discussion about all the
things that need to be done for such a survey, though that is one of the
discussion's aims; the idea is to raise our awareness about the issues,
especially for those who have never done such an assessment and whose
library might need one.

I urge those of you who have done a survey of this kind to attend; and
please, also, send me copies of your survey forms, either by snail mail
(Sid Berger, Head of Special Collections, Univ. of Calif., Riverside, CA
92517) by fax (909-787-3285) or by email.
Thank you.

Sid Berger, UCR

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                   Conservation DistList Instance 7:2
                   Distributed: Friday, June 11, 1993
                        Message Id: cdl-7-2-002
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