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As usual,
I have a slightly different take on this topic. At the University of Kansas Libraries, we offer conservation
services to other libraries and museums in the state because we are pretty much
the only book and paper conservators in the state. We do this on a cost recovery basis, and it is a nice source
of some discretionary money for the Preservation Department. I have, from the day I started at KU,
wanted to offer conservation services to the public on at least a cost recovery
basis. People who have books that
they want conserved, and can afford conservation services, are also potential
donors, so I have always thought the return on this service could be huge. To date, I have not gotten the
Libraries’ various administrations to share my vision. So instead, I am always happy to meet
with people, to look at their treasures, and advise them on what they can
do. I usually get about 1-2 phone
calls a month, and maybe have people come in to the Preservation Department with
their treasures about 6-8 times a year.
It does not take much time for the good will it generates, and has
resulted in some minor gifts of either items for our special collections, or
money for the Preservation Department.
We do
offer limited binding services for people. The service is directed to students who want to get personal
copies of their theses bound, but we will sometimes send monographs through the
same process. This has been a very
popular service. Brian
Baird =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ Brian J. Baird Preservation
Librarian University of
Kansas 134 Watson
Library 1425 Jayhawk
Blvd. Lawrence, KS
66045-7544 (785) 864-3568 fax: (785)
864-5311 -----Original
Message----- At
Sibley we do take on private work from students and faculty, but the
volume of requests has been much lower - 1 or 2 requests in a
year. When they do come in, depending on the nature of the work required I
usually pass the work on to students to "moonlight,"
sometimes using the occasion to provide extra training that they can use on our
materials as well. Very occasionally (I remember twice in ten years) I'll do a
more complicated job myself, asking the patron to pay the library. And 2-3
times a year we'll include personal copies in bindery shipments, again having
the patron pay the library. The money doesn't actually go back to that budget
line, but so far the financial effect is insignificant, more than offset by the
positive effect on the image of the library with faculty members. As I say, the
level of requests is much lower here than it sounds like other preservation
units get. Alice Carli Conservator Sibley Music
Library -----Original
Message----- Hi, Same here. As a rule, we do not carry out
any conservation or book repair on materials that are not owned by the library
or directly involved in a cooperative library preservation project. However, we
are happy to provide advice on care for personal collections and information
about conservators and commercial binders. In my experience, most people are
pretty sympathetic to the challenge of keeping up with the library's internal
needs. Also, for state universities (such as ECU and UNC-Chapel Hill), I
think there is a reasonable argument that it is a misuse of public funds to
spend staff time and materials on anything other than state-owned collections.
-- ================================================== Andrew Hart, Preservation Librarian University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill CB#3910, Davis Library Chapel Hill, NC 27514 tel: (919) 962-8047 fax: (919) 962-4450 email: ashart@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ================================================== |