Volume 11, Number 7
Oct 1987

Latin American Preservation Panel

A special preservation and conservation panel was held at a recent joint conference of two important Latin American Library Association meetings. The Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM) met jointly with the Association of Caribbean University, Research and Institutional Libraries (ACURIL) in Miami May 10-15. For the first time for both organizations, discussions were held concerning the significant preservation and conservation problems of Latin American books and libraries. Mark L. Grover, Brigham Young University, and Mary Noonan of DYNIX Inc. presented findings of a recent quantitative analysis of the binding and paper quality of recent books published in Latin America. Robin Price, of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London, described the preservation activities of this important institute library. The final paper was presented by Richard D. Smith, Wei T'o Associates, on preservation and conservation activities as they relate to the special problems of the Caribbean. At the end of the panel, Guy Petherbridge briefly discussed the potential role of the Columbia University School of Library Service in training librarians from Latin America in preservation administration and conservation. Since there were librarians from several Latin American countries in attendance, the informal discussions held after the panel on different programs and approaches were extremely valuable.