Literature

Michael E.D. Koenig, "Buttering the Toast Evenly," Amer. Libraries, Sept. 1990, P. 723-724, 726. A former faculty member at the Columbia School of Library Service explains why library schools in prestige institutions tend to get closed down.

"Conservation Science Task Force Report." AIC Newsletter, Sept. 1990, P. 8-10.

The Commission on Reservations and Excess Newsletter, Number -01, September 1990, was published from 143 Hanks Hill Rd., Storrs, CT 06268 (203/429-7051), by the Molesworth Institute, which also published two issues of "Not the Association of Research Libraries Newsletter" in times past. The author, Norman D. Stevens, is a past contributor to the Abbey Newsletter and to the Alkaline Paper Advocate. See his "The Man Who Saved Books" in AN, April 1985, P. 35. The eight pages of this new publication contain items ranging from outrageous through really amusing to informative. Especially recommended: the menu ("Filet of Solander... Pineapple Oversewn Cake ... Wei T'o Mai Tai...") and the list of sports events ("Fly fiching, rare book vaulting, bench pressing...").

Newspaper Preservation and Access. Proceedings of the Symposium held in London, Aug. 12-15, 1987. Ed.: Ian P. Gibb. IFLA Publications No. 45, 46. Munich, New York: Saur, 1988. 2 vols @ $37.50/vol. (ISBN 3-598-21775-7 and -21776-5). This was announced on P. 34 of the May issue, without some of the above information.

The April-June 1990 Bibliography Newsletter has short, discriminating reviews of seven of the Garland reprints:

The Book-Finishers' Friendly Circular
Joseph Cundall on Bookbinding History (originally published as On Bookbindings, Ancient and Modern, 1881; and On Ornamental Art, Applied to Ancient and Modern Bookbinding, 1848)
A Lecture on Bookbinding as a Fine Art
The Progress of the Marbling Art
Bookbindings Old and New: Notes of a Book-Lover Bookbinding Craft and Industry
The Evolution of Publishers' Binding Styles, 1770-1900

Peter G. Sparks, "Some Properties of Polymers and Their Relevance to Double-Fan Adhesive Binding." New Library Scene, Aug. 1990 p. 1, 5-8. A most welcome background article on the homopolymer-copolymer controversy (AN, p. 78c & 90d. a=top left of page, b=bottom left, etc.).

Heinz Petersen: Bucheinbände. Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, Graz 1988. 312 pp, 16 colored plates, 150 pages of black & white illus. 185 DM ($118). The review in Restauro 3/1990 recommends it as required reading.

Gerd Brinkhus describes a twelfth century wrapper binding with photographs, on p. 172 in the July 1990 Restauro.

János Szirmai has three publications an girdle books:
"The Girdle Book of the Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum." Quaerendo XVIII, 1 (1988), P. 17-34. Generously illustrated.
(With W. K. Gnirrep), "Spines Reinforced with Metal Rods in Sixteenth-Century Limp Parchment Bindings." Quarendo XIX, 1 & 2 (1989), p. 117-140.
"Ein neu aufgefundenes Beutelbuch in Berlin." Gutenberg Jahrbuch 1990 p. 335-345. Four pages of drawings or photographs; 25 footnotes, mainly bibliographical.

"Hazards of Laser Printers and Copiers," p. 2-3 in ACTS FACTS Oct. 1990. This article opens with a medical report of a man who got sick after "exposure to laser-printer products." Ozone is the most common pollutant produced by copiers and printers. Advice: use good ventilation (20 cubic feet/min. of outside air per person); try to purchase copiers that operate with a positively charged drum; and more. Write for copy: ACTS FACTS, Monona Rossol, Editor, 181 Thompson St., #23, New York, NY 10012. Or subscribe: $10 for 12 issues/year.

International Biodeterioration (Journal Information Center, Elsevier Science Publishing Co., 655 Avenue of the Americas, York, NY 10010) recently published an article by C. A. Hunter et al., "Mold in Buildings: The Air Spora of Domestic Dwellings," but the flyer doesn't say which issue it was in. $184/year; sample copy free. The same publisher has also just published Biodeterioration 7, Selected Papers Presented at the 7th International Biodeterioration Symposium, Cambridge, UK, Sept. 1987, which has only one relating to book and paper conservation: "Comparison of Possible Chemical and Microbial Factors Influencing Paper Decay by Iron-gall Inks."

Biodeterioration Research 3 (Plenun Publishing Corp., Attn: Melanie Yelity, 233 Spring St., New York, NY 10013) has five articles that seem to relate to book and paper conservation:
D.M. Lewis - Immunologic Aspects of the Evaluation of Health Problem Associated with Indoor Air Pollution
D.M. Lewis et al. - Microbiological and Serological Studies of an Outbreak of "Humidifier Fever" in a Print Shop
L.B. Weekley and G.C. Llewellyn - Pulmonary Inflammatory and immunological Responses to Airborne Pathogens: A Review
R.J. Koestler and E.D. Santoro - Biodeterioration in Museums-Observations
Valentine and F. Preusser - Nitrogen for Biodeterioration Control on Museum Collections.

Peter Waters, "Phased Preservation: A Philosophical Concept and Practical Approach to Preservation." Special Libraries, Winter 1990, p. 35-43. Many of the procedures and much of philosophy described has become an accepted part of preservation administration in this country.

The August 1990 issue of International Preservation News, , No. 4 in the series, came out recently. It is issued for IFLA, by the National Preservation Program Office at the Library of Congress. This issue carries reports on the regional centers of IFLA, recent international conferences, the international and the European registers of microfilm masters, and more.

"Preservation Photocopying of Bound Volumes: An Increasingly Viable Option," by Gloria J. Orr. LRTS, Oct. 1990, p. 445-454. A detailed comparison of the OCÉ 1725, Xerox 5042, Selectic 1603, and Selectec 1707. 47 refs.

"Exposure of Deacidified Paper to Ambient Levels Of SO₂ and NO₂," by Edwin L. William II and Daniel Grosjean. Published jointly by Daniel Grosjean & Associates and the Getty Conservation Institute, July 1990. A GCI Scientific Program Report. A study of the uptake process; evaluation of the effectiveness of deacidification processes will be done later.

ICOM, the International Council on Museums, has a large number of committees, organized either on the basis of area or subject. The second largest "international" (subject-oriented) committee is the Committee for Conservation, with 900 members. It is so large that it has international 5-day conferences of its own, with preprints published in

3 volumes. It has 26 "working groups" on every aspect of conservation, among them the Working Group on Training, which is now holding its own conferences and publishing proceedings. The 14 papers from its 1989 conference are available for $12 from Opleidung Restauratoren, Gabriel Metsustraat 8, 1071 EA Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Make out checks to Opleidung Restauratoren, and submit them with the order.

The proceedings of the 9th triennial meeting of the Committee for Conservation, August 1990 in Dresden, are also available, in two volumes, either from ICOM or from the Getty Book Distribution. It costs FF780, by check or bank transfer in advance, to ICOM Secretariat, Maison de l'Unesco, 1 rue Miollis, 75732 Paris Cedex 15, France; bank transfers to Paribas, 4 place de Breteuil, 75015 Paris, France; bank code 30026, branch code 00750, account #0000663809P.RIB: 41; send copy of order to the ICOM secretariat. It is easier to order from the J. Paul Getty Book Distribution Center, PO Box 2112, Santa Monica, CA 90406 (213/459-7611 x3O6).

The 1985 postprints of the Paper & Book Intensive are 92. pages long, printed on acid-free stock, with a tipped-in paste paper specimen by Maria Grandinette. All who attended the 1985 event are due to receive one copy gratis. Additional copies of the 85 postprints are available to anyone interested at $20 a copy (first class domestic postage included). Make checks payable to "PBI" and mail them to Tim Barrett at the following address: PBI, UI Center for the Book, School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52240. The postprints for 1988, 1989 and 1990 are in the works and will be available soon at $15 each ppd; one copy gratis to participants attending that year.

Access to Library Resources Through Technology and Preservation: Proceedings of the 1988 US-USSR Seminar. Robert P. Doyle, Editor. Chicago: American Library Association, 1989. 155 pp. 89-6618; 0-8389-7300-0. No price is given in the l½-page review by Barbara Ruth Campbell in the October CAN, but the ALA can give it (312/944-6780). One paragraph is given in the review to summaries of each of nine presentations by Russians and Americans.

The Paper Conservator vol. 14, 1990, contains six papers, all good:
The Conservation of the Heal Textile Sample Books at the Victoria and Albert Museum, by Helen Shenton
A pH Survey of an Acidic Textblock, by Nick Hindhaugh
Paper Washing, by Anne Lienardy & Philippe van Damme
Conserving the Records of the first Astronomer Royal, by Ian Maver
India Proof Prints, by Penny Jenkins
A New Chronology of Papermaking Technology, by Thomas Collings and Derek Milner

There are also subject and author indexes to vols. 1-14.

Restaurator, v.11 #3, 1990, was received at the Abbey Newsletter office September 21, and it contained five papers given at the ICOM conference in Dresden Aug. 26-31, only three weeks previously. The editors must have solicited the papers long before they were read at the conference, a most unusual procedure. Now they are copyrighted by Restaurator. Will they appear in the preprints available-from ICOM and Getty? Those preprints are also copyrighted. All very confusing. The papers are:

A. Wallert - Chrozophora tinctoria Juss. Problem in Identifying an Illumination Colorant
K. L. Pavelka - Establishing a Treatment Archives to Extend the Documentation of Conservation Treatments
K. Bredereck, A. Haberditzl & A. Blueher - Paper Deacidification in Large Workshops: Effectiveness and Practicality
F. Daniel, F. Flieder & F. Leclerc - The Effects of Pollution on Deacidified Paper
M. Herrera - Analysis of Ozone Concentration and its Influence on the Archives of the Kingdom of Aragon, Barcelona

To further complicate the picture, Pavelka and Flieder gave the same or similar papers in the September conference in Budapest, the proceedings of which will be published and presumably also copyrighted.

The Conservator #14, 1990 contains seven papers, four of which relate more or less to conservation of books and paper:
Helen Ganiaris - Examination and Treatment of a Wooden Writing Tablet from London [dated 118 AD]
Margaret Haupt, D. Dyer & J. Hanlan - An Investigation into Three Animal Glues
Joanna Kosek - The Porosity of Pastels and the Effect of Water Treatment an the Suction Table: A Preliminary Investigation
Gillian Bott - Amylase for Starch Removal from a Set of 17th Century Embroidered Panels

Two letters to the editor in the September 8 Science News address the problem of keeping electronic documents alive. One of then describes the 1986 ISO Standard Generalized Markup Language, which helps store any kind of electronic document in a fashion that will ensure its long-term usefulness by declaring its "document-type definition'; the other is by one of yesterday's experts, who says she has offered repeatedly to make old electronic records (at NASA and elsewhere) accessible, but nobody calls on the old-timers to salvage data that will be totally inaccessible me day.

Those interested in obtaining a copy of the proceedings of the April 30-May 3 symposium at the National Archives of Canada, "Documents that Move and Speak," should contact Jana Vosikovska, Moving Image and Sound Archives, National Archives, 395 Wellington St., Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0N3, Canada.

AALL/RLG Microform Master Survey: Report on the Survey Form Pretest to the Commission on Preservation and Access," submitted by Willis C. Meredith and Naomi Ronen, Sept. 11, 1990. Issued as a newsletter insert to CPA Newsletter #29, Nov.-Dec. 1990. A worldwide survey is planned to find out in what respects commercial microfilm publishers' practices coincide and differ from those specified in preservation standards. This document is a four-page summary of the pretest.

"Copyright and Preservation: A Serious Problem in Need of a Thoughtful Solution," by Robert L. Oakley. Sept. 1990. Commission on Preservation and Access Report. 66 pp. The author is the Director of the Law Library and Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Library. He reviews the legal background for preservation copying, and concludes that "The Copyright Office is not willing to formulate the solution, but it is looking to the interested parties to take the lead to propose solutions for review and possible endorsement." $15 prepaid from CPA, 1785 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036. Highly recommended.