Volume 2, Number 6
Dec 1989

Book Preservation Month

The proclamation below was read September 26 in Rochester, New York, in the presence of the County Executive representatives from the University of Rochester, the Friends of Rochester Public Libraries and the Strong Museum.

OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

By these Presents, Greetings:

Whereas: the nation has been forewarned of an impending disaster, that is to say, the slow fires of destruction through the deterioration of the precious paper containing the human record and entire societal learnings of man, and

WHEREAS: concerns that the larger proportion of scholarly materials nears the point of unsalvageability unless known preservation techniques are adopted soon; it has been noted that more than one half of all works will be lost to eternity, and much of the material cannot ever be replaced, and

WHEREAS: our libraries, and many of the other cultural depositories in Rochester and Monroe County, have joined together to begin the war on decay, through the use of known professional techniques for the preservation of our precious materials, and

WHEREAS: this war on decay will be waged by encouraging future printing upon non-acidic paper, use of the process of deacidification of paper, through the use of microfilming, and through techniques such as mending, repairing, replacing missing covers, spines and pages, and

WHEREAS the Friends of the University of Rochester Libraries, the Friends of the Rochester Public Libraries, and the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum have joined hands to alert the community and the greater nation of its distress and have professed that the scholarly community will not allow this loss under these or any other conditions.

NOW, THEREFORE, WE, Thomas P. Ryan, Jr., Mayor of the City of Rochester and Thomas R. Frey, Monroe County Executive do hereby proclaim October 1989 as

BOOK PRESERVATION MONTH

in the city of Rochester and the County of Monroe and urge all area residents to join in the events scheduled this month to raise the consciousness of the entire community to the major problem facing libraries throughout the world.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused to. be affixed the Seal of the City of Rochester, at the City Hall on this 26th day of September in the year 1989