Volume 5, Number 6
Dec 1992

The Move to Austin

It has been six months since the last issue of this newsletter, and some readers have been wondering if they still had a subscription. The long delay has been due to the move from Provo to Austin last November. None of the staff was able to come along, so I tried to carry on using temporary help, at the same time unpacking six tons of equipment and supplies (not counting personal belongings--that was a separate operation) and going through all the red tape and learning experiences one has to go through in settling into a new town.

Now the permanent staff has been here for two months and we are busy cutting the backlog down to size. It may be possible to bring the publication schedule up to date by the end of the year.

The reason I decided to make this move was that it was hard to find potential interns, partners and successors in Provo. The lack of a significant pool of professionals in the field of preservation/conservation was holding up expansion and long-term planning. In Austin, there is a large number of such people, many of them centered in the University of Texas, which has a preservation and conservation program in its library school and a large rare book collection and conservation lab. The town also has an impressive number and variety of business services that make things easier. And anyone who has ever lived or visited here knows it is a good place to be.