The authors examined the book conservation literature to establish a historical context for the survey. The framework outlined in this section informed the direction and composition of the survey, particularly with respect to the selection of techniques to be studied and the rationale for comparing special and general collections practices.

The field of research library conservation has changed dramatically during the past fifty years. The devastating 1966 flood in Florence, Italy, which sparked an international collaborative response effort from conservators, is often cited as the event that catalyzed and informed a profound transformation in thinking about the preservation of library collections. An analysis of the literature published ten years before and after the flood concluded that it marked “a turning point in the physical treatment of books as cultural artifacts.”³ While previous approaches tended to focus only on the treatment of individual treasures, the emerging approach began grappling more holistically with collection needs, employing preventive and remedial—as well as individual and collection-wide—measures. One example of this new focus on collections was the appointment of Peter Waters as conservation officer at the Library of Congress in 1967 to develop and model an “ability to deal with large numbers of items on a mass basis” in the special collections context.⁴ Waters’s experience recovering collections during the Florence flood led him to develop the concept of “phased conservation,” which he considered “an extension of collection maintenance.”⁵ His program incorporated housings for damaged material and a treatment approach that combined “one-on-one attention to material of great value” with “simple measures to improve the condition of large collection[s].”⁶

The fifteen years following the Florence flood (1967–81), which featured the establishment of training programs and the first wave of preservation programs in research libraries, “can be viewed as a period of development and self definition [for the field of preservation].”⁷ In 1967, the publication of the first two modern book repair manuals—by Horton and Cunha, respectively—helped document and standardize book conservation treatments and procedures.⁸ In 1969, Banks delivered the first professional paper pertaining to book conservation to the International Institute for Conservation-American Group, now the American Institute for Conservation (AIC).⁹ Training programs in book conservation began in earnest in the 1970s at locations such as New York University, Case Western Reserve, Southern Illinois at Carbondale, Yale, and Princeton.¹⁰ Especially significant was the first degree-granting program in library preservation and conservation, established at Columbia University/New York University in 1981.¹¹ Following the lead of the Library of Congress and Newberry Library, several other major U.S. research libraries established preservation departments and conservation laboratories in the 1970s and 1980s.¹² These included programs at Yale, the New York Public Library, Harvard University, Columbia University, University of Utah, Southern Illinois University, Stanford University, University of California–Berkeley, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

During the next fifteen years (1982–96), as many more libraries developed or expanded preservation programs, the field grappled with how to address the needs of entire research library collections.¹³ While conserving special collections had become integral to preservation programs, book repair practices associated with general collections lagged behind significantly. Research libraries have always needed to repair general collections books to facilitate their ongoing use, but “the repair of special and general collection materials were seen as different, with old and rare books the specific concern of experienced binders and restorers, and everything else subject to [expedient] in-house repair methods.”¹⁴ Ironically, however, modern books tend not only to be more inherently fragile than earlier books—because of the increased mechanization of book production processes—but also are typically subjected to more frequent and less supervised use, ensuring that general collections incur more extensive damage than special collections.

Transforming repair practices in general collections required a new set of skills and approach. In a 1983 symposium on conservation training, Banks addressed the difficulty of caring for large collections, which tended to exhibit the “whole spectrum of artifactual values, ranging from none to almost total,” and advocated for a new type of conservator, the “collections conservator, whose charge and training would be in technological and engineering approaches to collections care, including housing, storage, environment, and in mass treatment.”¹⁵ The term caught on quickly; Merrill-Oldham and Schrock note that by the 1980s “the term ‘collections conservation’ was in standard use in the profession to describe the programmatic application of conservation principles to general research materials—which are invaluable in the aggregate, but do not warrant the item-by-item documentation and optimum treatment given to special collections.”¹⁶

A watershed in the development of practices and standards for general collections treatment was the establishment of the Library Collections Conservation Discussion Group (LCCDG) within AIC’s Book and Paper Group in 1992. Formed by Maria Grandinette and Randy Silverman, LCCDG strove to “foster improvements in the management and implementation of conservation programs for non-rare library collections.”¹⁷ Bringing together individuals responsible for the treatment of rare and nonrare materials in research libraries, LCCDG sparked spirited discussions and show-and-tell sessions that resulted in the proliferation of techniques that could be applied or adapted to the particular challenges of general collections. The large numbers of general collections books in need of repair and the relatively heavy use to which they were subjected demanded a new approach characterized by “batch processing, cost-effectiveness, and highly organized workflow.”¹⁸ Meanwhile, a new crop of book repair guides and training programs had emerged, helping to standardize treatment practices for general collections.¹⁹

Of the treatments newly promoted via LCCDG during this period, Grandinette and Silverman noted that “when faced with damaged [nonrare] eighteenth- and nineteenth-century leather bindings, conservators were beginning to freely employ” newer treatments that could be used for both special and general collections.²⁰ A variety of board reattachment methods in particular received a great deal of attention in the literature and at conferences, and adaptations of historical structures such as the lapped case binding and limp paper case bindings were similarly promoted.²¹ Also during this period, LCCDG raised awareness of the need to conserve early cloth publishers’ bindings, which, while often housed in general collections, were increasingly valued as artifacts. Efforts such as Silverman and Grandinette’s “Checklist of Primary Bibliographical Evidence Contained in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Publishers’ Bookbindings” and Allen’s popular class (Publishers’ Bookbindings, 1830–1910) at the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School, have produced consensus that the decorative covers of early cloth bindings hold significant value and merit preservation.²²

Since 1997, the distinctions between special and general collections treatment practices have blurred further as the field shows signs of moving beyond separate approaches to treatment (i.e., special versus general collections) toward a more nuanced methodology. In 1999 Frost reported on the move toward a more holistic model at the University of Iowa, where special and general collections treatment facilities were being physically integrated. Questioning why “we have this partitioning of book repair,” Frost asked whether “an integrated approach … would improve service overall.”²³ Noting that conservation practitioners in both special and general collections arenas have grappled with exceptions—items falling somewhere between a rare book and a nonrare book—Frost advocated “a middle zone of conservation practice … [in which] the ‘exception’ category now appears key to a seamless, integrated book repair service.”²⁴ Campagnolo, in his 2005 study of European book repair practices for “modern” (i.e., general) collections, noted that newer treatments are often “less invasive to the books and … came to bridge the gap between special collections item-based conservation, and circulating collections batch-based conservation.”²⁵ As evidence that such a shift may be occurring, a 2004 survey of U.S. conservators found that hybrid conservator positions—those involved with both special and general collections—have become increasingly common.²⁶ Expanding on this trend to bridge the gap between special and general collections practices, in 2006 Pilette promoted a customizable approach to specifying preservation activity characterized as a “continuum of care,” wherein a wide range of approaches are selectively applied, dependent upon various selection criteria.²⁷

The authors explored the literature to identify surveys of book conservation treatment practices in research libraries. The ARL has collected and published annual preservation statistics for its member libraries, including quantities of books receiving in-house treatment since 1984.²⁸ While useful for broad comparisons of program size and productivity levels, these statistics do not address the types of treatments employed; rather, book treatment “levels” are delineated only by time required per treatment. Kenny and Stam’s 2002 report, The State of Preservation Programs in American College and Research Libraries, provides treatment statistics for non–ARL as well as ARL libraries; however, mirroring ARL’s reporting method, the report provides no detail about specific treatment techniques.²⁹

Many published condition surveys provide information about the physical state of collections and their general conservation needs.³⁰ While some, such as Evans’s item-by-item review of the Duke Humfrey Library, specify particular treatment practices that might be used to respond to damage identified by the survey, condition surveys focus on the condition of collections and do not provide information about treatments performed.³¹

Preservation assessments, which include “surveys of the building, environment, security features, the physical condition of the stock, conservation needs of items, and the history of collections,” sometimes incorporate a general question or two about treatment techniques.³² Although most focus on a single institution, a few aim to capture broader trends, including two such studies in archival contexts: Conway’s 1988–89 survey of archival repositories gathered information about basic treatment activities relevant to archives, such as deacidification, dry cleaning, encapsulation, and basic repair, and Walters and Hanthorn’s 1995 survey of ARL repositories of archives and manuscripts, repeated in 2006 by De Stefano and Walters, gathered information about seven classes of treatments, including basic repair, deacidification, and encapsulation.³³ Turpening performed a similar study of law libraries in 2000–2001, with one question about in-house repair that inquired about seven types of treatments: tip-ins, paper repair with archival tape, hinge tightenings, spine repair, hinge and joint repair, rebacking or recasing of cloth bindings, and paperback reinforcement.³⁴ Similarly, Olatokun’s 2007 survey of fifteen Nigerian university libraries included one question on “preservation and conservation techniques” that inquired about techniques such as lamination, deacidification, and binding.³⁵ While useful as broader preservation assessments, these surveys did not provide significant detail about book treatment practices.

Two reports of surveys focusing on book treatment practices in research libraries pertain only to general collections. Keyes’s 1996 survey addressed eleven repairs typical of small general collections book repair operations, as well as the materials (e.g., papers, board, and adhesive) employed for repairs.³⁶ Keyes’s survey was announced via e-mail on the Conservation Distribution List. Ninety-six libraries responded, representing university libraries (43.8 percent), college libraries (30.2 percent), research institutions (13.5 percent), special libraries (7.5 percent), and public libraries (5.2 percent). Campagnolo’s 2005 study of European repair practices for “modern” collections was more comprehensive, studying thirty-seven treatment techniques.³⁷ Campagnolo delivered the survey in paper and CD-ROM formats to European libraries, with fifty-three libraries responding. His study and analysis focused on the relative lack of conservation attention given to “modern” collections in Europe, arguing that treatment techniques routinely employed in the United States for general and “medium rare” collections should be adopted in Europe.

The data from this survey indicate that treatment practices for special and general collections are more similar than different; practices fell into the same classification (i.e., “standard practice,” “moderate use,” or “low use”) for thirty-two (58 percent) of the fifty-five treatments. Furthermore, just twelve treatments (22 percent) showed a difference of 25 percent or more with respect to the percentage of respondents in each context who reported the treatment as standard practice in their conservation unit.

The diversity of practices documented by this study suggests, however, that an overwhelmingly uniform application of techniques across research library conservation units does not exist. Although approximately half of the fifty-five treatments addressed by this study qualified as “standard practice”—thirty treatments (55 percent) in the special collections context and twenty-five treatments (45 percent) in the general collections context—relatively few treatments did so overwhelmingly. Treatments identified as standard practice by 75 percent or more units were relatively few—ten treatments (18 percent) each for special and general collections (table 3).

Greater consensus exists with respect to very rarely used treatments (i.e., those classified as “low use” in this study), of which there were fifteen (27 percent) for special collections and twenty (36 percent) for general collections. Approximately half of the treatments fell into the remaining “middle ground”—treatments identified as standard practice by 25 to 74 percent of respondents—of which there were thirty (55 percent) for special collections and twenty-five (45 percent) for general collections. Such differing levels of adoption of the fifty-five treatments studied may be because of differences in education and training and because of varying institutional contexts (e.g., limited demand for certain treatments; the nature of collections; institutional tendency to outsource certain treatment needs; or a lack of staff, equipment, or facilities to perform certain treatments).

The results also indicate that many of the newer techniques featured in conference presentations and in print over the last thirty years—such as board reattachment methods, lapped case bindings, and limp paper case bindings—have not been adopted as standard practice en masse, with a few notable exceptions (e.g., Japanese paper board reattachment). Perhaps these treatments have not been widely adopted because not enough time has lapsed for them to become well known, or perhaps they have not been promoted widely enough. The relative demand for such treatments also may not be significant in many libraries.

This survey represents a first effort to establish a method for specifying the “standard toolbox” of treatments for special and general collections in the twenty-first century, and it establishes baseline data for subsequent comparisons. While new treatment techniques are documented regularly in the literature and at conferences, the results of this study are unique in that they provide a quantitative synopsis of how book conservation is actually practiced in research libraries. The results may be useful in a variety of contexts. For example, the study’s designation of “standard practice,” “moderate use,” and “low use” treatments can inform practitioners, administrators, and those in related fields by facilitating peer-to-peer benchmarking of current practices. The data also provide insight into the field’s adaptation of newer and more effective treatments, and may therefore suggest areas for further professional development.

The results of this study point to the need for a more current and comprehensive manual of conservation treatment practices to document best practices for research libraries. In the late 1990s, AIC’s Book and Paper Group (BPG) convened a working group to develop a manual for book conservation treatment analogous to the indispensible Paper Conservation Catalog.⁴³ The wiki-based approach being explored by the AIC BGP has the potential to facilitate broad involvement and result in a rich source of information on book conservation treatment that could begin to simultaneously mirror, and thereby help to reconcile, actual and best practices for book conservation and repair. In the absence of such a dynamic mechanism for conveying and receiving information about book conservation practices, the treatment names and definitions developed in this study can aid in codifying practice through the specification of a core group of book conservation treatment techniques employed by many research libraries. A follow-up study in five to ten years using a similar protocol would enable a more dynamic analysis of trends in research library book treatment practices.

The authors plan further analysis of the data gathered in this study to explore relationships between the demographic data— i.e., type of practitioner, practitioner training, library size, and type of conservation facility—and reported treatment practices. Such a study could explore the reasons for the differing levels of adoption of many treatments as well as the reasons for the relatively limited adoption of many of the newer, well-promoted treatments.