PRESERVATION OF THE BIOMEDICAL LITERATURE: 
A Plan for the National Library of Medicine 
Betsy L. Humphreys 
Duane Arenales 
James C. Cain 
John Parascandola 
Mark J. Rotariu 
George R. Thoma 
Linda Watson 
October 1985 
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 
Public Health Service - National Institutes of Health 
National Library of Medicine 
8600 Rockville Pike 
Bethesda, Maryland 20894 Table of Contents 
Page 
I. Executive Summary 1-7 
II. Introduction 8-10 
III. Condition of the Collection 11-19 
IV. Physical Facilities and Environment 20-27 
V. Collection Use and Maintenance 28-30 
VI, Present Level of Preservation Activity at NLM 31-32 
VII. Current State of Preservation Technology 33-38 
VIII. Other External Factors Affecting NLM's 39-41 
Preservation Plan 
IX. Recommended Strategies for Preservation at NLM 42-54 
X. List of References 55 
Appendix 1: Preservation at the National Library of Medicine; a 
background paper. Nov. 1984 
Appendix 2: List of Task Force Members 
Appendix 3; Procedures used in the Survey of the Physical 
Condition of the Collection 
Appendix 4: Indoor Pollutant Measurements of Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen 
Dioxides, and Ozone at the National Library of Medicine. 
National Bureau of Standards 
Appendix 5; Draft Preservation Policy for the National Library 
of Medicine 
Appendix 6: Proposed Preservation Section: Rationale and Functions I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 
Introduction 
The National Library of Medicine Act of 1956 (P. L. 84-941) established 
the Library and charged it "to acquire and preserve books, periodicals, 
prints, films, recordings, and other library materials pertinent to 
medicine." in the years since the establishment of the Library, 
significant effort has been devoted to carrying out NLM’s preservation 
responsibilities. NLM currently devotes 11 FTEs and nearly one million 
dollars annually to preservation activities. The Library has archival 
copies of many significant items in its collection; a storage plan which 
accommodates projected growth of the collection through the year 2000; 
generally favorable conditions for processing, storing, and using 
library materials; and an official NLM Board of Regents* policy 
governing NLM's preservation activities. 
Despite these achievements, NLM must take a more comprehensive approach 
to preservation of the biomedical literature if it is to carry out its 
statutory mandate successfully. Recognizing the need for greater focus 
on NLM’s preservation responsibility, in 1983 Library Operations (LO) 
senior staff included the development and implementation of a program 
for the preservation of the biomedical literature as one of the four 
broad objectives in the LO strategic plan for 1984-88. As a first step 
toward developing a formal preservation program, the Associate Director, 
LO appointed a senior Preservation Planning Team on August 29, 1984. 
With assistance from over thirty staff members throughout the Library, 
the Preservation Team has analyzed the state of the NLM collection, its 
environment, and use, and available options for preservation. This 
report documents the Team’s findings and presents a recommended plan of 
action for the Library. 
Condition of the Collection 
The physical condition of library materials is a function of three 
principal factors: Cl) the substances used in their manufacture and 
how these substances change with age; (2) the environmental conditions 
in which the materials are housed; and (3) how, and how often, the 
materials are handled. Most of the 3.3 million items presently in the 
NLM collection, like most of the materials in other research libraries, 
are composed of substances that predispose them toward rapid deterior- 
ation. The degree of deterioration varies from library to library, 
however, depending on the relative age and quality of the materials 
included in the collection and the storage and use conditions to which 
the materials have been subjected. 
Random samples of the various elements in the NLM collection revealed 
that approximately 8.8% or an estimated 113,000 volumes in the 
paper-based collections are brittle. By taking action immediately, NLM 2 
can ensure preservation of the content of the endangered volumes and 
also extend the life of the remainder of the collection. Delays may 
lead to the loss of already embrittled materials and an increase in the 
number of brittle items requiring very expensive preservation 
techniques. 
Physical Facilities And Environment 
There are five environmental factors which affect the longevity of 
library materials: temperature and relative humidity, atmospheric 
pollutants, light, mold, insects and rodents. The NLM Library building 
was surveyed for all factors. 
Although some problems were discovered, in general the environmental 
conditions in the Library are good, and they probably can be improved 
without great expense. The construction of the Library, with relatively 
few windows and three floors below ground, makes it easier to maintain 
appropriate temperatures for the collection and to minimize the amount 
of ultra-violet radiation. Concern for the preservation of the 
collection is evident in the design of the building and in its heating 
and air-conditioning system. 
Collection Use and Maintenance 
The amount and nature of physical processing, handling and use of 
Library materials by staff and patrons have an effect (either positive 
or negative) on the life of those materials. The mission of any library 
is almost inevitably in conflict with preservation of its contents, for 
materials are acquired, organized and stored primarily to be used, and 
use necessarily takes a toll on condition. Therefore, there will always 
be a tension and compromise between the need to preserve material and to 
make them readily available to the Library’s users. 
The results of the survey of the physcial condition of items in the NLM 
collection indicate that current processing and use practices are not 
having a serious negative effect on the Library’s materials. This does 
not mean, however, that there is no room for improvement in the way 
NLM’s collection is handled by staff and users. The process of observ- 
ing, documenting and discussing the use and processing practices that 
can affect the Library’s collections has already caused staff members to 
be more preservation conscious and alert to potentially damaging 
handling policies and techniques. Some physical damage is unavoidable 
in a service organization where use is expected and encouraged, but 
steps can be taken to reduce even further damage during processing and 
after the materials are in the users’ hands. 3 
Current State of Preservation Technology 
In the broadest sense, any activity which extends the life of library 
materials is a preservation technique. This is why the enhancement of 
the environment in which materials are stored and improvements in the 
way materials are handled are important to preservation programs. Using 
a narrower interpretation, however, a preservation technique is 
something which improves the intrinsic durability of an item or creates 
a copy of it in a more durable medium. Relatively few such techniques 
exist, particularly for mass preservation of the post-1850 paper-based 
materials most at risk. Fortunately, recent expansion of interest in 
preservation among research libraries has sparked research in mass 
preservation techniques. Although currently available options are still 
very limited in number, there is promise of better things to come. 
The major techniques that are currently available, or are the subject of 
research activity, are: mass deacidification; strengthening of brittle 
paper; mass disk storage; microfilming; film-to-film transfer; a variety 
of manual methods for rare books, manuscripts, and prints and photo- 
graphs; and the acquisition of materials in archival formats. 
When it becomes generally available, presumably in two to three years, 
mass deacidification will probably be the cheapest alternative for 
preservation of paper-based materials. While it is not useful for 
materials that are already brittle, it is a suitable technique for the 
bulk of NLM’s paper-based collections. The newer materials are at the 
time they are deacidified, the more they can benefit from the process. 
Mass disk storage has exceptional use characteristics, including random 
access, simultaneous use by multiple users, and the ability to be linked 
directly to automated bibliographic records. The preservation charac- 
teristics of disks are not fully understood, however, and require 
further research. The results of such research are needed before 
accurate total cost estimates for preservation on disk can be developed. 
Of the preservation techniques suitable for the mass of NLM’s printed 
collections, only microfilming is available to NLM today. Microfilm is 
very space efficient if the original is not retained after filming, but 
it is also unwieldy to use. This may not be a serious problem for older 
materials that receive relatively infrequent use. 
Other Factors Affecting NLM’s Preservation Program 
NLM’s preservation program must take into account a number of external 
factors affecting the U.S. information and biomedical communities. 
These include publishing trends; developments in the concept of intel- 
lectual property rights; changes in the ways health professionals 
acquire and use information; and the emergence of preservation as a 
critical concern in research libraries, which in turn has led to 
increased emphasis on cooperative library activities and significant 
developments in preservation technology. 4 
Recommended Strategies for Preservation at NLM 
An examination of the current condition of the NLM collection, the 
environment in which it is stored, the way its materials are processed 
and used, and the present level of preservation activity has revealed a 
preservation problem that can be solved if NLM takes immediate action to 
establish a comprehensive preservation program. In many respects, NLM 
is in a much better position than other U.S. research libraries which 
have such huge numbers of brittle materials that there is almost no 
possibility of saving them at all. Due to the relatively good condition 
of the NLM collection and its manageable size, NLM has the opportunity 
to fulfill its mandate to preserve the biomedical literature. 
After careful evaluation of available options, the Preservation Planning 
Team recommends that NLM take the following actions to create a preser- 
vation program capable of ensuring the long-term availability of the 
scholarly record for biomedicine. 
A. MODIFY THE NLM BOARD OF REGENTS POLICY ON PRESERVATION 
The NLM Board of Regents' policy on preservation of the collection 
should be modified to link NLM's preservation program more explicitly to 
its collection development guidelines, to clarify the Library's respon- 
sibility for the preservation of the content as opposed to the format of 
the biomedical literature, and to define NLM’s role in assisting the 
preservation of significant biomedical literature held by other U.S. 
libraries. 
The Preservation Planning Team has prepared a draft policy statement for 
consideration by the Director, NLM and the Board of Regents. The full 
text of this draft statement is included in Appendix 5 of the report. 
B. ESTABLISH A NEW ORGANIZATIONAL UNIT TO DIRECT NLM'S PRESERVATION 
PROGRAM 
NLM's existing preservation organization, while appropriate for the 
level of preservation activity currently underway, is inadequate to 
handle the expansion of preservation functions that the Library must 
undertake to ensure the preservation of the scholarly biomedical litera- 
ture. The Preservation Planning Team recommends that a Preservation 
Section be established within the Reference Services Division to provide 
an operational focus for NLM's preservation activities and assume direct 
responsibility for many of them. Given present constraints, the new 
Section must be developed by reallocating existing staff and positions. 
It should also continue NLM's current practice of contracting out most 
of the actual physical preservation or copying of materials to archival 
formats. 5 
C. EXPAND THE LEVEL OF PRESERVATION ACTIVITY AT NLM 
Because NLM has the largest collection of biomedical literature in the 
world, preservation of the materials held by the Library represents a 
significant step toward preservation of the entire scholarly record in 
the field of medicine and health. With the completion of this compre- 
hensive study of internal and external factors affecting preservation of 
the NLM collection and the adoption of a preservation policy, the 
Library should expand its preservation program to achieve by the year 
2005 the goal of a preservation copy for every item in the NLM col- 
lection that falls within the core biomedical literature that NLM 
collects comprehensively or within the subjects related to medicine and 
health that NLM collects at the research level. NLM should take the 
following specific steps toward this goal. 
Mass Deacidification 
Beginning in FY 1988, NLM should deacidify 100,000 volumes annually, 
including all incoming print materials that would benefit from this 
treatment and making up the remainder from items in the retrospective 
collection. Depending on the number of new materials acquired on 
acid-free paper or in non-print form each year, it will take 18-20 years 
to deacidify the entire retrospective collection that would benefit from 
this treatment, while also treating all appropriate incoming materials. 
The cost, depending on the mix of new and old materials, will range from 
$370,000 to $400,000 annually (in FY 1985 dollars) until all the retro- 
spective collection has been treated. These cost figures are based on 
the use of an existing facility, and exclude any charges to defray the 
cost of facility construction. 
To make certain that mass deacidification services at the required level 
are available to the Library by 1989, NLM should negotiate with LC for a 
firm commitment for NLM use of the mass deacidification facility at 
Frederick. If sufficient capacity cannot be made available at the LC 
facility, NLM should work with other research libraries and/or 
commercial companies to ensure the development of adequate deacidifi- 
cation service for the NLM collection. 6 
Microfilming 
Using contract support for preparation and an outside filmer, NLM should 
microfilm all brittle monographs and serial volumes in subjects it 
collects at the comprehensive or research level during FY 1986 - 89. 
Expenditures for this program should be phased as follows: $600,000 in 
FY 1986; $1 million per year in FY 1987 through FY 1989, The Library 
should assume that microfilming any post-1906 embrittled materials in 
order to preserve them represents a "fair use" of the materials. 
Treatment of brittle pamphlets and theses should be deferred pending 
resolution of the more immediate problem of how the Library is to 
provide bibliographic control for these items. 
In 1988/89, NLM should reassess any further use of preservation micro- 
filming based on the results of research in techniques for the 
preservation use of mass disk storage. Previously microfilmed images 
can be transferred to disk if this seems advisable at a later date. 
Preservation of Special Historical Collections 
NLM should allocate at least $200,000 per year to preservation of 
special collections for the five-year period from FY 1986 - FY 1990. In 
1988/89, NLM should be in a position to estimate the level of funding 
required for continuing maintenance and treatment of new acquisitions 
for these special collections. 
D. CONTINUE RESEARCH ON THE PRESERVATION CHARACTERISTICS OF 
OPTICAL DISKS 
Because of the great potential of optical disk as a preservation medium, 
NLM should continue to contribute to the development of knowledge about 
the preservation characteristics of this technology. The prototype 
Electronic Document Storage and Retrieval (EDSR) system developed in the 
Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications (LHNCBC) 
should be used as a laboratory test bed for relevant research projects. 
LHNCBC budget plans for the next few years includes appropriate funding 
for this activity. To ensure that the greatest amount of useful 
information is obtained in the shortest time frame, NIM’s research 
efforts in optical disk technology should be closely coordinated with 
those of the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the National 
Bureau of Standards and other interested institutions. 7 
E. ENCOURAGE PUBLICATION IN ARCHIVAL FORMATS 
Publication of the scholarly literature on acid-free paper or in other 
archival formats will lessen the necessity for large-scale treatment of 
the prospective literature. To this end, NLM should launch a campaign 
to convince biomedical editors, societies, and publishers of the bene- 
fits of publication in archival formats. This campaign should involve a 
combination of direct appeals by NLM and cooperative efforts with other 
national libraries and library associations. 
F. IMPROVE CONDITIONS FOR STORAGE AND USE OF THE NLM COLLECTION 
Proper storage and handling of library materials will extend their life. 
An examination of storage and use conditions at NLM has revealed that in 
general NLM’s collection is stored in a benign environment and is 
handled with reasonable care. Steps should be taken, however, to ensure 
that this generally favorable situation continues and that specific 
problems are corrected. 
G. INITIATE AND PARTICIPATE IN COOPERATIVE PROGRAMS FOR 
THE PRESERVATION OF THE BIOMEDICAL LITERATURE 
Although NLM’s first priority is the preservation of its own collection 
of materials collected at the comprehensive and research levels, it also 
has an obligation to engage in cooperative activities which will ensure 
the preservation of materials pertinent to medicine held by other 
libraries and will contribute to a national preservation program. While 
the emerging national program provides an infrastructure in which to fit 
the preservation of the biomedical literature, it does not presently 
address coverage of the biomedical area. NLM must assume the responsi- 
bility for the development of a plan to fill this gap. 
H. RE-EVALUATE NLM’S PRESERVATION PROGRAM PERIODICALLY 
Like other NLM programs, the preservation operation will be monitored 
through regular reporting mechanisms and the program review that accom- 
panies budget preparation and approval. Given the new emphasis to be 
placed on preservation, however, NLM should also perform a broader 
review of progress toward the goal of preservation of the biomedical 
literature at approximately three-year intervals. During this review, 
NLM should reassess its preservation assumptions and strategies in light 
of the current and future information needs of the Library's users and 
developments in preservation technology. 8 
II. INTRODUCTION 
The National Library of Medicine Act of 1956 (P. L. 84-941) established 
the Library and charged it flto acquire and preserve books, periodicals. 
Points, films, recordings, and other library materials pertinent to 
medicine." The Act further authorized the Surgeon General to "Exchange, 
destroy, or otherwise dispose of any books, periodicals, films and other 
library materials not needed for the permanent use of the Library." 
Taken together these two clauses clearly give NLM a mandate to preserve 
the biomedical literature irrespective of its format and also provide 
the Library with the discretion to select among the materials in the 
collection those which should be permanently retained and preserved. 
In the years since the establishment of the Library, significant efforts 
have been devoted to carrying out NLM’s preservation responsibilities. 
Due in large part to the leadership of Albert Berkowitz, former Chief, 
Reference Services Division, the Library has archival copies of some of 
the most significant items in its collection; a storage plan which 
accommodates projected growth of the collection through the year 2000; 
generally favorable conditions and practices for processing, storing, 
and using library materials; and an official NLM Board of Regents’ 
policy governing NLM’s preservation activities. The text of this policy 
is as follows: 
In accordance with the terms of the NLM Act and the clearly 
expressed intent of Congress, the fundamental responsibility 
of the National Library of Medicine is to preserve perma- 
nently its collection of books, periodicals, and other library 
materials pertinent to medicine, without respect to the prac- 
tices of other institutions. 
Means of preservation may include: 
A. Preservation of the original. 
B. The purchase of library materials in microform or 
other formats provided an examination of adequate 
samples affords satisfactory evidence that the 
film or other medium meets NLM standards for 
archival quality. 
C. Replication of material in the collection through 
microphotography, or other means as the Director 
may determine, using new methods made practicable 
by advancing technology. 
The Director will establish criteria to determine priority of 
selection for preservation. Items in the collection will be 
retained in the original form as long as they remain useful. 
The Library should continue 'to monitor the development of 
technologies which offer alternatives to microphotography for 9 
the preservation of information and should participate in such 
research, development, testing, and evaluation. 
Despite these important accomplishments, NLM must take a more comprehen- 
sive approach to preservation of the biomedical literature if it is to 
carry out its statutory mandate successfully. Like the collections of 
other research libraries, NLM’s printed collections contain the seeds of 
their own destruction in the form of high-acid content paper which, over 
time, discolors, becomes embrittled, and finally disintegrates. In 
addition, the Library faces special problems related to the conservation 
and preservation of audiovisual programs, archival microfilms, and 
historical motion pictures and the History of Medicine Division’s 
manuscripts, older printed works, prints and photographs. Preservation 
of the scholarly record is one of the most important challenges facing 
research libraries today, requiring significant expenditures of 
resources, the interest and involvement of all staff who process or use 
the collection, active cooperation among many institutions, and new 
organizational approaches. 
In 1983, Library Operations (LO) senior staff developed a strategic plan 
for 1984-88 which includes as one of its four broad objectives: 
to develop and implement a program for the preservation of 
the biomedical literature. 
As a first step toward developing a formal preservation program, the 
Associate Director for Library Operations appointed a senior 
Preservation Planning Team on August 29, 1984. 
The Team was given the following charge: 
1. Assess the current physical state of the collection 
2. Assess the conditions under which the collection is 
used, processed, and stored. 
3. Examine current preservation activities in all LO 
components. 
4. Identify and evaluate available preservation techniques. 
5. Identify current and potential cooperative preservation 
activities. 
6. Develop a plan for the preservation of the NLM collection 
which includes recommendations for: 
a. organizational responsibility for NLM preservation 
activities 
b. general guidelines for selecting items to be pre- 
served and assigning preservation priorities 
c. methods for preservation of various parts of the collection including cost data and suggested 
schedules 
d. necessary changes to environmental conditions and 
processing and use practices 
e. cooperative activities NLM should participate in or 
initiate 
The planning process used for this project was modeled on a self-study 
procedure developed by the Office of Management Studies (OMS) of the 
Association for Research Libraries (ARL) and described in Preservation 
Planning Program: An Assisted Self-Study Manual for Libraries. NLM 
contracted with OMS for assistance in developing the plan and the 
results of NLM’s effort will be shared with the ARL and biomedical 
library communities. Ms. Jutta Reed-Scott served as principal OMS 
consultant to NLM for the project. 
The planning process consisted of three phases. During the first phase, 
the Preservation Planning Team reviewed basic preservation issues and 
assembled background information about the library. This material was 
included in a background paper entitled "Preservation at the National 
Library of Medicine" (Appendix 1), completed in November, 1984. The 
background paper provided a context for the examination of the Library's 
preservation needs, established a series of Task Forces (including the 
Identification of participants and specific charges), and outlined a 
schedule for the planning process. 
The second phase involved seven Task Forces gathering and analyzing data 
and developing recommendations in several specific areas affecting 
preservation. Task Forces were assigned to assess the physical condi- 
tion of the collection, environmental conditions affecting the col- 
lection, processing and use practices, preservation techniques, 
organizational responsibility for preservation, cooperative preservation 
activities, and the adequacy of the current NLM disaster recovery plan. 
A list of all Task Force members appears in Appendix 2. 
In the third and final phase, the Preservation Planning Team has studied 
information assembled by the Task Forces, weighed alternative 
approaches, and developed this report with its recommended plan of 
action. III. CONDITION OF THE COLLECTION 
The physical condition of library materials is a function of three 
principal factors: (1) the substances used in their manufacture and how 
these substances change with age; (2) the environmental conditions in 
which the materials are housed; and (3) how, and how often, the mate- 
rials are handled. The majority of library materials in existence today 
are printed works that were published after 1850. Mass produced, 
alum-rosin sized ground wood paper entered commerce around 1850 and most 
books and journals published since 1870 have been printed on it. 
Although there are varying degrees of quality in this paper, all of it 
is less strong than paper with cotton fibers because of the short fibers 
in wood pulp, and all is destined to disintegrate because of its 
relatively high-acid content. The condition of high-acid content paper 
begins deteriorating rapidly as soon as it is produced. The rate of 
deterioration slows as the paper becomes progressively embrittled. 
Although acidic paper may be the principal cause of the deterioration of 
library collections, other substances, such as nitrate-based film, also 
present significant preservation problems. 
Most of the materials presently in the NLM collection, like most of the 
materials in other research libraries, are composed of substances that 
predispose them toward rapid deterioration. The degree of deterioration 
varies from library to library, however, depending on the relative age 
and quality of the materials included in the collection and the storage 
and use conditions to which the materials have been subjected. Since no 
reliable conclusions about the state of the NLM collection could be 
drawn from studies of other collections, an obvious prerequisite to the 
development of a preservation plan for the NLM collection was the 
gathering and analysis of data on the present state of NLM’s library 
materials. Consequently one of the principal activities of the planning 
process was a survey of the condition of the NLM collection. 
The NLM collection today stands at 3.3 million items in a variety of 
formats including books, journals, audiovisual materials, microfilm, 
manuscripts and prints and photographs. An annual literature budget of 
about $2.2 million supports the acquisition of approximately 16,000 
books, 1,000 audiovisuals, 23,000 serial titles, 33,000 manuscript 
items, and 450 prints and photographs each year. The Library collects 
materials comprehensively in all major areas of the health sciences and 
to a lesser degree in related areas such as chemistry, physics, botany 
and zoology. (For a discussion of the historical development of the NLM 
collection see Appendix 1, p. 7.) 
Survey Methodology 
As a first step to sampling the condition of the collection, the follow- 
ing discrete groups of material were identified: 
Printed materials published prior to 1801 (40,000 volumes) 
Monographs published between 1801 and 1870 (40,000 vols.) Monographs published from 1871 to date (465,000 vols.) 
Serials published from 1801 to 1870 (20,000 vols.) 
Serials published from 1871 to 1969 and located on the 
B-3 stack level (371,000 vols.) 
Serials published from 1969 to date and located on the 
B-l stack level (278,000 vols.) 
Serials published from 1871 to date and located on the 
B-2 stack level (91,000 vols.) 
Pamphlets located in HMD and on the B-2 stack level 
(172,000 in 7,249 boxes or bound volumes) 
Theses located in HMD (282,000 in 6,408 boxes or bound 
volumes) 
Modern unbound manuscripts (1,206,000 items in 
2,700 boxes) 
Bound manuscripts (1,000 vols.) 
Videocassettes (5,900) 
Audiocassettes (9,000) 
16mm Films (2,300) 
Filmstrips ( 844) 
Slides (230,000 in 3,000 
carousels) 
Historical Film Collection (2,000 reels) 
Fine prints and photographs (75,000) 
Microfilm (34,000 reels) 
Microfiche (122,000 items) 
The decision was made not to survey the condition of the following parts 
of the collection for the reasons described below: 
Printed materials published prior to 1801 (40,000 volumes). 
Bound manuscripts (1,000 volumes). 
Historical Film Collection (2,000 reels). 
These collections have already been examined comprehensively, 
and programs are underway to preserve them. In general, the condition of the pre-1801 printed collection is good. Many 
bound manuscripts require rebinding, and this process is 
underway. Most items in the historical film collection must 
be transferred to new film stock in order to preserve them. 
Fine Prints and Photographs (75,000 items) 
Microfilm (3A,000 reels) 
Microfiche (122,000 items) 
There is insufficient in-house expertise to assess the 
deterioration of these three groups of material. Library 
Operations is taking steps to have these collections 
assessed by outside experts. 
All other elements of the collection were sampled during the course of 
this preservation study. 
Sample Selection 
After consulting several standard sources on statistics and sampling, 
the Task Force on the Physical Condition of the Collection decided to 
use the procedures described by M. Drott (1). As high a level of 
confidence and as small a range of tolerance as possible were desired, 
given the available resources and established time frame. 
Taking all factors into consideration, it was agreed that a level of 
confidence of 95% with a tolerance of ± 5% would be both acceptable and 
manageable. This resulted in sample sizes of up to 38A items in each 
discrete collection. 
For paper-based materials, neither the automated bibliographic files nor 
the manual shelf list of the NLM collection provide comprehensive 
coverage at the item level, so that every physical piece in each 
discrete location could be represented. Since each piece had to have an 
equal chance of being selected in the samples and the bibliographic 
files could not assure this, sampling of the paper-based materials was 
done directly from the shelves. 
The paper-based collection is housed on ranges, or rows of stacks. Each 
range is comprised of from eight to twelve three-foot sections; and each 
section is comprised of six to seven shelves. Each of the ranges in all 
of the collections to be sampled was given a unique number. These 
numbers were later correlated to a simple list of sequential numbers to 
facilitate look-up in a random number table. 
Selection of each sampled piece in each discrete collection followed a 
strict four-step process as follows; 
From a table of random numbers, select 
1. Number corresponding to range number 2. Number corresponding to a section within the range 
3. Number corresponding to a shelf within the section 
4. Number corresponding to the book count from left to 
right on the shelf 
To speed the process and to eliminate reference to random number tables 
while actually in the stacks, work sheets were made up in advance so 
that staff collecting the sample could put their worksheets in range 
order and move through the collections in one sweep. 
For most of the audiovisual media, listings from AVLINE by media type 
could be used, rather than direct shelf sampling, since each physical 
audiovisual piece had an equal opportunity of being selected from the 
listings. Random number tables were used to select the samples from the 
listings. Audiocassettes were sampled by a method similar to that used 
for print materials, with cabinets and drawers substituting for ranges 
and shelves, in the selection of the sample. 
Information Collected 
For each item sampled, the call number (including volume number and 
year) and a short title were recorded. For paper-based materials, two 
major aspects of physical condition were recorded: 
(1) Overall condition of the binding and text block integrity 
This was done by inspecting the sampled item for any of a 
standard list of signs of physical deterioration (e.g., broken 
bindings) or environmental damage (e.g., mold, water damage) and 
assigning it to a general category of physical condition based on 
the presence or absence of these signs. (A description of the 
signs and categories appears in Appendix 3.) 
(2) Extent of brittleness of paper 
This was determined by performing the ’’fold test" on a comer 
of a middle page of the sampled item and recording the number of 
double folds made before the corner broke off. The fold test is 
the standard method of determining brittleness. (A complete 
description of the technique is included in Appendix 3.) 
No chemical analysis was conducted on the samples. While desirable, 
collection of data reflecting paper acidity (as measured by pH) and 
lignin content are of secondary importance because it can be assumed 
that the vast majority of the collection contains paper with high-acid 
content. Staff performing the physical inspection and fold test on 
sampled materials received special training to ensure a uniform approach 
to the sampling. * Sample audiovisual media were checked for general physical condition, 
visual quality, and/or audio quality using standard criteria for deteri- 
oration of such media and assigning condition categories. Condition 
criteria include number of splices for films, quality of the color of 
images presented (i.e., good, off-color, faded), etc. Physical condi- 
tion was determined by visual inspection of the media. Video and/or 
audio quality were determined by viewing or playing portions of the 
sampled programs on appropriate audiovisual equipment. In addition, 
videocassettes were evaluated using a microcomputer-based video tape 
evaluator/cleaning machine which can detect video and audio tape 
dropouts. 
Results of the Survey 
Table 1 summarizes the physical condition of the binding of all print 
materials. No environmental damage was found in any of the sampled 
items in these categories. 
Table 1 
Physical Condition of Binding and Text Block (%) 
Estimated 
Total 
Volumes 
% of Sample 
With Damaged 
Binding 
Estimated 
Total Vols. 
With Damaged 
Binding 
% of Sample 
With Tom 
Pages 
Estimated 
Total Vols 
With Tom 
Pages 
1800-1870 
Monographs 
40,000 
26.3 
10,500 
5.7 
2,300 
1871- 
Monographs 
465,000 
2.9 
13,500 
1.7 
7,900 
1800-1870 
HMD Serials 
20,000 
18.0 
3,600 
6.0 
1,200 
1871-1969 
Serials (B3) 
371,000 
11.3 
41,900 
6.9 
25,600 
1970- 
Serials (Bl) 
278,000 
0 
0 
0.5 
1,400 
1871- 
Serials (B2) 
91,000 
3.6 
3,300 
0.1 
100 
Pamphlets 
7,200 
14.2 
1,000 
1.2 
100 
Theses in 
HMD 
6,400 
6.2 
400 
2.9 
200 
Total 
1,278,600 
5.8 
74,200 
3 
38,800 Bindings of monographs and serial volumes published between 1801 and 
1870 show the highest rate of damage. In absolute numbers, the 
1871-1969 serials include the majority of the damaged volumes. 
Not surprisingly, the bindings of the serial collection on the B-l 
level, which includes only the latest 15 years of publication, were 
found to be in excellent condition. The low incidence of damage (.5%) 
in this group of materials appears to indicate that the heavy use of 
photocopiers on the B-l collection during the last five years has not 
had a significant negative effect on bindings. 
Table 2 shows the physical condition of the unbound manuscript 
collection. 
Table 2 
Physical Condition of Modern Unbound Manuscripts 
Condition 
% in This 
Condition 
Estimated Total 
Number of Boxes 
in This Condition 
Good 
45 
1,220 
Fair 
(Container damage and/or 
manuscripts have frayed 
edges or tears or presence 
of rusting metal clips, 
staples, etc.) 
32 
860 
Poor 
(Frayed edges and rusting 
metal clips, etc., and/or 
manuscripts badly yellowed 
or damaged from insects, 
water, or mold, etc.) 
23 
620 
TOTAL 
100 
2,700 
A large number of the unbound modern manuscripts are in poor condition 
(wrinkled, torn, etc.) due to the way they were stored prior to their 
acquisition by NLM. Over 20 percent show some evidence of damage caused 
by mold. Again this appears to have occurred before NLM acquired the manuscripts because no mold damage was found in any other elements of 
the collection. 
Table 3 summarizes the brittleness of all surveyed paper-based 
collections. In this table, "brittle" paper is defined as paper which 
broke off after two or fewer double folds in the fold test. This 
definition has been used by other research libraries which have 
conducted similar studies (2). 
Table 3 
Summary of Brittleness of NLM Paper-Based Collections 
% of Sample 
Brittle 
(2 folds 
or less) 
Estimated 
Total 
Vols. 
Estimated 
Total Vols. 
Brittle 
Estimated 
Brittle 
Vols. 
Already 
Microfilmed 
1800-1870 Monographs 
12.1 
40,000 
4,800 
500 
I871-to date Monographs 11.7 
465,000 
54,400 
1,100 
1801-1870 Serials 
20 
20,000 
4,000 
900 
1871-1969 Serials (B- 
•3) 11.2 
371,000 
41,600 
9,100 
1970-to date Serials 
(B-l) 0 
278,000 
0 
1871 to date Serials 
(B-2) 5.5 
91,000 
5,000 
Pamphlets 
15.5 
7,200* 
1,100 
Theses 
33.5 
6,400* 
2,100 
Manuscripts 
4.2 
2,700** 
100 
Total 
8.8 
1,281,300 
113,100 
11,600 
* volumes or boxes 
N 
** boxes Embrittlement, though serious, is not as widespread as was feared. 
From 1801 to date there are 1.28 million volumes of monographs, serials, 
pamphlets and theses in the NLM collection. Accounting for the propor- 
tional differences in the sizes of the various collections, the sampling 
indicates that there are approximately 113,000 brittle volumes, or 8.8%. 
The amount of brittle paper in other major collections far exceeds that 
found in the NLM collection. In a recent evaluation of the Yale print 
collections (2), 29% of the volumes sampled were found to be brittle, 
using the same criterion (2 or fewer double folds) applied in NLM’s 
survey. LC estimates that 25% of its law and general collections is 
brittle, based on one or fewer folds in a fold test done by machine 
(3). It is not known how many manual folds are equivalent to one 
machine fold. 
Table 4 summarizes the condition of the audiovisual collections that 
were surveyed. The term "off-color" refers to unrealistic fleshtones 
and colors of known objects; "faded" denotes that all objects are the 
same color. 
Table 4 
Medium 
Physical 
Condition 
Visual Audio 
Quality Quality 
Videocassettes 
(1960 - date) 
100% good to excellent 
some visual and audio dropouts 
but none affected quality of 
picture or sound. 
Audiocassettes 
(1970 - date) 
99.7% excellent 
98% good 
16mm Films 
(1947 - date) 
65% good 
30% fair 
87% good 100% good 
10% off-color 
2% faded 
Film Strips 
(1968 - date) 
98% good 
87% good — 
12% faded 
Slides 
(1950 - date) 
97% good 
95% good 
3% off-color 
2% faded 
The audiovisual collections are generally in good condition. The principal 
exception is the 16mm film collection; over 35% of the films sampled had 4 
or more splices. In addition, 12%xof both the 16mm films and the film strips 
have suffered some loss of color. Summary 
The condition of the NLM collection is better than had been anticipated. 
With 8.8% or an estimated 113,000 volumes of its paper-based collections 
embrittled, NLM faces a smaller preservation problem than other research 
libraries, which have significantly larger collections of old material and 
percentages of brittle paper that exceed 25%. In general, NLM's audiovisual 
programs are also in good condition. By taking action immediately, NLM can 
ensure preservation of the content of the endangered volumes and also extend 
the life of the remainder of the collection. Delays may lead to the loss of 
already brittle materials and the increase in the number of brittle items 
requiring very expensive preservation techniques. IV. PHYSICAL FACILITIES AND ENVIRONMENT 
The physical facility and environmental conditions in which library 
materials are stored have a profound effect on the preservation of those 
materials. There are five environmental factors which affect the 
longevity of paper: 
1. Temperature and Relative Humidity 
2. Atmospheric Pollutants 
3. Light 
A. Mold 
5. Insects and Rodents 
Studies indicate that the lower the storage temperatures for printed 
materials, the longer they last. For every 9°F decrease, the useful 
life of the paper is approximately doubled. In areas where books and 
journals must coexist with humans, a temperature of 65°F is often 
recommended. A proper humidity level is also important. Excessive 
humidity promotes acid hydrolysis and biological attack by mold and 
bacteria, while lack of sufficient humidity promotes desiccation and 
possible loss of strength. Relative humidity levels of 45 (±5) percent 
are recommended for paper-based materials. Films and videocassettes 
benefit from cooler and drier storage conditions. A temperature of 50°F 
or less and relative humidity between 25-30 percent is recommended for 
such materials. Both temperature and humidity levels should be kept as 
constant as possible, to avoid the weakening of library materials which 
can result from cyclical variations in the climate in which materials 
are stored. Any changes should be infrequent, gradual, and less than 
10°F in storage temperature and 10 percent in relative humidity. 
Atmospheric pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, and 
ozone have been identified as harmful to paper. Compounds containing 
oxides of sulfur can combine with moisture to form sulfuric acid. 
Nitrogen dioxide and ozone are oxidants and thus accelerate oxidative 
degradation. Dirt and dust act as abrasives, and can actually imbed 
into the surface of paper. Additionally, such particulates can carry 
adsorbed sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. 
Light, both in the ultraviolet and visible frequencies, increases the 
rate of chemical reactions within paper. Some of the effects of light 
exposure are apparent, such as bleaching of colors and certain inks, and 
the darkening of paper to yellowish or brownish color due to a reaction 
of any lignins present with other chemical compounds. Unseen effects 
include oxidation, and the eventual breakdown of the cellulose chains in 
the paper's fibers. While temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pollutants, and light 
are considered to be the four primary environmental conditions affecting 
preservation, damage from mold or mildew and insects and rodents must 
also be avoided. Mold or mildew growth causes staining, loss of paper 
strength, and eventually the deterioration of the material itself as it 
is consumed by these biologic agents. Mold spores are found in the air 
and on books, and grow rapidly in stagnant air with a temperature of 
80°F or above and a relative humidity in excess of 65 percent. Because 
paper is composed of a variety of organic substances, insects and 
rodents will feed upon it if other food sources are not available. 
NLM's Physical Facility 
From 1836 to 1962, the NLM collection was housed in a series of 
facilities, none of which provided a particularly good environment for 
the Library's materials. The major exception to this rule was the 
storage provided to the Library’s pre-19th century books from 1942 to 
1962 at the Allen Memorial Library Building of the Cleveland Medical 
Library Association. (For a description of the early facilities of the 
Library, see pp. 8-9 in Appendix 1). 
The completion of the present Library building on the NIH grounds in 
1962 provided the Library with greatly improved physical facilities. 
The five-story Bethesda building, measuring 276 feet by 192 feet and 
containing 231,560 square feet, is steel with exterior walls of 
limestone, granite and marble trim. Three floors of the structure are 
below ground, a precaution against the possible atom bomb attack envi- 
sioned by civil defense planners of the 1950's. This defensive planning 
led to the insertion of narrow, recessed windows on the main (first) 
floor and mezzanine. The top floor, the mezzanine, contains 
administrative offices; the first floor holds the main reading room, 
catalog area, history of medicine reading room and offices, and staff 
offices of members of the Technical and Reference Services Divisions. 
The bottom three levels, under ground, contain stack areas as well as 
work areas for staff of the Reference Services Division, Technical 
Services Division, History of Medicine Division, Bibliographic Services 
Division, MeSH Section, and RML Office. 
At the current rate of acquisition of new materials, it is estimated that 
adequate space for the collection will exist for approximately twenty 
years. This time could be extended substantially by the installation of 
compact shelving on the B2 Level. To date the Library has received 
conflicting opinions as to whether the B2 floor is sufficiently strong 
to support compact shelving. Acquisition of an increasing number of 
materials in non-print formats and disposal of some printed materials 
after preservation copies are made will obviously affect NLM's space 
requirements for the collection. The entire Library building is served by a single heating/ventilating/ 
air conditioning (HVAC) system. Steam and chilled water are produced at 
a central NIH facility, and piped into the building. Eight air-mixing 
units serve different areas of the building. Air is drawn into the 
building from ground level vents located on the west side. Although it 
is an advantage that the building contains no furnace to generate 
internal pollutants, the location of the intake vents is often downwind 
from the central NIH power plant, found to the northwest. The existing 
HVAC system does not contain chemical filters. Mechanical filtration 
for dust and other particulate matter is accomplished in two stages 
through a bank of screen-type fiberglass filters, and then through 
fiberglass bag filters rated at 90% efficiency. Humidity can be both 
instilled into and removed from the air by the HVAC system, which is 
monitored and maintained by the building engineer, assigned by the NIH 
Division of Engineering Services. 
Most of the lights in the building are fluorescent tubes. For the past 
several years, the majority of lights in the areas where materials are 
shelved have been covered with sleeves that block the emission of 
ultra-violet light. 
The building is protected against fire by a water sprinkler system. The 
rare book collections (incunabula room and B1 stacks in HMD) are 
protected by a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher system. The Library has 
in the past considered replacing carbon dioxide with halon, which might 
present a lesser threat to the safety of employees, but no action has 
been taken in this direction. In accordance with the federal policy of 
"self-insured" protection, neither NLM nor its collections carry special 
insurance against damage or loss. 
Facilities for exhibiting portions of the collections, which is done on 
a regular basis and frequently involves rare books, are not ideal. The 
cases used have locks, but would be easy to open. The plastic tops do 
not filter out ultraviolet radiation from natural or artificial light. 
The Library's security system includes electronic surveillance and a 
search of bags, briefcases, etc. by a guard as patrons and staff leave 
building 38. Large portions of the collection, including rare books and 
manuscripts, are not provided with security labels and would therefore 
be undetected by the electronic security system. Access to the 
historical collections is more restricted, however, than access to the 
general collections. There is no evidence that loss by theft has been 
great over the years, but the theft of an infrequently used item can go 
undetected for a long time. 
Environmental Conditions at NLM 
Since there was little available data on environmental conditions in the 
NLM building, a survey of these conditions was also an important part of 
the preservation planning process. The Task Force on Environmental 
conditions, assisted by staff from NIH and the National Bureau of 
Standards, collected a variety of data throughout the Library. Survey Methodology 
The areas examined were: 
1. First Floor 
a. Main Reading Room 
b. History of Medicine Reading Room 
c. Prints and Photographs Collection 
d. Incunabula Room 
2. B1 Level 
a. General Collection Stacks 
b. History of Medicine Collection stacks 
3. B2 Level 
a. General Collection Stacks 
b. History of Medicine Collection Stacks 
c. Cold Storage Vault 
For each of these areas, the following information was gathered: 
1. Division and Section of the Library responsible for 
maintenance 
2. Usage 
3. Area in square feet 
4. Ceiling description 
5. Lighting method 
6. Floor covering 
7. Wall covering 
8. Shelving type for materials housed 
9. Fire protection 
10. Miscellaneous pertinent facts 
The Task Force identified six major environment-related parameters to 
examine: (1) temperature (2) humidity (3) light (4) atmospheric pollu 
tants (5) cleanliness (6) shelving structures. 
Temperature and relative humidity data were gathered using nine 
Honeywell recording hygrometers (Model 612X9). Each instrument was 
calibrated using a sling psychrometer. These nine units were located at 
representative sites—with electrical outlets available nearby as 
well—in the following areas: 1. Reading Room, first floor 
2. General Collection stack area, B1 level 
3. General Collection stack area, B2 level 
A. General Collection stack area, B3 level 
5. History of Medicine stack area, BI level 
6. History of Medicine stack area, B2 level 
7. Incunabula Room first floor 
8. Prints and Photographs Collection, first floor 
9. Cold Storage Vault, B3 level 
Recording began for most units on December 23, 198A, and has continued 
since that time. Data for each Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 8:00 
a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 5:00 p.m, were extracted from the recording charts 
of the hygrometers. It was determined that no acceptable source of 
previously gathered temperature and humidity data was available to 
compare with data from the present study. Ambient temperature and 
relative humidity readings, daily highs and lows at National Airport, 
were obtained from the U.S. Weather Bureau, and from the daily weather 
review in the Washington Post. 
In general the temperature levels were found to be quite stable 
throughout the areas examined, within a range of 60°F to 73°F, which 
compares favorably to the frequently cited standard of 65°F ± 5°. One 
exception was the History of Medicine Prints and Photographs Collection 
room, which consistently was warmer, at approximately 74°. 
In contrast to temperature conditions, relative humidity levels varied 
widely, from a low of 20% to a maximum of A5%. This range is well below 
the optimal level of A5-55%. Many of the lower readings occurred in the 
History of Medicine areas. In investigating this situation, the 
Task Force discovered that air mixing unit number seven, which serves 
that area, has no humidification capacity. All other mixing units have 
appropriate humidification equipment. Although not observed by Task 
Force members, it was noted by NLM staff that condensation tends to form 
above the cold storage vaults, especially during summer months. 
Lighting conditions were assessed on the Bl, B2, and B3 levels in the 
stack areas, and in the main reading room, at the same locations where 
the recording hygrometers were positioned. Lights are primarily flu- 
orescent tube units, with conventional on-off switches mounted locally 
on the wall. Most lights in the stack areas are covered by ultra-violet 
blocking tubes. Light intensity measurements were taken by NIH Division 
of Safety staff using a Weston Foot-Candle Meter. Ultra-violet 
radiation levels were measured by members of the environmental 
conditions Task Force using a Crawford UV Monitor Type 760/L. The 
readings were made on a one-time basis—the artificial light sources for 
the underground levels rewain constant, while the reading room varies 
somewhat based on external sun light levels. Results of the lighting measurements indicated that the overall 
intensity and proportion of ultra-violet radiation were well within 
recommended levels. In the stack areas, the intensity levels ranged 
from 13-20 foot-candles (130-200 lux). In the reading room the 
measurement was 65 foot-candles. This latter level is above the 
recommended 30-50 foot-candle range, but was recorded on a bright sunny 
day. The ultra-violet radiation proportion was 25 uW/lumen throughout, 
compared to a maximum recommended level of 75 uW/lumen. UV readings 
taken directly beneath a bank of unsheathed fluorescent bulbs showed 
twice the level compared to sheathed bulbs, 50 uW/lumen. UV readings 
taken near windows in the reading room and lobby areas shows UV 
proportions of 60-75 uW/lumen but dropped off very rapidly as the 
instrument was moved toward the interior of the room. Measurements in 
the Learning Resources Center and some of the processing areas were very 
similar to those taken in other areas where the collection is stored. 
Atmospheric pollutants including sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide 
, hydrogen sulfide and ozone (0„), were sampled by NIH 
Division of Safety staff using a Mine Safety Appliance (MSA) Universal 
Tester Pump with the appropriate MSA detector tubes. These tubes are 
certified for the following accuracy ranges by the National Institute 
for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). 
Sulfur dioxide: 2.5-25 parts per million (by volume) 
Nitrogen dioxide: 2.5-25 PPM 
Hydrogen sulfide: 5-50 PPM 
Ozone: 0.5-4 PPM (not certified by NIOSH) 
Samples were taken on the Bl, B2, and B3 levels, and in the main reading 
room at the same locations where light intensity and temperature/ 
humidity data were gathered. Given the sensitivity of the MSA tubes as 
described above, presence of the four specified atmospheric pollutants 
was not detected. 
To determine the actual levels of concentration of atmospheric 
pollutants required more sensitive equipment. Experts from the National 
Bureau of Standards (NBS) were engaged to measure the baseline presence 
of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, and ozone. At their recommen- 
dation, testing for hydrogen sulfide and hydrocarbons was not done, as 
it was not considered necessary. Highly sensitive instruments were 
brought into the building and calibrated. Readings were recorded 
between April 8 and April 15, 1985 in the B2 stacks, and in the main 
reading room on the Bl level. Ozone was also measured in the photocopy 
room on the Bl level. 
Table 5 summarizes the environment-related quantitative data gathered 
and compares them to the recommended levels for the various parameters 
and atmospheric pollutants. (Appendix 3 is a copy of the full NBS air 
quality report.) Table 5 
Parameter 
NLM 
Condition 
Recommended 
Range 
Source of 
Recommendation 
Temperature 
60°F ■ 
- 73 
°F 
65°F ± 5°F 
a/ 
Relative Humidity 
20% - 
45% 
45 - 55% 
a/ 
Light Intensity 
13-20 
foot-candles 
maximum of 
a/ 
(stacks) 
30-50 foot candles 
65 foot candles 
(reading room) 
Ultra-violet 
25 uW/lumen 
less than 75 
uW/lumen a/ 
proportion 
Atmospheric Pollutants 
Sulfur dioxide 
Avg. 
6 
ppb b / 
from 0 
c/ 
Max. 
49 
ppb 
to 4 ppb 
Min. 
0 
ppb 
Nitrogen oxides 
Avg. 
44 
ppb 
from 0 
d / 
Max. 
208 
ppb 
to 5 ppb 
Min. 
22 
ppb 
Ozone e/ 
Avg. 
4 
ppb 
from 0 
f / 
Max. 
17 
PPb 
to 13 ppb 
Min. 
1 
PPb 
a/ Darling, Preservation Planning Program: An Assisted Self-Stud 
Manual for Libraries (ARL, 1982) (4) 
b/ Parts per billion (by mole). 
c/ The British Museum (5,6,7) and the Royal Ontario Museum (8) 
recommend complete removal, while Banks (9) and Thomson (7) 
recommend 4 ppb. NBS Workshop on Environmental Conditions for 
Archival Storage recommended 2 ppb. (10) 
d/ The British Museum (5,6,7) and the Royal Ontario Museum (8) 
recommend complete removal, while Thomson (7) recommends 5 ppb for 
nitrogen dioxide. The NBS Workshop (10) recommended 2.5 ppb for 
nitrogen dioxide. e/ Ozone measurements summarized in this chart were taken in areas 
where the collection is stored. Ozone measurements were also taken 
in the photocopier room serving the reading room. The existing 
copiers clearly were a source of ozone; levels ranged from a 
minimum of 2 ppb during off-hours, to a maximum of 62 ppb during 
peak-usage hours. Average ozone level was IA ppb. 
fJ The British Museum (5,6,7) and the Royal Ontario Museum (8) 
recommend complete removal, while Thomson (7) recommends 1 ppb. 
The NBS Workshop (10) recommends 13 ppb. 
Members of the Task Force on Environmental Conditions also conducted a 
walk-through of the spaces to assess cleanliness and shelving 
conditions. They found that housekeeping services were inadequate in 
the stack areas, as evidenced by levels of dust and dirt found on the 
floors and on shelving units. No testing for biologic agents such as 
mold or bacteria was conducted. Shelving units and bookends currently 
in use do not damage the collection. However, the number of book trucks 
and step stools available to transport and access materials is 
insufficient. 
Smoking, drinking, eating and the cultivating of plants are common in 
many work areas throughout the Library and while these practices can be 
a potential hazard to library materials, no serious or widespread damage 
was discovered. Policies restricting these activities do exist for the 
stack areas, the public Reading Rooms, and HMD staff areas. Insects and 
rodents are not a problem in the Library. 
Summary 
Although there are some problems, in general the environmental 
conditions in the Library are good and probably can be improved without 
great expense. The construction of the Library, with relatively few 
windows and three floors below ground, makes it easier to maintain 
appropriate temperatures for the collection and to minimize the amount 
of ultra-violet radiation. Concern for the preservation of the 
collection is evident in the design of the building and in its heating 
and air-conditioning system. 
The environmental survey has already prompted several specific actions 
to improve conditions for the collection. These include; a work order 
request to add humidification and dehumidification (if necessary) 
capacity to air-mixing unit number seven which, unlike all the other 
units, has never contained a humidifier; arrangements made by GAMS for 
housekeepers to dust the floors and stacks weekly and to wet mop 
monthly; a request to GAMS to install ultra-violet blocking tubes on all 
unshielded fluorescent bulbs in areas where the collection is stored or 
processed; a work request to the NIH Division of Engineering Services to 
install insulation above the cold storage vaults; and purchase of 
additional step stools and replacement book trucks. V. COLLECTION USE AND MAINTENANCE 
The amount and nature of physical processing, handling and use of 
Library materials by staff and patrons have an effect (either positive 
or negative) on the life of those materials. Some negative effects are 
chemical: for example, inks or adhesives used in marking may react with 
the materials. Most effects are physical, affecting the external 
structure of an item: bindings may be broken; paper and film tom; 
magnetic tape stretched, scratched, torn or erased. The susceptibility 
of materials to this kind of damage depends upon both internal and 
environmental factors. Paper embrittled through chemical reaction will 
disintegrate at a touch; a tight adhesive binding will split when opened 
under hot, dry conditions; a film subjected to extreme fluctuations in 
temperature or humidity will shrink. 
The mission of any library is almost inevitably hostile to the preserva- 
tion of its contents, for materials are acquired, organized and stored 
primarily to be used, and use necessarily takes a toll on condition. 
There will always be a tension and compromise between the need to 
preserve materials and to make them readily available to the Library’s 
users. 
Processing 
Materials arrive at the National Library of Medicine from all over the 
world. Books and journals from some foreign countries arrive in poor 
physical condition due to the environmental or physical conditions under 
which they were transported, or the inferior quality materials of which 
they are made. Books received from the Library of Congress, 21-101 of 
which are added to the NLM collection, are sent in canvas bags and bins 
and often show signs of damage. All materials receive a good deal of 
handling in processing. Items are checked in; subjected to the 
insertion of a wide variety of forms between their leaves; cataloged, 
and in some cases indexed, either inhouse or by contractors outside the 
Library; stamped; marked; labelled with security labels and machine 
readable identifiers; sent to be bound if necessary; and shelved. Some 
overcrowded processing areas and work stations increase the risk of 
damage to incoming materials. 
Storage 
Most of NLM's collections are housed in metal stacks. Journals from the 
period 1871-1969 are stored in compact shelving, and it is anticipated 
that over the next two years many more items will be transferred to 
existing or newly-installed compact shelving. Certain collections are 
stored under special conditions. Archival microfilm and the historical 
film collection are preserved in special cold storage vaults. Acid-free 
document boxes and folders are used to house the collections of papers in the Modem Manuscripts collection. Fine art prints are stored flat 
in special cases. Overall, NLM's storage conditions are good. 
Binding 
Binding is a measure intended to protect library materials. Both 
binding preparation and the actual binding of NLM’s post 1870 books and 
journals are done on contract. The preparation contractor collects 
loose journal issues and controls the shipment of those issues to and 
from the commercial binder. NLM currently is required to use a central 
binding contract for the Department of Health and Human Services that is 
administered by the Government Printing Office. The specifications for 
the binding are set and the contractor selected by GPO. Journals and 
soft-bound books are bound with a class A binding (standard library 
binding), and acid-free end papers are used. 
Use 
While most materials in the Library’s collections are stored in a closed 
stack environment, the majority of them are accessible to patrons onsite 
in the public Reading Rooms and the Learning Resource Center or through 
NLM’s interlibrary loan service. Onsite circulation includes provision 
of the original item to the patron, whether it be a journal issue, a 
book or an audiovisual, unless the original item is in very fragile 
condition. In FY 1984, over 191,000 items were provided to Reading Room 
and History of Medicine patrons. Items housed in the Reading Rooms are 
directly accessible by readers, with perhaps as many as 86,000 uses made 
each year, based on estimated reshelving counts. In addition to the 
normal wear and tear of handling by both staff and by patrons, heavy and 
unsupervised use is made of the self-service photocopy machines (1.1 
million exposures were made by patrons in FY 1984), and audiovisual 
materials are used on LRC playback equipment, most of which is more than 
10 years old. Both types of use are known to shorten the life 
expectancy of the materials. 
The majority of interlibrary loan requests are for current journal 
articles and are filled by sending out staff produced photocopies. 
Nearly 103,000 articles were photocopied in FY 1984. Books and 
audiovisuals from the general collection are regularly sent out on 
interlibrary loan to requestors. These original loans numbered 10,700 
in FY 1984. The History of Medicine Division also sent out some 
original items on loan, but most of the 2000 requests in FY 1984 were 
filled as photocopies or on microfilm. In the latter case, a microfilm 
master is retained for future NLM use. 
Added to the actual patron use of library materials is the staff 
handling which goes into providing items to a patron, and the necessary 
reshelving of items following use. Conservatively, the total handling 
count for fulfilling NLM's service mission could be over 1 million uses annually, concentrated on a relatively small portion of the entire NLM 
collection. 
Education 
Staff and user handling techniques are influenced by the presence or 
lack of instruction and policies. Instruction and monitoring of all 
processing and service within Library Operations focuses on intellectual 
and not physical handling, with few written guidelines for the latter. 
No instruction for NLM patrons (either onsite or remote) is currently 
conducted. 
Summary 
The results of the survey of the physical condition of items in the NLM 
collection indicate that current processing and use practices are not 
having a serious negative effect on the Library’s materials. This does 
not mean, however, that there is no room for improvement in the way 
NLM’s collection is handled by staff and users. The process of observ- 
ing, documenting and discussing the use and processing practices that 
can affect the Library's collections has already caused staff members to 
be more preservation conscious and alert to potentially damaging 
handling policies and techniques. Some physical damage is unavoidable 
in a service organization where use is expected and encouraged, but 
steps can be taken to reduce even further damage during processing and 
after the materials are in the users’ hands. 
As a result of this study several steps have been initiated or are 
planned to reduce unnecessary wear and tear on library materials. These 
include: reviewing the number and type of preliminary forms that are 
inserted in library materials as they are processed; assuring that all 
labels and markers used are as benign as possible; ceasing the use of 
metal paper clips to mark pages; redesigning the Reader Service sorting 
area to be more efficient and reduce jumbles of materials; purchasing 
dust covers for all audiovisual and microfilm equipment and developing a 
plan for routine preventive maintenance as well as phased replacement of 
such equipment; and ensuring that the serial issue in the best physical 
condition is bound, when more than one copy is available on the shelf. VI. PRESENT LEVEL OF PRESERVATION ACTIVITY AT NLM 
NLM*s current preservation activity consists primarily of binding serial 
issues and paperbound monographs, collection maintenance, and special 
preservation of rare books and archival films. From 1966 to 1982, with 
a combination of in-house staff and contract support, the Library micro- 
filmed runs of about 2,000 early Index Medicus serial titles and 
3,000 - 4,000 monographs, principally from the period 1871 to 1906. 
This program was suspended because of the high cost of microfilming, the 
promise of new preservation technologies and the lack of a plan for 
assigning preservation priority to the remaining items in the collec- 
tion. At present, only about 172,000 pages are microfilmed in-house 
each year. The majority of these are filmed to fill interlibrary loan 
requests for materials in the historical collections which cannot be 
loaned in the original. 
The Library first developed a Disaster Recovery Plan and assembled 
special supplies and procedures for handling disasters affecting the 
collection in 1979. The plan has been revised periodically, most 
recently in conjunction with the development of this Preservation Plan, 
Responsibility for current preservation activities is divided among the 
Reference Services Division (RSD) and the History of Medicine Division 
(HMD). The following chart summarizes staff and other resources devoted 
to ongoing preservation activities in FY 1985. The figures exclude: 
(1) administrative overhead in the offices of the Chiefs, RSD and HMD, 
and the Associate Director for Library Operations; (2) the NLM staff 
time devoted to the preparation of the Preservation Plan; (3) a propor- 
tional share of the NIH Management Fund; and (4) Office of Computer and 
Communications Systems expenditures that can reasonably be assigned to 
automated support of current collection maintenance, binding, and 
microfilming activities. Table 6 
NLM Resources Allocated for Preservation - FY 1985 
Staff Support 
NLM FTE 
Budget 
Reference Services Division 
Circulation and Control Section 
7.25 
138,100 
Audiovisual Resources Section 
1.5 
28,400 
History of Medicine Division 
2.4 
51,700 
Total 
11.1 
216,200 
Other Expenditures 
Binding Preparation Contract 
GPO Binding Contract 
Compact Shelving purchase 
Preservation of archival films 
Rare book binding 
Manuscript rebinding 
Consultants - preservation plan, 
air quality sampling, evalua- 
tion of prints and photographs 
collection 
Other miscellaneous - equipment, 
equipment maintenance, supplies, 
etc. 
253,500 
184.000 
55,300 
135.000 
40,200 
60,000 
11,500 
32,600 
Total 
772,100 
Grand 
Total 
990,300 VII. CURRENT STATE OF PRESERVATION TECHNOLOGY 
In the broadest sense, any activity that extends the life of library 
materials is a preservation technique. This is why the enhancement of 
the environment in which materials are stored and improvements in the 
way materials are handled are important to any preservation program. 
Using a narrower interpretation, however, a preservation technique is 
something that improves the intrinsic durability of an item or creates a 
copy of it in a more durable medium. Relatively few such techniques 
exist, particularly for mass preservation of the post-1850 printed 
materials which are most at risk. Fortunately, recent expansion of 
interest in preservation among research libraries has sparked research 
in mass preservation techniques. Although currently available options 
are still very limited in number, there is promise of better things to 
come, 
A description of the major techniques that are currently available or 
are the subject of research activity follows, with an estimate of their 
costs, if reasonable estimates are possible. 
a) Mass Deacidification 
Manual deacidification methods, involving immersing the pages of a 
disbound book or the brushing/or spraying of each page with a 
deacidification agent, have been in use for some time by paper 
conservators. These traditional single-sheet methods are too slow and 
expensive for NLM to apply on a large scale, although they continue to 
be appropriate for rare books, manuscripts and art prints. Newer mass 
deacidification procedures promise a more affordable means of extending 
the life span of paper-based materials by as much as four to five times 
the life of the paper before it was treated. This could be two to three 
hundred years for some materials. The newer the materials are at the 
time they are deacidified, the more they can benefit from the process. 
There are two mass deacidification procedures which have received 
extensive testing, the Wei T’o liquefied gas mass deacidification 
process in use at the Public Archives of Canada and the diethyl zinc gas 
deacidification (DEZ) process of the Library of Congress. At the 
moment, the facility at the Public Archives of Canada is the only mass 
deacidification center in operation. Since 1981, six million pages from 
the Public Archives and from the National Library of Canada have been 
deacidified at this facility, using the Wei T’o method. The estimated 
cost of building a Wei T’o facility is at least $500,000 and would be 
considerably higher for the capacity needed by NLM. The U.S. Congress 
has appropriated $11.5 million for the construction of a DEZ facility at 
Frederick, Maryland for the Library of Congress. Scheduled for 
completion in 1987, this facility should have an annual capacity of 
500,000 to 1,000,000 volumes. The estimated cost of actual deacidification of a book by either the DEZ 
or Wei Tfo method, which is now about $3.50 per volume, is expected to 
drop to $2.25 or less per volume in a fully operational, efficient 
plant. Preparation and transport of materials to and from a locally 
available facility will cost an additional $2.00 per volume, for a total 
of $4.25 per volume. NLM's cost per volume will be higher if the 
Library is required to pay for all or part of the cost of the 
construction of a mass deacidification facility. 
The relatively low cost of mass deacidification, as compared to the cost 
of mass disk storage or microfilm, makes it an attractive preservation 
technology. Deacidification has the advantage of preserving materials 
in their original format, if that is important. It is also not subject 
to any copyright restrictions. Deacidification is of no use, however, 
for that portion of the collection which is already embrittled, as it 
can only halt and not reverse the process of acid deterioration of 
paper. It also offers no solution to storage space or remote access 
problems. In any case, mass deacidification will not be available to 
NLM before 1988 or 1989. That is probably the earliest date that NLM 
could arrange to begin using a portion of the LC DEZ facility, or to 
obtain deacidification services from other sources. 
(b) Strengthening of Paper 
There are several experimental processes designed to strengthen paper. 
One method deposits a strengthening agent in a vacuum at room 
temperature without catalysts. Another uses an acrylic copolymer and 
initiates polymerization with a radioactive source. This technology is 
not available to NLM for current use, even for individual rare items, 
and, in its present forms, would cost $50-$75 per volume. The level of 
research Interest in this technique is increasing, however, and it may 
become viable and cost-effective for mass preservation in the future. 
The Department of the Treasury is interested in applying one of the 
strengthening processes to the one dollar bill, and LC's Preservation 
Office also intends to look at this technology. 
(c) Mass Disk Storage 
Mass disk storage involves electro-optically scanning original materials 
and storing the images on another medium and is therefore suitable for 
preservation of materials that are already brittle. The electronic 
storage of information in digital form on optical digital disks appears 
to have great promise for preservation. The advantages of the disk 
medium include high storage density, rapid random accessibility, and 
compactness. The major attributes of image signals in digital form are: 
the ability to regenerate, compress, or enhance the images stored and to 
convert bit-mapped imagery into machine-readable text. There is no 
generation loss in the transfer of the signal from one disk to another, 
as occurs in copying microfilm. The method offers exciting opportunities for linking bibliographic information (such as a MEDLINE 
or CATLINE citation) to the automatic retrieval and display of document 
Images. The Lister Hill Center has demonstrated such a link-up of 
citations retrieved from NLM’s mainframe computer and electronic 
document images stored on magnetic disk. Mass disk storage has the 
potential to play an important role in preservation in the next several 
years, especially for frequently used materials that would benefit most 
from increased ease of access and for materials originally published in 
machine readable form. 
Although both LC and NLM have developed prototype systems to support 
research in the use of disk technology for information storage, access 
and preservation, the preservation potential of the disk medium is not 
yet clearly understood. Before an operational disk preservation system 
can be put in place, additional research is necessary to answer several 
basic questions about the technology. Including the effective life 
expectancy of the disk (current estimates are 10 to 30 years), the most 
effective compression techniques, and the methods for monitoring image 
quality in a production environment. The answers to these and other 
questions will have a significant effect on the cost of preservation on 
disk. Since most commercial interest in disk technology relates to its 
erasability and reusability, NLM and LC may not be able to rely on the 
private sector to fund research into the preservation properties of the 
medium. It is unlikely that NLM will be able to use optical disks for 
large scale preservation in the next two to three years, given the 
present uncertainty about the preservation characteristics of the medium 
and the total system cost of a disk operation. 
The general use of disks for preservation, at least for post-1906 
materials, depends not only on technological advances, but also on the 
resolution of complex questions about intellectual property rights. 
Because it permits multiple and remote use of single copies of works, 
disk technology is perceived as a greater threat to the rights of 
copyright owners than preservation on microfilm. 
(d) Microfilming 
Microfilm, like mass disk storage, is a suitable preservation medium for 
printed materials that need not be preserved in their original format or 
have deteriorated to the point where preservation in the original format 
is not currently possible. When processed properly and stored under 
"archival" conditions, silver halide film is expected to last indefi- 
nitely. Proper storage requires special conditions (e.g., low tempera- 
ture). Microfilm, like disk, offers the advantage of compactness. 
Unlike disk, it is not easy to access and use. Microfilmed images may 
be transferred to disk effectively, although the production costs of 
high volume transfer are not yet known. The cost of microfilming an average volume is $A0.00-$50.00, including 
$0.15 per exposure (for two printed pages) for the original master, 
$3.50-$A.50 for the service master and the diazo service copy, and $9.00 
for preparation costs and recording preservation data. The price per 
volume is therefore at least several times the cost of deacidification. 
Although it is not yet possible to estimate the production cost of 
preservation of print materials on disk, that cost is unlikely to be 
significantly lower than the cost of microfilming. Preparing documents 
and capturing images, which are the major cost factors in microfilming, 
are also likely to be the major cost factors for disk preservation, 
given the same decision regarding the retention or destruction of the 
original being copied. 
Although the ease of accessing materials on disk and the possibility of 
tying access to bibliographic information suggests that optical disk 
technology may eventually surpass microfilm as a preservation medium, 
microfilm will probably continue to play a significant role in preserva- 
tion for some time to come. Microfilming is in fact the only method now 
available to NLM for large-scale preservation of paper-based materials. 
Even in the future microfilm may continue to be an acceptable 
preservation medium for infrequently used material. 
(e) Film to Film Transfer 
At present the preferred method for preserving films is film to film 
transfer with no reduction in gauge (i.e., 35 mm to 35 mm; 16 mm to 
16 mm). Black and white archival triacetate film has an estimated 
longevity of 300 years when stored under archival conditions. Color 
film is more difficult to protect, but an "archival" color film on 
triacetate with an estimated longevity of 100 years is being used to 
copy films. Films should be copied to an intemegative film master, 
with the intemegative then used to make an answer print or service 
copy. The intemegative master can then be used to produce another 
answer print when the service copy is worn, thus prolonging the life of 
the original. The cost per film for this procedure averages from $500 
to $600. The original masters require storage in a climate controlled 
vault. To make NLM's historical films accessible to more users, it may 
also be advisable to make video viewing copies for films of particular 
interest for research or teaching. 
(f) Preservation Methods for Special Collections 
Special collections are defined as pre-1801 printed literature (and any 
later printed works which are considered to be rare or of exceptional 
historical significance), manuscripts, and prints and photographs. 
These collections contain the bulk of the items in the NLM collection 
that must be preserved in their original format and also the majority of 
items that require special individual handling during preservation. 
Preservation techniques for these materials include; oiling of leather bindings; hand rebinding and repair; individual deacidification; place- 
ment of materials in acid free folders and boxes, reconstruction of 
pages, encapsulation, etc. Any of the mass techniques described for 
post-1801 materials may also be appropriate for some materials in these 
collections, although greater care may be necessary to prepare the 
materials for preservation. Costs vary greatly depending on the 
condition of the original items and the specific technique chosen. The 
techniques are generally labor intensive and therefore expensive. 
(g) Acquisition of Materials in Archival Formats 
Although not strictly a preservation technique, the acquisition of new 
library materials made from substances with archival properties can be a 
cost-effective way of ensuring preservation of parts of a library’s 
collection. Until recently, acquisition of materials in microform was 
the only choice available. With the development of a standard for 
"acid-free" paper and increased publication in machine-readable form, 
libraries may have increased opportunity to buy materials in archival 
formats—or at least in formats that are more easily and cheaply pre- 
served. 
Summary 
When it becomes available, mass deacidification will probably be the 
cheapest alternative for preservation of paper-based material at an 
estimated cost of $4.25 per volume, ($2.25 for deacidification and $2.00 
for preparation and transport.) The charge will be higher if all or 
part of the cost of constructing a deacidification facility is borne by 
the Library. Deacidification offers no space savings, but preserves the 
original artifact. With some effort, NLM should be able to obtain 
appropriate deacidification facilities by 1988 or 1989. Procedures for 
strengthening of paper are still in a very experimental stage, but could 
become practical in the future. 
Mass disk storage has exceptional use characteristics, including random 
access, simultaneous use by multiple users, and the ability to link 
directly to automated bibliographic records. Because of these use 
characteristics, disk storage is more problematic than other techniques 
in regard to intellectual property rights. The preservation character- 
istics of disks are not fully understood and require further research. 
The results of such research are needed before accurate total cost 
estimates for preservation on disk can be developed. 
Of the preservation techniques suitable for the mass of NLM's 
paper-based collections, only microfilming, at an average cost of 
$40-$50 per volume, is available to NLM today. Microfilm is very 
space-efficient if the original is not retained after filming, but it is 
also unwieldy to use. There are generally accepted "best” methods for preserving segments of 
the audiovisual collections and the special collections (i.e., rare 
books, print and photographs, modern manuscripts). Because these 
methods involve skilled labor, they tend to be expensive—from fifty to 
several hundred dollars per volume or program. 
In the future, acquisition of new materials in archival formats may 
reduce the required level of preservation activity and expenditure. VIII. OTHER EXTERNAL FACTORS AFFECTING NLM'S PRESERVATION PROGRAM 
NLM's preservation program must take into account a number of external 
factors affecting the U. S. information and biomedical communities, in 
addition to the current state of preservation technology. These include 
publishing trends, developments in the concept of intellectual property 
rights, changes in the ways health professionals acquire and use 
information, and the emergence of preservation as a critical concern in 
research libraries, which in turn has led to increased emphasis on 
cooperative library activities and the recent developments in 
preservation technology already described. 
PUBLISHING TRENDS 
Publishers are the primary source of NLM’s raw materials—the 
books, periodicals, audiovisuals, prints and other library 
materials that make up the Library's collection. The worldwide 
publication industry determines the scope of the preservation 
problem that NLM will face. 
For over a 100 years the trend has been toward lower cost, higher 
speed production of an ever increasing flood of publications, 
which, because of the acid paper, adhesives and binding techniques 
used in their manufacture, are subject to rapid deterioration. As 
the library community has become more aware of the inherent weak- 
ness of the materials it collects, it has attempted to persuade 
publishers to shift to methods that will ensure more durable 
products. Partially as a result, the National Information 
Standards Organization (NISO) has published a standard for perma- 
nent durable paper with an alkaline reserve. The availability of 
this standard could stimulate more acid-free paper production and 
provide a basis for influencing publishers to use it. 
The definition of a "publication" has changed with the emergence of 
new media. An increasing amount of material is published in 
microform, especially computer-output-microfiche (COM); however, 
this medium too is subject to gradual destruction. Audiovisuals 
and electronically-based forms of information are proliferating 
daily and will present the Library not only with bibliographic, 
acquisition and service problems, but also with a different set 
of preservation problems. 
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 
Related to publishing trends are a spectrum of issues concerned 
with Intellectual property rights. The question of who shall be 
reimbursed for what kinds of use of what kinds of "publications" is 
under continuing review as information becomes an increasingly 
valuable commodity. This In turn could affect the form and con- 
ditions under which publications may be_reproduced for preservation purposes. 
Although the matter has not been tested in the courts, informed 
legal opinion holds that copying deteriorating print materials on 
microfilm in order to preserve their content in a library or 
archives can be considered a "fair use" of copyrighted works if 
there is no financial gain associated with the copying. The 
argument is particularly strong for NLM as a national library with 
statutory responsibility to preserve the biomedical literature. 
Since material preserved on disk is available for simultaneous use 
and can be redisseminated much more easily than material on micro- 
film, the use of disk technology for preservation adds dimensions 
to the discussion about intellectual property rights. On the 
other hand, electronic technology also offers a far more reliable 
and consistent way of collecting statistics on use. This could 
make the property rights issue easier to resolve, since actual 
use may be monitored automatically. 
CHANGES IN THE WAY HEALTH PROFESSIONALS ACQUIRE AND USE INFORMATION 
Health professionals traditionally have demanded rapid access to 
information. Health sciences librarians traditionally have 
responded by providing the best or developing the newest in infor- 
mation services. In the last ten years microcomputer technology 
and the proliferation of online databases have profoundly affected 
the way health professionals acquire and use information. Artifi- 
cial intelligence systems, electronic publishing, and developing 
"electronic colleges" have the potential for making even more 
significant changes. If current trends in hospital economics 
continue, there will be fewer libraries available close at hand to 
fill immediate needs. It is likely that there will be increasing 
numbers of technologically sophisticated physicians tapping into 
remote information resources both for current and older materials. 
The challenge to NLM then is not just to preserve the biomedical 
literature, but to preserve and store it in ways which will facili- 
tate access for the user community and be appropriate to their 
changing needs. 
EMERGENCE OF PRESERVATION AS A CRITICAL CONCERN IN RESEARCH 
LIBRARIES 
Over the last 25 years the Council of Library Resources (CLR) has 
acted as a catalyst to focus attention on preservation as a 
critical concern. In large measure as a result of CLR’s efforts, 
significant progress has occurred in several areas. There is a 
developing consensus on the size of the preservation problem which 
libraries collectively face, a recognition of the cost of con- 
fronting it and of the cost of failing to confront it. There is 
also a significant research effort which addresses methods to 
prevent or retard deterioration of library materials and methods 
for mass storage of copies of already deteriorated materials. Preservation has emerged as a specialty within the library profes- 
sion. Interest and expertise has spread beyond the circle of 
archivists and rare book librarians. The pool of trained and 
partially trained preservationists is expanding as is the demand 
for this type of expertise. 
Funding of preservation projects by CLR, the National Endowment for 
the Humanities, and charitable foundations is increasing. Library 
organizations such as the Association for Research Libraries and 
the Research Libraries Group are taking advantage of available 
funding to stimulate preservation planning among research libraries 
and to develop cooperative preservation programs, including 
regional preservation centers. 
The Library of Congress has established a National Preservation 
Program Office to provide information, educational support, and 
coordination among the many institutions engaged in preservation 
activities around the country. 
Clearly the climate is favorable for NLM to expand its own preser- 
vation program and to work with other institutions to develop 
useful cooperative preservation projects. IX. RECOMMENDED STRATEGIES FOR PRESERVATION AT NLM 
An examination of the current condition of the NLM collection, the 
environment in which it is stored, the way its materials are processed 
and used, and the present level of preservation activity has revealed a 
preservation problem that can be solved if NLM takes immediate action to 
establish a comprehensive preservation program. In many respects, NLM 
is in a much better position than other U.S. research libraries which 
have such huge numbers of brittle materials that there is almost no 
possibility of saving them at all. Due to the relatively good condition 
of the NLM collection and its manageable size, NLM has the opportunity 
to fulfill its mandate to preserve the biomedical literature. 
After careful evaluation of available options, the Preservation Planning 
Team recommends that NLM take the following actions to create a preser- 
vation program capable of ensuring the long-term availability of the 
scholarly record for biomedicine. 
A. MODIFY THE NLM BOARD OF REGENTS’ POLICY ON PRESERVATION 
The NLM Board of Regents' policy on preservation of the collection 
should be modified to link NLM's preservation program more explicitly to 
its collection development guidelines, to clarify the Library’s respon- 
sibility for the preservation of the content as opposed to the format of 
the biomedical literature, and to define NLM's role in assisting the 
preservation of significant biomedical literature held by other U.S. 
libraries. 
The Preservation Planning Team recommends that the new policy encompass 
the following principles: 
NLM should assume primary responsibility for the preservation of 
the core biomedical literature that the Library collects at the 
comprehensive level and should share with other research libraries 
responsibility to preserve literature in subjects related to 
medicine and health that it collects at the research level. NLM 
must ensure that the biomedical literature is preserved, but need 
not do all the preservation work itself. 
NLM should seek to preserve the biomedical literature irrespective 
of the format (e.g., print, audiovisual, machine readable) in 
which it is published, but the Library’s primary preservation 
responsibility is for the content of that literature rather than its 
format. 
In making decisions regarding the order in which materials are 
to be preserved, NLM should give consideration to: the uniqueness 
of the material, its level of use, its state of deterioration, the 
existence of preservation copies elsewhere, the relationship of 
the material to existing cooperative preservation activities, and 
the availability of suitable preservation techniques. NLM should monltor developments in preservation techniques and should partici- 
pate in research, development, testing, and evaluation of preserva- 
tion technology. In selecting preservation techniques, NLM should 
consider the likely future demand for the material, ease of use of 
the preserved original or preservation copy, the cost and reliability 
of the preservation method, and the cost of the long-term storage of 
the archival copies. 
The Preservation Planning Team has prepared a draft policy state- 
ment for consideration by the Director, NLM and the Board of 
Regents. The full text of this draft statement is included in 
Appendix 5. 
B. ESTABLISH A NEW ORGANIZATIONAL UNIT TO DIRECT NLM’S 
PRESERVATION PROGRAM. 
NLM's existing preservation organization, while appropriate for the 
level of preservation activity currently underway, is inadequate to 
handle the expansion of preservation functions that the Library must 
undertake to ensure the preservation of the scholarly biomedical litera- 
ture. What is needed is an organizational unit specifically devoted to 
preservation that can provide a focus for all NLM preservation activi- 
ties and assume direct responsibility for many of them. Given present 
constraints, the new unit must be developed within existing ceilings for 
budgeted positions and FTEs. It should also continue NLM's current 
practice of contracting out most of the actual physical preservation or 
copying of materials to archival formats. 
After examining several different options for NLM preservation organiza- 
tions, the Preservation Planning Team recommends that a Preservation 
Section be established within the existing Reference Services Division. 
The core of the new Section should be formed by bringing together staff 
throughout Library Operations who now have preservation responsi- 
bilities. The Preservation Section will provide an operational focus 
for NLM's preservation program by initiating and managing the expansion 
of the level of preservation activity at NLM; monitoring developments in 
preservation technology and selecting appropriate techniques for the NLM 
collection; training staff and users in safe materials handling; 
developing cooperative preservation programs; and assisting in the 
identification of appropriate preservation research projects. While the 
Preservation Section will have major responsibility for NLM's preserva- 
tion operation, the History of Medicine Division will continue to 
perform important preservation activities related to the special 
historical collections. The Lister Hill Center will conduct actual 
research related to preservation. (See Appendix 6 for a more specific 
rationale and list of recommended functions for the new Section.) C. EXPAND THE LEVEL OF PRESERVATION ACTIVITY AT NLM 
Because NLM has the largest collection of biomedical literature in the 
world, preservation of the materials held by the Library represents a 
significant step toward preservation of the entire scholarly record in 
the field of medicine and health. Since 1982, NLM’s preservation 
activities have been limited to binding current materials, treatment of 
segments of the special collections, and preservation of archival films. 
With the completion of this comprehensive study of internal and external 
factors affecting preservation of the NLM collection, the Library should 
expand its preservation program to achieve by the year 2005 the goal of 
a preservation copy for every item in the NLM collection that falls 
within the subject areas that NLM collects at the comprehensive or 
research levels. NLM should take the following specific steps toward 
this goal: 
C.1. Obtain by 1989 mass deacidification service for 100,000 
NLM volumes annually. 
Data on the condition of the NLM collection indicate that of 1.28 
million volumes, at least 91.2% or 1.17 million volumes (boxes of theses 
or pamphlets were counted as volumes) would benefit from deacidifica- 
tion. At the estimated cost of $4.25 per volume ($2.25 for deacidifica- 
tion and $2.00 for preparation and transport to a local facility), it 
would take approximately $4.97 million to deacidify all of these 
volumes. Although it will not be cost-effective for NLM to review 
volumes individually to determine whether the Library has an obligation 
to preserve them, some categories of materials may be excluded from 
NLM’s deacidification program based on their subject classification. 
Approximately 40,000 volumes are added to the collection annually, and 
it will cost about $130,000 per year to deacidify these materials as 
they are received. This figure is based on an estimate of $3.25 per 
volume, since preparation costs would be reduced if deacidification took 
place as volumes were received or bound for the collection. NLM’s costs 
for deacidification will be higher if the Library is required to fund 
all or part of the cost of building a facility. 
Beginning in FY 1988, NLM should deacidify 100,000 volumes annually, 
including all incoming print materials that would benefit from this 
treatment and making up the remainder from items in the retrospective 
collection. Depending on the number of new materials acquired on 
acid-free paper or in non-print form each year, it will take 18-20 years 
to deacidify the entire retrospective collection that will benefit from 
this treatment, while also treating all appropriate incoming materials. 
The cost, depending on the mix of new and old materials, will range from 
$370,000 to $400,000 annually (in FY 1985 dollars) until all the 
retrospective collection has been treated. These cost figures are based 
on the use of an existing facility, and exclude any charges to defray 
the cost of facility construction. They are probably reasonable estimates of what NLM can expect to pay for use of the LC facility if 
such use is permitted. 
To make certain that mass deacidification services at the required level 
are available to the Library by 1989, NLM should negotiate with LC for a 
commitment for NLM use of the mass deacidification facility at 
Frederick. If sufficient capacity cannot be made available at the LC 
facility, NLM should work with other research libraries and/or 
commercial companies to ensure the development of adequate deacidifi- 
cation service for the NLM collection. 
C.2. Initiate in FY 1986 a four-year preservation microfilming 
program for monographs and serial volumes too embrittled 
to benefit from deacidification. 
The survey of the condition of the NLM collection revealed that an 
estimated 8.8% or 113,000 volumes (or volume equivalents) are brittle. 
Deacidification will provide relatively little benefit to this material, 
and disk storage is not yet available for large-scale preservation 
purposes. These volumes are in danger of crumbling into dust, and 
microfilming is at present the only available means of dealing with 
them. 
Of the total number of brittle materials, an estimated 104,800 volumes 
are monographs or serial volumes. Of these an estimated 11,700 volumes 
have already been microfilmed. Using an average figure of 250 pages per 
monograph and 500 pages per serial volume, there are 32,118,000 brittle 
pages that have not been microfilmed. The cost of filming all these 
pages would be about 3.6 million dollars. These cost estimates are 
based on figures of $0.15 per exposure (for two printed pages) for 
creating the original master, $3.50 - $4.50 for the service master and 
the diazo service copy, and $9.00 per volume for preparation costs and 
recording preservation data. Some categories of brittle materials will 
not be filmed, however, because they deal with subjects for which NLM 
does not assume preservation responsibility or because preservation 
masters for them already exist. Given the space available for the 
growth of the collection, NLM has no immediate need to dispose of 
originals after they are microfilmed. The Preservation Section should 
be charged, however, with the responsibility for developing specific 
guidelines covering the retention or disposal of items for which 
preservation copies have been made. 
Filming services are readily available from commercial companies or 
through an interagency agreement with LC. NLM can also obtain contract 
support for preparation of materials for filming, similar to the binding 
preparation services now purchased on contract. 
Using contract support for preparation and an outside filmer, NLM should 
microfilm all brittle monographs and serial volumes in subjects it 
collects at the comprehensive or research level during FY 1986 - 
FY 1989. Expenditures for this program should be phased as follows; 
$600,000 in FY 1986; $1 million per year in FY 1987 through FY 1989, The Library should assume that microfilming any post-1906 brittle 
materials in order to preserve them represents a "fair use" of the 
materials. 
Treatment of brittle pamphlets and theses should be deferred pending 
resolution of the more serious problem of how the Library is to provide 
bibliographic control for these items. 
In 1988/89, NLM should reassess any further use of preservation micro- 
filming based on the results of research in techniques for strengthening 
paper and the preservation use of mass disk storage. Previously 
microfilmed images can be transferred to disk if this seems advisable at 
a later date. 
C.3. Expand efforts to preserve items in the special 
historical collections. 
In FY 1985, a total of $235,195 was allocated to preservation of rare 
books, historical films and modern manuscripts. Of this amount, 
approximately $115,000 was included in the original FY 1985 operating 
budget; the remainder was added when funds became available during the 
year, based on preliminary recommendations from the Preservation 
Planning Team. 
To provide preservation treatment to untreated rare books currently in 
the NLM collection will require an estimated $362,000 in addition to 
FY 1985 expenditures. An additional $539,000 will be needed for making 
preservation and service copies of the historical films. Accurate cost 
estimates for preserving the entire collection of modern manuscripts are 
not yet available. A variety of techniques will be applied to these 
materials, i.e.,hand rebinding and deacidification, microfilming, and 
possibly strengthening of brittle paper, when this technique becomes 
available. As mentioned previously, a consultant will be engaged to 
advise on preservation of the prints and photographs collections. Cost 
figures will be based on the consultant's report. 
Although exact cost figures are not yet available for full preservation 
of all elements of these collections, NLM should allocate at least 
$200,000 per year to preservation of special collections for the 
five-year period from FY 1986 - FY 1990. In 1988/89, NLM should 
be in a position to estimate the level of funding required for contin- 
uing maintenance and treatment of new acquisitions for these special 
collections. 
D. CONTINUE RESEARCH ON THE PRESERVATION CHARACTERISTICS 
OF OPTICAL DISKS. 
Optical disk storage has great promise as a preservation medium. At a 
minimum, disk storage probably will be the preservation medium of choice 
for materials published in machine-readable form. Due to its superior 
use characteristics, it also has strong advantages for printed materials, particularly those that are likely to be used steadily over 
long period of time. 
Because of the great potential of optical disk as a preservation medium, 
NLH should continue to contribute to the development of knowledge about 
the preservation characteristics of this technology. The prototype 
Electronic Document Storage and Retrieval (EDSR) system developed in the 
Lister Hill Center should be used as a laboratory test bed for relevant 
research projects. LHNCBC budget plans for the next few years include 
appropriate funding for this activity. To ensure that the greatest 
amount of useful information is obtained in the shortest time frame, 
NLM's research efforts in optical disk technology should be closely 
coordinated with those of the Library of Congress, the National 
Archives, the National Bureau of Standards, and other interested 
institutions. In a preliminary meeting with NLM’s Preservation 
Planning Team, LC staff expressed interest in cooperative research 
efforts. 
E. ENCOURAGE PUBLICATION IN ARCHIVAL FORMATS 
Publication of the scholarly literature on acid-free paper or in other 
archival formats will lessen the necessity for large-scale treatment of 
the prospective literature. To this end, NLM should launch a campaign 
to convince biomedical editors, societies, and publishers of the bene- 
fits of publication in archival formats. This campaign should involve 
combination of direct appeals by NLM and cooperative efforts with other 
national libraries and library associations. 
F. IMPROVE CONDITIONS FOR STORAGE AND USE OF THE 
NLM COLLECTION. 
Proper storage and handling of library materials will extend their life. 
An examination of storage and use conditions at NLM has revealed that in 
general NLM's collection is stored in a benign environment and is 
handled with reasonable care. Steps should be taken, however, to ensure 
that this generally favorable situation continues and that specific 
problems are corrected. In addition to the corrective measures that 
were initiated during the course of the preservation planning process, 
the following actions should be taken: 
F.1. Continue monitoring temperature and humidity levels; meet 
regularly with the NIH building engineer to review data 
collected and request any necessary adjustments. 
The Library’s system for controlling temperature and humidity is a good 
one, and the underground position of the stack levels helps prevent 
rapid or extreme fluctuations in these factors. Periodic adjustments 
to the system are necessary, however, to ensure that appropriate condi- 
tions are maintained. To assist in. maintaining a good environment, the 
monitoring equipment installed during the environmental survey should remain In place, and readings should be taken weekly. Data 
collected should be reviewed periodically with the NIH building engineer 
so any necessary corrective action can be taken promptly. As a member 
of the Task Force on Environmental Conditions, Mr. Herbert Crigger, the 
NIH engineer currently assigned to the Library building, has become 
aware of NLM's special environmental requirements and has been extremely 
willing to make adjustments to the Library's heating and air condition- 
ing system. It is in NLM's best interest to continue this productive 
working arrangement. 
F.2. Ask, the NIH Division of Engineering Services to assess the 
feasibility and cost of retrofitting a chemical filtration 
system to the existing heating and air conditioning system to 
remove sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from the Library's air. 
The amount of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in the air of the 
Library building is well within the acceptable range for humans, but 
exceeds the standards for storage of Library materials. Sulfur dioxide 
is generally considered to be more harmful to materials than nitrogen 
oxides. LC’s filtration system for the Madison Building removes sulfur 
dioxide, but not nitrogen oxides. 
Although cost figures vary considerably depending on building size and 
the existing heating and cooling system, it may well be possible to put 
a chemical filtration system in the NLM Library building at an afford- 
able cost. If the NIH Division of Engineering Services finds that such 
an improvement is possible, NLM should have the system installed. 
F.3. Investigate the replacement of the photocopiers in use in 
the Library by machines with less potential for damage to 
library materials. 
The air quality survey showed that ozone levels in the photocopier room 
adjacent to the Reading Room exceed the standard for an acceptable 
environment for library materials. Although high ozone levels were not 
noted in the B1 stack area (probably due to the larger air space there), 
the photocopiers in heavy use on the B1 level are of same type used by 
Reading Room patrons. These machines require bound volumes to be opened 
flat during photocopying. The machines on the B1 level are rented by 
the Library; the coin-operated copiers available to Reading Room patrons 
are owned by a commercial firm which is also responsible for their 
operation. NLM should investigate alternative arrangements that will 
have a more benign effect on the environment and on the bindings of 
printed library materials. 
F.4. Establish a regular schedule for cleaning the NLM collection. 
Steps already taken to have the stack floors cleaned more frequently 
should reduce the build up of dust and dirt on the collection. NLM 
should monitor cleaning of the stack areas to ensure that it is occur- 
ring as scheduled. The Library should also arrange for the materials themselves to be cleaned and dusted periodically through a purchase 
order or contract arrangement. The heavily used BI serial collection 
should be cleaned every three years; the B2 and B3 levels every five 
years. Approximate cost will be $10,000 per cleaning for the Bl 
collection and $50,000 for the combined B2 and B3 collections. 
F.5. Develop a new long-range storage plan for the NLM collection. 
The existing plan for the storage of the NLM collection provides for 
adequate storage of the projected acquisitions of the Library through 
the year 2000. This plan should be reviewed and revised in light of 
NLM’s new preservation strategy. Issues that must be addressed include: 
the need for additional compact shelving, the amount of compact shelving 
the NLM building can accommodate, remote or onsite storage for NLM's 
expanding collection of microfilm masters, the number of materials that 
will be retained both in the original and preservation copies, and 
facilities for storage of disks and other machine-readable formats. 
F.6. Develop an ongoing training program in safe materials 
handling for all NLM staff who process or use items 
in the collection. 
All new employees who will handle items in the collection should receive 
instruction in materials handling when they join the staff. Regular 
update and refresher sessions should be held for experienced staff. A 
number of print and audiovisual aids covering recommended handling 
practices are available, reducing the need for development of inhouse 
training materials, but specific internal instructions should be 
developed by appropriate units. Employee performance standards should 
include reference to safe handling of materials, if appropriate. 
F.7. Develop an awareness campaign for Library users describing 
the importance of safe handling to the preservation of the 
NLM collection. 
Most damage to library materials is caused by simple ignorance or 
carelessness, not deliberate mutilation. Formal instruction for NLM 
patrons is not feasible; however, an effort can and should be made to 
alert patrons to proper handling procedures and the effects of mis- 
handling and abuse. A set of instructional posters, signs and notices 
should be acquired or developed and distributed appropriately, both 
onsite and with outgoing interlibrary loans. 
G. INITIATE AND PARTICIPATE IN COOPERATIVE PROGRAMS FOR THE 
PRESERVATION OF THE BIOMEDICAL LITERATURE. 
Although NLM’s first priority is the preservation of its own collection 
of materials collected at the comprehensive and research levels, it also 
has an obligation to engage in cooperative activities that will ensure the preservation of materials pertinent to medicine held by other 
libraries and will contribute to a national preservation program. Key 
elements for a North American preservation program are in place or on 
the drawing board. These include leadership foci in the Council for 
Library Resources (CLR), the Research Libraries Group (RLG), the Asso- 
ciation of Research Libraries (ARL), and the Library of Congress (LC); a 
growing body of standards related to preservation; increased funding for 
preservation from organizations such as the National Endowment for the 
Humanities; and a growing consensus that the magnitude of the problem 
demands a cooperative solution. While the emerging national program 
provides an infrastructure in which to fit the preservation of the 
biomedical literature, it does not presently address coverage of this 
subject area. NLM must assume the responsibility for the development of 
a plan to fill the gap. There are four major areas of opportunity in 
which NLM can initiate or participate in cooperative programs: 
(1) research, which was addressed previously in this report; 
(2) actual preservation of the literature; (3) ensuring access to 
preserved materials, and (4) education for preservation. Specific 
steps NLM should undertake are; 
G.l. Establish Liaisons to Other Preservation Efforts. 
NLM should move as expeditiously as possible to establish formal preser- 
vation liaisons with the other national libraries and with other major 
national preservation programs. There is little or no cost associated 
with such liaisons, and the payoff is potentially high. At a minimum, 
regular sharing of information about preservation programs may suggest 
fruitful program opportunities and may reduce duplication of effort. 
Recently NLM, LC, and NAL have agreed on primary areas of responsibility 
for the acquisition of certain library materials in order to reduce the 
areas of collection overlap. It is important that these discussions 
continue, and that the national libraries also turn their attention to 
cooperative programs directed specifically toward preservation. 
G.2. Work to Resolve Copyright Issues Related to Preservation 
of Archival Materials. 
NLM must continue to pursue in concert with the national libraries and 
other professional library associations and organizations the resolution 
of copyright issues related to preservation, particularly as they relate 
to storage on disk and other readily accessible media. The goal must be 
to remove barriers to preservation of the literature while assuring due 
attention to the rights of publishers and authors. 
G.3. Work with the RML Network and Other Library Groups to Develop 
a National Preservation Program for the Biomedical Literature. 
Preservation of NLM's collection alone will not ensure that the needs of 
future health professionals and medical historians are adequately met. 
In-depth collections in specialized subject areas and numerous unique titles not found at NLM exist in important health science library 
collections throughout the country. NLM does not and cannot collect 
comprehensively many biomedical materials published at the regional, 
state, and local levels. In addition, it is important to preserve more 
than one copy of significant materials to avoid their loss through a 
local disaster. 
Plans for the next five years of the RML network include the 
development of a national preservation plan for the biomedical 
literature. In developing this plan, NLM and network libraries 
should collaborate with scholarly societies in establishing priorities 
for preservation. Once data are gathered on collections in each region 
and a suitable plan of action outlined, NLM should make some funds 
available for actual preservation of significant materials in other 
collections. NLM funds should be used as seed money or to supplement 
local resources. 
G. A. Distribute Information About Materials Which NLM Has 
Preserved or Intends to Preserve. 
In order to avoid wasteful duplication and to promote cooperative 
planning, it is essential that NLM provide access to information about 
the material which it has already preserved and which it plans to 
preserve. NLM should ensure that the MEDLARS III system design and file 
structures can accommodate display and distribution of preservation 
data. In addition NLM should work to promote cost-effective mechanisms 
for the transfer of data about what NLM is preserving to major 
reservoirs of preservation information. 
G.5. Develop a Policy for Access to Preserved Materials. 
As a follow-up to the work of the Preservation Planning Team, a 
committee should be appointed to develop an NLM policy statement 
describing the terms and conditions of access to the Library’s 
preserved materials. The policy should cover onsite patron use, 
interlibrary loan, and duplication of preservation copies in whole in 
part for or by individuals, other libraries, or commercial institutions. 
In some cases it may be advisable to provide the originals of items for 
which preservation copies have been made. G.6. Promote an Awareness of Preservation Issues Among Health 
Science Libraries and Broaden Their Access to Preservation 
Information. 
NLM should work with the Medical Library Association, the RML network, 
and other appropriate groups to promote the awareness of preservation 
issues among health science librarians and medical historians and to 
broaden their access to preservation information. Although large-scale 
preservation programs are likely to be needed only at a small number of 
major health sciences libraries, an increased awareness of preservation 
issues affecting the health sciences community is desirable at all 
levels of the network. 
H. RE-EVALUATE NLM’S PRESERVATION PROGRAM PERIODICALLY 
Like other NLM programs, the preservation operation will be monitored 
through regular reporting mechanisms and the program review that 
accompanies budget preparation and approval. Given the new emphasis to 
be placed on preservation, NLM should also perform a broader review of 
progress toward the goal of preservation of the biomedical literature at 
approximately three-year intervals. During this review, NLM should 
reassess its preservation assumptions and strategies in light of the 
current and future information needs of the Library’s users and 
developments in preservation technology. 
Tables 7 and 8 provide a summary of recommended preservation activities 
and budget levels for the next five years. 53 
Table 7 
SCHEDULE FOR RECOMMENDED STRATEGIES FOR PRESERVATION AT NLM 
FY 
1986 
FY 
1987 
FY 
1988 
FY 
1989 
FY 
1990 
A. Modify NLM Board of Regents’ 
policy on preservation 
B. Establish a new organizational 
unit to direct NLM’s preserva- 
tion program 
C. Expand the level of preservation 
activity at NLM, including: 
negotiate for and begin use of LC 
or other mass deacidification 
facility 
initiate 4-year microfilming 
program for severely embrittled 
materials 
expand efforts to preserve items 
in the special historical 
collections 
D. Continue research on the preser- 
vation characteristics of optical 
disks 
E. Encourage publication in archival 
formats 
F. Improve conditions for storage 
and use of the NLM collection 
G. Initiate and participate in 
cooperative programs for 
preservation of the biomedical 
literature 
H. Re-evaluate NLM’s preservation 
program periodically 
Negotiate 
Use 
Reassess 
Assess 
Operational Utility Table 8 
MAJOR PRESERVATION PLAN BUDGET ITEMS 
(Dollars in Thousands) 
FY 
FY 
FY 
FY 
FY 
1986 
1987 
1988 
1989 
1990 
Mass Deacidification 
— 
— 
— 
$400 
$400 
Microfilming 
600 
1,000 
1,000 
1,000 
Special Collections 
Preservation 
200 
200 
200 
200 
200 
TOTAL 
$SUU 
$1,200 
$1,200 
$1,600 
ISTJff 
The actions proposed will require significant effort by staff throughout 
the Library and the expenditure of large sums of money. By making a 
commitment at this level NLM can fulfill its statutory function to 
preserve the biomedical literature. X. LIST OF REFERENCES 
1. Drott, M., "Random Sampling: A Tool for Library Research," College 
and Research Libraries 30: 119-125 (March 1969), 
2. Walker, G., Greenfield, J., Fox, J. and Simonoff, J., "The Yale 
Survey: a Large-Scale Study of Book Deterioration in the Yale 
University Library," College and Research Libraries 46: 111-132 
(March 1985). 
3. Wiederkehr, R., The Design and Analysis of a Sample Survey of the 
Condition of Books in the Library of Congress (Rockville, MD: King 
Research, 1984). 
4. Darling, P.W., Preservation Planning Program: an Assisted 
Self-Study Manual for Libraries. Washington: Association of 
Research Libraries, Office of Management Studies, 1982. pp. 40-41, 
5. Banks, P.N., "Environmental Standards for Storage of Books and 
Manuscripts," Library Journal 1974; 99: 339-343. 
6. Smith, R.D., "Paper Impermanence as a Consequence of pH and Storage 
Conditions, "Library Quarterly 1969; 39: 153-195. 
7. Thomson, Garry, "Air Pollution - A Review for Conservation 
Chemists," Studies in Conservation 10, pp. 147-167, 1965. 
8. "In Search of the Black Box," A Report on the Proceedings of a 
Workshop on Micro-Climates Held at the Royal Ontario Museum, 
February 1978, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1979. 
9. Banks, P.N., "Addendum to Planning Report 7: Preliminary Statement 
on Environmental Standards for Storage of Books and Manuscripts," 
The Newberry Library, Chicago, 1980. 
10, Air Quality Criteria for Storage of Paper-based Archival Records 
(NBSIR 83-2795) . Prepared for the National Archives and Records 
Service. Washington: National Bureau of Standards, Nov. 1983, Appendix 1 
PRESERVATION AT THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE 
Background Paper 
NLM Preservation Planning Team 
November 1984 2 
A. INTRODUCTION 
In 1983, Library Operations (LO) senior staff developed a strategic plan 
for 1984-88 which includes as one of its four broad objectives; 
to develop and Implement a program for the preservation of the 
biomedical literature. 
Preservation of the scholarly records is one of the most important 
challenges facing research libraries today, requiring significant 
expenditures of resources, the interest and involvement of all staff who 
process or use the collection, active cooperation among many 
institutions, and new organizational approaches. 
As a first step toward developing NLM's preservation! tne Associate 
Director for Library Operations appointed a senior Preservation Planning 
Team on August 29, 1984. The members of this group are; 
Duane Arenales 
Acting Chief, Technical Services Division, LO 
James Cain 
Acting Chief, Reference Services Division, LO 
John Parascandola, Ph.D. 
Chief, History of Medicine Division, LO 
Mark Rotariu 
Chief, Office of Financial Management, Office of Administration 
Linda Watson 
Head, Audiovisual Resources Section, RSD, LO 
Betsy Humphreys - Chairperson 
Deputy Associate Director, LO 
George Thoma, Ph.D. - Consultant 
Chief, Communications Engineering Branch 
Lister Hill Center 3 
The Team has been asked to: 
1. Assess the current physical state of the collection 
2. Assess the conditions under which the collection is 
used, processed, and stored. 
3. Examine current preservation activities in all LO components. 
A. Identify and evaluate available preservation techniques. 
5. Identify current and potential cooperative preservation 
activities. 
6. Develop a plan for the preservation of the NLM collection 
which includes recommendations for: 
a. organizational responsibility for NLM preservation 
activities 
b. general guidelines for selecting items to be preserved 
and assigning preservation priorities 
c. methods for preservation of various parts of the 
collection including cost data and selected schedules 
d. necessary changes to environmental conditions and 
processing and use practices 
e. cooperative activities NLM should participate in or 
initiate 
The report of the Preservation Planning Team is due in May 1985 
The planning process being used for this project is modeled on a 
self-study procedure developed by the Office of Management Studies (OMS) 
of the Association for Research Libraries (ARL) and described in 
Preservation Planning Program; An Assisted Self-Study Manual for 
Libraries. NLM has contracted with OMS for assistance in developing the 
plan and the results of NLM’s effort will be shared with the ARL and 
biomedical library communities. Ms. Jutta Reed-Scott serves as 
principal OMS consultant to NLM for the project. 
The planning process consists of three phases. During the first phase, 
the Preservation Planning Team reviews basic preservation issues; 
assembles background information about the library to provide a context 
for the examination of its preservation needs; and defines the next 
phases of the planning process, including their schedule, objectives, 
and participants. 4 
The second phase involves a variety of Task Forces gathering and 
analyzing data and developing recommendations in several specific areas 
affecting preservation, e.g., the environment in which the collection is 
housed, the present physical condition of the collection, organizational 
responsibility for preservation activities. 
In the third and final phase, the Preservation Planning Team studies the 
information assembled by the Task Forces, weighs alternative approaches, 
and develops a recommended plan of action. 
This document is the outcome of the first phase of the planning process. 
It is organized into the following Sections: 
A. Introduction 
B. Institutional Setting of the National Library of Medicine 
C. Preservation History and Practices 
D. External Factors Affecting NLM’s Preservation Program 
E. Planning Methodology 
B. INSTITUTIONAL SETTING OF THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE 
HISTORY 
The National Library of Medicine can trace its origin back to 1818 or 
1819 when the Surgeon General of the United States Army, Joseph Lovell, 
began to acquire books and journals needed for his work. However, the 
year of birth of the Library is generally considered to be 1836, when a 
request for funds for books ($150.00) first appeared in the estimate of 
expenses for the Surgeon General’s Office. Under the direction of John 
Shaw Billings from 1865 to 1895, the collection of books began to take 
shape as a library, where in one place were assembled and organized the 
major medical books, journals and other important medical documents of 
Western Civilization. 
In 1922, the Library of the Army Surgeon General’s Office became the 
Army Medical Library, and three decades later, a joint agency of the 
three military departments. In 1956, Senators Lister Hill and John 
Kennedy submitted to Congress Bill S. 3430, "to promote the progress of 
medicine and to advance the national health and welfare by creating a 
National Library of Medicine." The bill was passed by Congress and 
signed into law on August 3, placing the Library within the Public 
Health Service. Funds were authorized for the construction of a new 
library building on the grounds of the National Institutes of Health in 
Bethesda, Maryland. Occupancy began in 1962, although the Library did 
not formally become a Bureau of NIH until 1968, the administrative 
structure which exists today. From a few books in a physician's office, 
NLM has become the world's largest research library in a single 
scientific and professional field, 'serving as a national resource for 
all US health professionals. \ 5 
MISSION 
The Act establishing NLM as a national library in 1956 (PL-84-941) 
authorized NLM to perform the following functions: 
1) acquire and preserve library materials pertinent to medicine; 
2) organize the materials by appropriate cataloging and indexing; 
3) provide information about the materials in the collection 
through publication and other means; 
4) make materials in the Library's collection available through 
loans, photocopies or other methods; 
5) provide reference and research assistance; and 
6) engage in such other activities as deemed appropriate. 
LIBRARY RESOURCES AND ORGANIZATION 
The National Library of Medicine is divided into 5 major divisions: 
Library Operations, the Office of Computer and Communications Systems, 
Specialized Information Services, the Lister Hill National Center for 
Biomedical Communications and Extramural Programs. Overall policy 
direction and administrative services are carried out by the Office of 
the Director and the Office of Administration. The current full-time 
permanent staff of NLM is 487. With part-time and other personnel, the 
total FTE equivalent is 536. 
NLM's FY 1985 budget is $55,910,000. Over the past five years, there 
has been a trend of moderate growth. Excluding additional funds 
realized in FY 1985 for extramural grant programs, the total NLM budget 
has grown at an average rate of about 4% per year. It is reasonable 
to assume continued overall growth at the same rate for at least the 
near future. The budget for literature acquisition has increased at a 
greater rate to keep pace with inflation and this is also likely to 
continue. 
Library Operations (LO), the largest of NLM's five Divisions, performs 
the first five of the Library's mandated functions and assists in the 
performance of the sixth. Its FY 1985 budget of $17,081,000 includes 
salaries, literature acquistions and other support costs such as 
equipment and contract activities. The current full-time permanent LO 
staff of 234 (350 total FTEs) is divided into four divisions: Technical 
Services (TSD), Bibliographic Services (BSD), History of Medicine (HMD), 
Reference Services (RSD), and two other units, Medical Subject Headings 
(MeSH) Section and the Regional Medical Library (RML) Program. 
The Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications is the 
division of NLM responsible for research and development activities. 
Currently the Center is investigating the potential of optical disc 
technology for document preservation, storage and retrieval which may 
eventually be applied to the Library’s preservation problem. 
Approximately $650,000 in FY 1985 funds are devoted to this project. 6 
The Library collects materials comprehensively in all major areas of the 
health sciences and to a lesser degree in such areas as chemistry, 
physics, botany and zoology. The collections today stand at 3.1 million 
items in a variety of formats including books, journals, audiovisual 
materials, microfilm, manuscripts and prints and photographs. An annual 
literature budget of about $2.2 million supports the acquisition of 
approximately 16,000 books and 1,000 audiovisuals, serial titles, 
33,000 manuscript items, and 450 prints and photographs. 
The Library’s computer-based Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval 
System (MEDLARS) was established to achieve rapid bibliographic access 
to NLM's vast store of biomedical information. MEDLARS is used to 
generate a number of catalogs and Indexes, and its machine readable 
databases are available for online searching directly on the NLM 
computer and through commercial database vendors and international 
cooperative partners that lease NLM files. Last year some 2.5 million 
computerized searches of these databases were performed on the NLM 
system alone. The availability of Information about NLM’s collections 
through this mechanism increases the demand for physical access to the 
materials themselves. Lending and other services are coordinated 
through a Regional Medical Library Network with the NLM as the "library 
of last resort" for the location of hard to find or unique items. Some 
2 million interlibrary loan requests are filled each year within this 
network; NLM accounts for over 142,000 of these. The Library 
circulated an additional 211,000 volumes to onsite patrons in the 
Reading Room in FY 1984. 
PRESERVATION IMPLICATIONS 
The Act establishing the Library gave NLM responsibility for preserva- 
tion of the literature pertinent to medicine. Although significant 
attention has been devoted to preservation activities at NLM already, 
NLM’s printed collections contain the seeds of their own destruction in 
the form of high acid content paper which, over time, causes discolora- 
tion, embrittlement, and finally disintegration. In addition, the 
Library faces special problems related to the conservation and preserva- 
tion of the archival microfilm and historical motion picture film 
collections and the History of Medicine Division's manuscripts, older 
printed works, prints and photographs. 
If NLM is to carry out its statutory mandate successfully, the Library 
must develop a more comprehensive approach to preservation that makes 
effective use of existing resources, emerging technologies, and coopera- 
tive arrangements with other libraries. To this end, LO has identified 
the development and Implementation of a preservation program for the 
biomedical literature as one of its four broad objectives for 
FY 1984-88. 7 
C. PRESERVATION HISTORY AND PRACTICES 
THE COLLECTIONS 
The small collection of books and journals in the Surgeon General's 
Office Initially grew rather slowly. The Library's first catalog, a 
handwritten manuscript prepared in 1840, records only 134 titles, 
representing some 200 volumes. It was far smaller at the time than many 
personal libraries of physicians, not to mention the libraries of 
various medical societies and Institutions. When the Library came under 
the charge of John Shaw Billings in the fall of 1865, it still contained 
only about 1,800 volumes. Under his direction the collections expanded 
dramatically. Sometime during 1871, a decision was made to broaden the 
objectives of the Library to include service to the entire American 
medical profession, not just the military. By the time Billings left 
the Library in 1895, the collections had grown to encompass some 73,475 
books, 39,412 volumes of journals and transactions, and over 200,000 
Individual pamphlets and theses. During Billings* tenure, the Library 
also made its first significant efforts to acquire rare books, 
manuscripts, and prints and photographs in the history of medicine. 
Over the course of the twentieth century the collections continued to 
grow as the National Library of Medicine became the largest Institution 
of its kind in the world. The collections of printed materials now 
total some 500,000 monographs, 700,000 bound serial volumes, 170,000 
pamphlets and 280,000 dissertations. In addition, the small special 
collections, such as manuscripts and photographs, have expanded into 
large collections directed by specialized librarians. The Library 
currently houses about 70,000 prints and photographs and over 1,000,000 
manuscript items. 
The variety of formats collected also increased. The Incorporation of 
the National Medical Audiovisual Center into the Library in 1967, for 
example, led to a program of active acquisition of audiovisual 
materials. Today the audiovisual collection consists of some 6,000 
videocassettes, 9,000 audiocassettes, 2,000 16mm films, 2,000 historical 
films, 1,000 filmstrips and 240,000 slides. The Library's microform 
holdings total approximately 34,000 reels of microfilm and 122,000 
microfiche. Technology continues to add to the types of formats which 
the Library collects (e.g., computer software, videodiscs). 8 
The formats represented In the Library's collections are as follows; 
1. Printed Literature (books, journals, pamphlets, etc.) 
2. Manuscripts 
3. Art Prints 
4. Photographs 
5. Oil Paintings (a small number, but a few are valuable) 
6. Microfilm and Microfiche 
7. Videotapes 
8. Audiotapes 
9. Slides and Filmstrips 
10. Motion Picture Films 
11. Pre-Columbian Art (about 40 clay sculptures) 
12. Computer Tapes and Discs 
13. Videodiscs 
There may be a small number of other types of materials (e.g., 
phonograph records) contained in the collections, but the above cat- 
egories would appear to include all of the formats that are relevant to 
the present preservation study. 
Because of its archival responsibility, the Library has not had a 
systematic policy for weeding the collections (except in the case of 
added copies). By and large items incorporated into the collections are 
retained, although materials considered out of scope or peripheral are 
periodically withdrawn upon the recommendation of staff members. There 
is no written policy concerning replacement of lost materials, but 
current works which are still in print are ordinarily replaced if 
identified as lost. The Library also actively seeks to fill gaps in its 
journal runs. 
PHYSICAL FACILITIES 
In the early decades the small collection of publications moved with the 
Surgeon General to various offices. From 1862 to 1866, the Surgeon 
General's Library was housed in the front parlor of a two-story building 
which had originally been a private home. It was adjacent to and owned 
by the Riggs Bank located at Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street, 
N.W. In 1866, the Library moved to a remodeled Ford’s Theatre, which 
was closed and purchased by the government after the assassination 
of President Lincoln. The collections remained in Ford's Theatre until 
a new building was constructed on the mall specifically to house the 
Surgeon General's Museum and Library. The new quarters were occupied in 
August of 1887, and this structure continued to house the Library until 
the present building in Bethesda was ready for occupancy in 1962. 
Physical conditions for the storage of rapidly expanding collections 
were poor in the post-Civil War years. Ford's Theatre had been hastily 
erected and was poorly constructed. The increasing weight of books, 
museum specimens, etc. placed stresses on the floors and walls that the 
building had not been designed to bear. (In fact, the interior 
collapsed during renovations in 1893, a few years after the Library had 
moved out of it.) The building was also not fireproof. 9 
The building on the mall provided the Library with a decent, if not 
ideal, home for the first time. The structure, with its brick walls, 
concrete floors, and ironwork, was practically fireproof. Billings 
himself designed the 25-foot-high iron book stacks. The Library had no 
artificial Illumination (except for a few gas lights) until it was wired 
for electricity in 1900. The building was heated by hot air from a 
coal-fired steam boiler, and a few fireplaces, but Library Hall was so 
large that it proved impossible to warm adequately on extremely cold 
days. Needless to say, temperature and humidity must have fluctuated 
widely during the course of the year. 
Certain rare books (e.g,, incunabula) had been segregated from the 
collection and housed in display cases even when the Library was still 
in Ford’s Theatre. Many of the Library’s historically valuable books 
and manuscripts, however, were scattered throughout the stacks with 
other publications. It was not until the Second World War that a 
separate History of Medicine Division was established and the historical 
collections brought together in one place. Fear that Washington might 
be bombed led to a concern on the part of libraries and museums for the 
protection of the nation’s cultural treasures. A decision was made at 
the Army Medical Library to find a home in the midwest for the Library’s 
pre-19th century books, and the Allen Memorial Library Building of the 
Cleveland Medical Library Association was selected. Beginning in August 
of 19A2, 952 boxes of historical materials were sent to Cleveland. 
Although the books were originally scheduled to return after the war, 
because of lack of space in the building on the mall the historical 
collections remained in Cleveland until the new building in Bethesda was 
occupied in 1962. 
During the war space became an increasing problem for the Library. Tens 
of thousands of books had to be housed in other buildings in the mall 
area. Some of these buildings were temporary structures and provided 
poor physical conditions for the books. The main Library building 
itself was suffering from deterioration due to age and lack of proper 
maintenance and leaked badly during heavy rain. 
The completion of a new building on the NIH grounds provided the Library 
with greatly improved physical facilities. The Bethesda building is 
constructed of reinforced concrete and steel with exterior walls of 
limestone, granite and marble trim. Much of the structure, including 
most of the shelving for books, is below ground level, reflecting the 
concern of civil defense planners of the 1950’s for potential atomic 
attack. This defensive planning also led to the insertion of narrow, 
recessed windows on the main floor. 
The building is heated by low pressure steam and air conditioned. 
Preliminary data suggest that temperature control may be a lesser 
problem than humidity control. Temperature seems to be in the 70° range 
year round. There is some humidity control but available evidence 
suggests that humidity may range from as low as 35% in the winter to 552 
or above in the summer. Fluorescent bulbs in the stack areas are 
supposed to be covered with ultraviolet filter sleeves, but this is not 
always the case. Sleeves may not always be replaced when bulbs are 
changed. It is also not clear whether the fluorescent bulbs in some 10 
areas with glass-paneled ceilings, such as the prints and photographs 
room in the History of Medicine Division (HMD), have filter sleeves. 
According to the building engineer, air entering the Library is filtered 
only for dust. There is no chemical filtration to eliminate acid fumes 
such as sulfur dioxide. 
The building is protected against fire by a water sprinkler system. The 
rare book collections (incunabula room and BI stacks in HMD) are 
protected by a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher system. The Library has 
in the past considered replacing carbon dioxide with halon, which 
presents less of a threat to the safety of employees, but no action has 
been taken in this direction. In accordance with the federal policy of 
"self-insured" protection, neither NLM nor its collections carry special 
insurance against damage or loss. 
Facilities for exhibiting portions of the collections, which is done on 
a regular basis and frequently involves rare books, are not ideal. The 
cases used have locks, but would be easy to open. The plastic tops do 
not filter out ultraviolet radiation from natural or artificial light. 
The Library’s security system includes electronic surveillance and a 
search of bags, briefcases, etc. by a guard as patrons and staff leave 
building 38. Large portions of the collection, including rare books and 
manuscripts, are not provided with security labels and would therefore 
be undetected by the electronic security system. Access to the 
historical collections is more restricted, however, than access to the 
general collections. There is no evidence that loss by theft has been 
great over the years, but the theft of an infrequently used item can go 
undetected for a long tine. 
The Library is fortunate in not having suffered any major disasters. A 
disaster plan was implemented in 1979 and revised in 1983. The emphasis 
of the plan is on water damage. 
COLLECTION MAINTENANCE PRACTICES 
The collections are largely housed in metal stacks. Journals from the 
period 1871-1969 are housed in compact shelving and it is anticipated 
that over the next two years many more items will be transferred to 
existing or newly-installed compact shelving (e.g., 1970-1974 journals, 
nineteenth century books and journals, HMD pamphlets and dissertations). 
It would be worth Investigating whether long-term storage in compact 
shelving creates unique preservation problems. For example, could it 
lead to high concentrations of certain pollutants in a localized area? 
Certain specialized collections are housed under special conditions. 
Archival microfilm and the historical film collections are preserved in 
special cold storage vaults. Acid-free Hollinger boxes and folders are 
used to house the collections of personal or organizational papers in 
the Modern Manuscripts collection in HMD. Fine art prints are stored 
flat in special cases. 11 
In one sense, access to the Library’s collections is limited in that the 
stacks are closed to the public. Except for NLM staff, readers may not 
check out materials but must use them in the Reading Room. There are 
exceptions to the closed stack policy, however, and stack passes to the 
general collections are not infrequently given to readers who can 
demonstrate a need to use a large body of literature, such as long runs 
of journals. The History of Medicine Division does not issue stack 
passes. 
In another sense, however, access to the collections is much more open 
because of the interlibrary loan process. The great majority of 
interlibrary loan requests are for current journal articles, and these 
are handled by sending out photocopies, but monographs and videocasettes 
from the general collection are regularly sent out on interlibrary loan 
to requesters in the United States and Puerto Rico unless they are in 
poor condition. Journals and all audiovisual formats may also be loaned 
to the NIH Library. The History of Medicine Division also sends out 
some original items on loan (e.g., current books on medical history 
housed on its reference shelves). Most items in the historical 
collections are not loaned in the original, but are microfilmed or 
photocopied. 
Materials coming into the Library receive a good deal of handling in 
processing. Items are checked in, cataloged, stamped, marked, labelled 
with security labels and machine-readable identifiers (MRIs), shelved, 
and in some cases indexed. The impact of these procedures on 
preservation has not been fully examined. For example, does the 
adhesive used to affix labels contain acids or other chemicals which 
might damage the books or audiovisuals? 
Journals are bound with a class A binding (standard library binding). 
Softbound books have traditionally been bound in the same way. 
Acid-free end papers are used. There has been relatively little in the 
way of repair of bindings of items in the general collections. Some 
items have been rebound when necessary. In recent years, questions have 
been raised about the advisability of rebinding certain items, or about 
binding all softcover books in the first place. Each time a book is 
bound or rebound, there is a loss in trim, which can lead to tightly 
bound volumes which are difficult to use or copy. The repair and 
rebinding of rare books is discussed below. 
Library materials also are subject to wear and tear through reader use. 
Items can also be damaged in shipment on interlibrary loans. 
Photocopying of books and journals can be hard on the materials, 
especially if done carelessly. Possibly more attention should be 
devoted to training staff and patrons in how to handle materials when 
photocopying. Perhaps greater restrictions should be placed on 
photocopying of certain materials by patrons. It would also be 
worthwhile to investigate whether the present photocopy machines in the 
library could be replaced by machines which cause less damage to 
materials. Microfilming causes less damage to books than photocopying, 
but nevertheless involves some wear and tear on the materials. The same 
is true for the photographic processes used to prepare photographic 12 
prints* slides or negatives from visual materials in books or in the 
prints and photographs collection. 
Patrons are not permitted to do their own photocopying of rare books, 
manuscripts or prints and photographs. The History of Medicine Division 
ordinarily microfilms materials from rare books, but may use a photocopy 
machine instead if only a few pages are involved. Modern manuscripts 
are often photocopied for patrons. Sometimes original photographs are 
photocopied, a procedure which may not be advisable unless some type of 
protective filter device is available to reduce exposure of the 
photograph to harmful radiation. 
EVOLUTION OF NLM PRESERVATION ACTIVITIES 
The term preservation is used in this report in a broad sense. To quote 
from the ARL Preservation Planning Program self-study manual which has 
guided the work of this Preservation Planning Team; 
The preservation of a library's collections and/or of the 
information contained within its collections is dependent 
on a broad spectrum of environmental conditions, processing 
and storage procedures, binding and repair practices, use 
patterns, replacement policies, and a complex set of technical 
problems related to the physical components of the materials 
themselves. 
Many activities that go on in the Library could therefore be considered 
as relating to preservation. This section will focus, however, on 
significant efforts undertaken by the Library for the specific purpose 
of preserving some portion of the collection. 
Perhaps the first large-scale preservation effort undertaken by the 
Library took place while the historical collections were in Cleveland. 
When the books arrived in Cleveland, it was found that several thousands 
of them were in poor condition. Covers were warped, spines were broken, 
pages were loose, leather bindings were torn and crumbling, etc. It was 
estimated that three-fourths of the pre-1800 volumes needed restoration. 
In 1943 a contract was entered into with the National Library Binding 
Company, East Cleveland to repair and rebind the early books and to 
machine-bind later books, pamphlets and documents. Over the next twelve 
years, 10,317 operations were carried out on 9,917 volumes. Original 
bindings were repaired if practical, but a decision was made to treat 
the books as part of a research library and not as museum pieces. 
Therefore many books were rebound to restore them to a condition where 
they could be handled easily and without damage. 
No further preservation work was done on the historical collections 
after their move to Bethesda until 1969, In that year the Library began 
contracting with experienced hand book binders to restore or rebind rare 
books. Between 1969 and 1982 a total of 3,407 volumes were restored or 
rebound. At the present time the Library is budgeting $37,000 per year 
for the treatment of rare books (oiling of bindings, deacidification, 
repair, restoration, and rebinding). 13 
Another current preservation activity in the History of Medicine 
Division is a project involving the transfer of the Library's collection 
of portraits to acid-free folders and boxes. Two valuable oil 
paintings• the portraits of Billings and of Fletcher, are also being 
cleaned and restored. 
One of the major preservation concerns facing libraries today involves 
post-1850 printed works. Mass produced chemically digested woodpulp 
paper entered commerce around 1850 and most books and journals published 
since 1870 were printed on it. This paper is inherently weak because of 
the short fibers in wood pulp and because of its relatively high acid 
content. Consequently many of NLM's post-1850 books and journals are 
steadily deteriorating, the pages becoming brittle and crumbling. 
Beginning in the 1950's the Library Initiated a program of microfilming 
the badly deteriorated materials. A survey indicated that the shelves 
of the Library held about 350 million pages, over 90Z of which had been 
printed since 1870 on woodpulp paper. Some 37 million pages were 
considered to be fully deteriorated, and it was estimated that number 
would increase to 262 million by 1989. In 1966, the Library increased 
the pace of the microfilming program under contract with commercial 
firms and also made several large scale purchases of commercially 
microfilmed serials. Although the Library continues to slowly build an 
archival microfilm collection through the microfilming of items 
requested on interlibrary loan which are considered too valuable or too 
fragile to send in the original, the large-scale preservation 
microfilming program came to an end in 1982 largely because of the 
promise of new technologies and the difficulties in selecting which 
small percentage of the total should be filmed with the limited 
resources available. About 2,000 serial titles and 3,000-4,000 
monographs from the period 1871-1906 were microfilmed during the course 
of the program. 
Experiments conducted at the Library's Lister Hill Center and at the 
Library of Congress have been exploring the potential of optical disc 
technology for mass storage of text. Various institutions, including 
the Library, have also been investigating the potential of videodisc for 
the storage of graphic images. The Lister Hill Center and the History 
of Medicine Division have completed an experimental videodisc containing 
about 1,000 images from the prints and photographs collection. Although 
this technology may not eliminate the need to store the original image, 
it has preservation implications as the handling of original materials 
will be greatly reduced if patrons and staff can use the disc for 
searching the collection to locate desired images. Similarly, the 
Library's historical film collection is being transferred to video tape 
so that the tapes may be viewed instead of the original films. Some 
$70,000 has been budgeted for the activity in FY 1985, which will 
accommodate approximately I0Z of the present historical film collection. 14 
D. EXTERNAL FACTORS AFFECTING NLM's PRESERVATION PROGRAM 
NLM*s.preservation program must take into account a number of external 
factors affecting the U. S. information and biomedical communities. 
These Include publishing trends, developments in the concept of 
intellectual property, changes in the ways health professionals acquire 
and use information, the emergence of preservation as a critical 
concern, and an increased emphasis on cooperative library activities. 
PUBLISHING TRENDS 
Publishers are the primary source of NLM's raw materials—the books, 
periodicals, audiovisuals, prints and other library materials which make 
up the Library's collection. The publishing Industry, therefore, 
initially determines the dimensions of the preservation problem which 
NLM will face. 
For over a 100 years the trend has been toward lower cost, higher speed 
production of an ever increasing flood of publications, which because of 
the acid paper, adhesives and binding techniques used in their manufac- 
ture, are subject to rapid deterioration. As the library community has 
become more aware of the inherent weakness of the materials it collects, 
it has attempted to pressure publishers to shift to methods which will 
ensure more durable products. Partially as a result, this fall the 
National Information Standards Organization (NISO) will publish a 
standard for permanent durable paper with alkaline reserves. However, 
on the whole, the U.S. publishing Industry appears to see little or no 
economic advantage in producing more durable print products. 
The definition of a "publication" has changed with the emergence of new 
media. An increasing amount of material is published in microform, 
especially computer-output-microfiche (COM); however, this medium too is 
subject to gradual destruction. Audiovisuals and electronically-based 
forms of information are proliferating daily and will present the 
Library not only with bibliographic, acquisition and service problems, 
but also with difficult preservation problems. 
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 
Related to publishing trends are a spectrum of issues concerned with 
intellectual property rights. The question of who shall be reimbursed 
for what kinds of use of what kinds of "publications" is under 
continuing review as Information becomes an increasingly valuable 
commodity. This in turn affects the form and conditions under which 
publications may be reproduced or re-stored for preservation purposes. 
State of the art videodiac and optical disk technology for mass storage 
also may lend themselves to ready redissemination of information. As a 
result efforts to provide technical solutions to mass preservation 
problems may become enmeshed in the Issues of intellectual property 
rights. 15 
NLM’s public information activities and their effect on the private 
sector have been subject to close scrutiny for the past several years, 
and this is an issue to which we must be particularly sensitive. 
CHANGES IN THE WAY HEALTH PROFESSIONALS ACQUIRE AND USE INFORMATION 
Health professionals traditionally have demanded rapid access to 
information. Health sciences librarians traditionally have responded by 
providing the best or developing the newest in information services. 
In the last ten years microcomputer technology and the proliferation of 
online databases have profoundly affected the way health professionals 
acquire and use information. Artificial intelligence systems, 
electronic publishing, and developing "electronic colleges" have the 
potential for making even more significant changes. If current trends 
in hospital economics continue, there will be few libraries available 
close at hand to fill immediate needs. It is likely that there will be 
increasing numbers of technologically sophisticated physicians tapping 
into remote Information resources both for current and older materials. 
The challenge to NLM then is not just to preserve the biomedical 
literature, but to preserve and store it in ways which will facilitate 
access for our user community and be appropriate to their changing 
needs. 
EMERGENCE OF PRESERVATION AS A CRITICAL CONCERN 
Over the last 25 years the Council of Library Resources (CLR) has acted 
as a catalyst to focus the attention of the library community on 
preservation as a critical concern. In large measure as a result of 
CLR's efforts, significant progress has occurred in three areas. The 
first is a developing consensus on the dimension of the preservation 
problem which libraries collectively face, a recognition of the cost of 
confronting it and of the cost of failing to confront it. The second is 
a developing research effort which addresses methods to prevent or 
retard deterioration of library materials on the one hand and methods 
for mass storage of already deteriorated materials or as a prospective 
preservation measure on the other. A number of efforts have concen- 
trated on the development of an effective, affordable deacldificatlon, 
or as it might more accurately be termed a neutralization process, for 
the acid paper already present in millions of volumes. 
The Library of Congress has patented a mass deacidification process 
using diethyl zinc (DEZ) vapor and recently received funding for a 
facility capable of processing 500,000 volumes per year. LC plans to 
treat its annual intake of about 300,000 monographs plus 200,000 older 
volumes. A cooperative plan for preserving medical works in this way 
could perhaps be negotiated with LC. There are two other deacidifi- 
cation systems, the Wei T'o being tested by the Public Archives of 
Canada and an unnamed process developed by the Hoppers Company of 
Pittsburgh. The University of California at Berkeley has announced 
plans to undertake Independent testing of the three techniques with 
results expected to be available sometime in 1985. 
Both NLM and the Library of Congress are actively engaged in research to 
test the application of videodisc and optical disc technology for 
preservation purposes. LC is testing a commercial analog videodisc 
system to store a variety of graphic materials including motion pictures 16 
and prints and is developing an optical digital disc system to test 
storage of about half million pages a year of material from high use 
serials. Plans are now in place to test user response to the systems at 
LC. 
NLM's Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications has 
demonstrated the feasibility of video disc technology for storage of 
medical prints and photographs and also has completed the first phase of 
a research and development program in electronic document storage and 
retrieval. 
Preservation has emerged as a specialty within the library profession. 
Interest and expertise has spread beyond the circle of archivists and 
rare book librarians. Beginning in 1981,Columbia University announced a 
degree program for conservation and preservation and the number of 
courses* workshops, and institutes announced by other library schools 
and organizations has proliferated. While there is a developing pool of 
trained and partially trained preservationists, there also is a 
developing demand for this type of expertise. The October issue of 
American Libraries, for example, listed several positions available in 
the field of preservation. 
The Association of Research Libraries Office of Management Studies has 
developed a Preservation Planning Program "to enable academic libraries 
to identify and address preservation problems". The National Endowment 
for the Humanities has awarded the Association a two-year grant to fund 
ten ARL institutions to serve as demonstration sites for the program 
during 1984-1986. Participation in the program is expected to result in 
a report and action plan for each institution to enhance its preserva- 
tion goals and to provide a thorough test of the OMS program as a 
blueprint for other libraries. NLM, though not a recipient of NEH grant 
funds, has selected the ARL/OMS program to structure its planning 
effort. 
COOPERATIVE LIBRARY ACTIVITIES 
In 1959 reports of studies by William J. Barrow, a Virginia document 
restorer, on the physical strength and stabilization of modern book 
papers began to alert the library community to the present state of and 
future dangers to their collections. In 1960 after a discussion of 
Barrow’s findings, the Association of Research Libraries appointed a 
standing committee on Preservation of Research Library Materials, 
According to Pamela Darling, noted preservation specialist with ARL, 
this led over the next 12 years to the "articulation of a broad-scale 
cooperative approach to the nationTs preservation problems." In 1962 
CLR, which had partially funded Barrow’s research, funded an ARL study 
to provide a framework for national planning by assessing the "magnitude 
of the paper-deterioration problem." The study concluded that in terms 
of pages rather than titles, 60 percent of the material listed in the 
National Union Catalog in 1961 was probably printed on paper subject to 
rapid deterioration. A second CLR funded effort was mounted to find a 
solution to the paper-deterioration. The result, a study by Gordon 
Williams entitled The Preservation of Deteriorating Books: An 
Examination of the Problem with Recommendations for a Solution 17 
concluded that the best way to deal with the problem was to establish a 
federal agency which would preserve a physical copy of each significant 
work and make copies available to other libraries. ARL adopted the 
report and in 1965 called for the Library of Congress to take on this 
responsibility. In 1965 the Librarian of Congress accepted the 
challenge and stated that the "Library of Congress will assume 
responsibility for a national program for the preservation of 
deteriorating books in accordance with the principles set forth in the 
Report. . . by Gordon R. Williams." 
Through ARL the CLR provided funding for the Pilot Preservation Project 
at the Library of Congress to begin this work and LC initiated research 
which led to the about to be implemented mass storage and 
deacidification projects. 
In 1976 LC called for a "Planning Conference for a National Preservation 
Program". The Conference identified research, educational and cognitive 
efforts as critical to resolving the problem of deteriorating library 
materials. An ad hoc advisory committee to LC was established and met 
twice focusing its attention "on the need for automated bibliographic 
control of microforms as the foundation for a coordinated preservation 
filming program." In the late 1970s LC went through a series of 
reorganizations and budget reductions. According to Darling, this 
resulted in a concentration on its own preservation problems and at 
least a temporary turning away from a national program. 
The same time period saw the beginning of a number of other cooperative 
efforts. The American Institute for Conservation began to place 
increased emphasis on library materials, and in 1973 a National 
Conservation Advisory council was established "to serve as a forum for 
cooperation and planning" related to the conservation of cultural 
property. The Harvard, Yale, Columbia, New York Public Library 
consortium, which later served as the nucleus for the Research Libraries 
Group (RLG), established an active preservation committee, and initiated 
RLG's cooperative efforts to bring together bibliographic data for 
members' master negative microfilms. With funding from the National 
Endowment from the Humanities RLG members input into the RLIN database 
records for more than 25,000 microfilm masters held by member libraries. 
LC has announced plans to participate in this effort. The project Is 
primarily intended to prevent duplication of filming efforts. More 
immediately it has resulted in the publication in June 1984 of the first 
edition of the RLG Preservation Union List.The RLG Medical and Health 
Science Libraries Program Committee at its October, 1984 meeting 
indicated that member institutions plan to develop a cooperative 
approach to preservation of their biomedical collections. 
In 1981 ALA established a division level Committee on the Preservation 
of Library Materials and in 1982 the OCLC Research Library Advisory 
Committee established a task force charged with studying the feasibility 
of tagging online records to identify volumes that have been designated 
as preservation copies. ARL has continued its strong interest in 
preservation, developing the self-assisted process for preservation 
planning that NLM has adopted and emphasizing the development of 
preservation programs in its member libraries in the ARL strategic 
plan. CLR currently is planning major new initiatives in the areas of 
preservation and LC has announced an international preservation meeting 
to be held in Washington in the summer of 1985. 18 
Within the medical library community, the Union Catalog of Medical 
Periodicals in the Greater Northeastern Region represents an early 
effort to Identify cooperative responsibility for retention of medical 
periodicals and the Pacific Southwest Region has developed a cooperative 
retention plan for serial titles. The current three year Regional 
Medical Library (RML) Program (1983-85) funded by NLM called for 
cooperative collection development activities, but not for preservation 
per se. Planning for the next three to five year period places 
increased emphasis on preservation. 
The Library Operations (LO) five year plan calls for developing 
cooperative preservation activities among health science libraries, 
among libraries with collections in the history of medicine and among 
the three national libraries. Ongoing discussions with the Library of 
Congress and the National Agricultural Library intended to reduce 
duplication of effort by more clearly defining the three Institution's 
areas of responsibility for acquisition and bibliographic control of 
material should be broadened to include other service responsibilities 
Including preservation. Cooperative efforts are essential as federal 
deficits and pressures to decrease expenditures in the non-defense 
sector are likely to result in increased competition among government 
agencies for available dollars. Within NLM the preservation program 
will face tough competition from other high priority programs. 
In 1984 the arena of cooperative preservation activities is large and 
diverse. There is no monolithic national plan, but a sometimes 
confusing diversity. The task before NLM is to become better acquainted 
with existing and planned cooperative efforts and to provide the 
leaderhlp necessary for an effective national program for preservation 
of the biomedical literature. 
E. PLANNING METHODOLOGY 
BASIC ASSUMPTIONS 
The Act creating the National Library of Medicine gave the Library 
responsibility for the preservation of the biomedical literature. 
Drawing on the responses to a Delphi instrument on scope and coverage 
issues recently completed by many NLM staff, the RML Directors and 
Associate Directors, and a few contact people identified by the MLA/NLM 
Liaison Committee, the Preservation Planning Team has developed the 
following interpretation of NLM's Preservation mission: 
1, NLM has responsibility to ensure that substantive biomedical 
literature is preserved, but need not do all the preservation 
work Itself. Its preservation efforts should be coordinated 
with those of other national libraries, research libraries and 
biomedical libraries. 
2. NLM has preservation responsibility for literature in all 
formats (e.g., printed, audiovisual, machine readable) and its 
preservation plan should reflect this. As described 19 
previously, the following types of materials are represented 
in the NLM collection now and should be addressed in the Plan 
Printed literature 
Manuscripts 
Pictures 
Microforms 
Videotapes and Audiotapes 
Slides and Filmstrips 
Motion Picture Films 
Computer tapes and discs 
Videodiscs 
3. NLM’s primary preservation responsibility is for the content 
of the biomedical literature rather than its original formaT. 
The need to preserve the original format as well as the 
content of the literature varies depending on the nature of 
the literature. In some cases it may be necessary to destroy 
the original format in order to preserve the content in a 
cost-effective and usable manner. 
This view of NLM's preservation responsibility will govern the 
development of the plan. 
SCHEDULE 
The timetable for development of the Preservation Plan is as follows: 
84 85 
Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May 
Phase I 
Background Report 
Phase II 
Task Force data 
gathering and 
reports 
Phase III 
Analysis of data 
and development 
of preliminary 
team report and 
recommendations «. 
Development of 
final report 
The distribution of this background report marks the conclusion of 
Phase I. 20 
TASK FORCE CHARGES AND MEMBERS 
During the next phase of the preservation planning process, separate 
task forces will gather information and develop recommendations in the 
following six areas: 
1. Physical condition of the collection 
2. Conditions under which the collection is stored, 
processed, and used. 
3. Organizational responsibility for preservation 
activities. 
4. Available preservation techniques/methods. 
5. Cooperative preservation activities appropriate 
for NLM. 
6. Disaster recovery planning. 
Each Task Force will contain staff from a variety of L0 and NLM 
components; most of the Task Forces will be headed by a member of the 
Preservation Planning Team. 
Although each Task Force has its own specific charge, the general 
purpose of all six groups is to provide the Preservation Planning Team 
with background information and suggested courses of action which can be 
reviewed and considered in developing the NLM Preservation Plan. All 
Task Forces are expected to use applicable standards and guidelines and 
to build on any relevant data collection activities undertaken at NLM in 
the past. 
Each Task Force will begin work on November 26, 1984, and will submit 
its report to the Team by February 15, 1985. During this same period, 
the Team will develop draft guidelines for selecting items to be 
preserved and assigning preservation priorities. In early February, 
there will be a combined meeting of all the Task Forces in which each 
will present a summary of its findings and recommendations. After this 
meeting, the Team will analyze all the reports and begin work on the 
overall Preservation Plan. The tentative deadline for completion of the 
Plan is May 30, 1985. 21 
1. Physical Condition of the Collection 
The purpose of this Task Force is to: 
1. Determine methods for assessing the condition of a variety of 
types of material in the NLM collection. This includes 
identification of: 
sampling techniques 
elements of the material to be examined 
criteria for determining degree of deterioration 
2. Assess the condition of each type of material 
3. Produce an inventory of the general state of each type 
of material. 
4. Identify specific problem areas (i.e., materials in 
deteriorated condition) by category, e.g., date range, 
country of origin. 
5. Rank problems, based on the physical condition of the 
materials. 
Chair: Jim Cain, RSD, LO 
Members: John Horne, RSD, LO 
Alice Ladson, RSD, LO 
Alex Nobleman, RSD, LO 
Young Rhee, HMD, LO 
Carol Spencer, LO 
Carol Unger, RSD, LO 22 
2. Environmental Conditions for the Collection 
The purpose of this Task Force is to; 
1. Produce an inventory of current environmental condi- 
tions in which the collections are stored or displayed. This 
activity includes: 
determination of the specific conditions 
(e.g., temperature, humidity, light, air quality, 
physical structures for storing the material) 
to be evaluated 
identification of the various locations to be 
monitored 
collection and summarization of environmental 
data 
2. Compare NLM’s environmental conditions and use practices with 
generally accepted standards and the practices of other insti 
tutions with effective preservation programs. 
3. Identify any specific problems with NLM’s environmental condi 
tions, including any which contribute to the possibility of 
disaster or are likely to hamper responses to disaster. 
4. Identify methods for correcting any problems, including 
consideration of off site storage, and give the pros 
and cons and costs of each. 
5. Recommend actions to be taken to correct or avoid 
the problems. 
Chair: Hark Rotariu, OFM, OA 
Members: Doralee Agayoff. RSD, LO 
Herbert-^ne^c^Z NIH 
Jay McNeave, RSD, LO 
Karen Patrias, RSD, LO 
Patricia Ruben, CAMS, OA 
Norman Smith, LO 23 
3. Processing and Use Practices 
The purpose of this Task Force is to 
1. Describe current processing and use (including security 
considerations) of the collection as they affect the condition 
of the material. This activity Includes: 
identification of types of use, use policies and their 
effects on the collection. 
identification of types of processing (e.g., labeling, 
shelving, binding, filming, mailing, reproduction) and 
processing policies and their effects on the collection. 
Identification of equipment used for processing, viewing, or 
reproducing materials and their effects on the collection. 
2. Compare NLM’s use and processing practices with generally 
accepted standards and the practices of other Institutions 
with effective preservation programs. 
3. Identify any specific problems with NLM’s use and processing 
activities, including any which contribute to the possibility 
of disaster or are likely to hamper responses to disaster. 
A. Identify methods for correcting any problems and give the pros 
and cons and costs of each. 
5. Recommend actions to be taken to correct or avoid problems. 
Chair: Linda Watson, RSD, LO 
Members: Kevin Beverly, RSD, LO 
Rosellen Muniak, TSD, LO 
Eileen Murtagh, TSD, LO 
Nancy Selinger, BSD, LO 
Manfred Waserman, HMD, LO 24 
A. Preservation Techniques/Methods 
The purpose of this Task Force is to: 
1. Inventory and compare available preservation techniques 
and methods for the various types of material in the 
collection, with emphasis on deacidification, mass disc 
storage, microfilm, film preservation, and acquisition of 
materials in archival formats. Information gathered on each 
method should include: 
material for which it is suitable 
pros and cons of its use Including; 
effect on public service and staff activities, 
longevity 
potential adverse effects on users, staff, 
or material 
resistance to disaster 
historical experience with technique 
industry support for technology 
cost - initial and ongoing 
impact on implementation schedule 
2. Evaluate the most promising methods as to their suita- 
bility for use at NLM, either for retrospective or prospective 
collections. 
3. Make recommendations on methods which should be used or 
evaluated further by NLM. 
Chair; John Parascandola, HMD, LO 
Members: George Cosmldes, SIS 
Peter Krivatsy, HMD, LO 
Dianne McCutcheon, TSD, LO 
Sarah Richards, RSD, LO 
George Thoma, LHC 
H H'0)LCD 25 
5. Organizational Responsibility for Preservation Activities 
The purpose of this Task Force Is to 
1. Develop an inventory of current NLM preservation activities 
which includes: 
organizational component(s) involved 
number and kind of FTEs involved 
current budget for the activity 
2. Examine the organization of preservation activities in other 
organizations with effective preservation programs. 
3. Identify any problems with the organization of preservation 
activities at NLM. 
4. Recommend any changes to the organization of preservation 
activities at NLM, including summarizing the qualifications 
for and duties of any new positions needed. 
Chair: Betsy Humphreys, LO 
Members: James Cassedy, HMD, LO 
Judith Duff, LO 
Lillian Kozuma, LO 
Jacque-Lynne Schulman, RSD, LO 
Sheldon Kotzin, BSD, LO, Consultant 26 
6. Cooperative Preservation Activities 
The purpose of this Task Force is to: 
1. Identify existing cooperative activities which could assist 
NLM in fulfilling its preservation mission, Including any 
in which NLM already participates. 
2. Identify any new cooperative activities needed to fulfill 
this mission. 
3. Assess the advantages and disadvantages, and probable cost of 
each. 
4. Make recommendations for NLM leadership of and/or partici- 
pation in cooperative activities. 
Chair: Duane Arenales, TSD, LO 
Members: Jeanne Brand, EP 
Martha Fishel, TSD, LO 
Becky Lyon-Hartmann, RML, LO 
Scott Plutchak, BSD, LO 27 
7. Disaster Recovery Task Force 
The purpose of this Task Force is to: 
I. Review and evaluate NLM’s current Disaster Recovery Plan 
to ensure that it: 
covers adequately all types of materials in 
the NLM collection 
deals with the effects of the various kinds of 
disasters which are most likely to befall the NLM 
collection 
compares favorably with good examples of Disaster 
Recovery Plans prepared by other institutions 
2. Make any necessary changes to the Disaster Recovery Plan 
Chair; Carol Ditzler, RSD, LO 
Members: Norman Smith, LO 
lone Auston, RSD, LO Appendix 2 
List of Task Force Members 
1, Physical Condition of the Collection 
Chair; Jim Cain, RSD, LO 
Members; John Horne, RSD, LO 
Alice Ladson, RSD, LO 
Alex Nobleman, RSD, LO 
Young Rhee, HMD, LO 
Carol Spencer, LO 
Carol Unger, RSD, LO 
2. Environmental Conditions for the Collection 
Chair; Mark Rotariu, OFM, OA 
Members; Doralee Agayoff, RSD, LO 
Herbert Crigger, NIH 
Jay McNeave, RSD, LO 
Karen Patrias, RSD, LO 
Patricia Ruben, OAMS, OA 
Norman Smith, LO 
3. Processing and Use Practices 
Chair; Linda Watson, RSD, LO 
Members; Kevin Beverly, RSD, LO 
Rosellen Muniak, TSD, LO 
Eileen Murtagh, TSD, LO 
Nancy Selinger, BSD, LO 
Manfred Waserman, HMD, LO 
A. Preservation Techniques/Methods 
Chair; John Parascandola, HMD, LO 
Members; George Cosmides, SIS 
Peter Krivatsy, HMD, LO 
Dianne McCutcheon, TSD, LO 
Sarah Richards, RSD, LO 
George Thoma, LHC 
Philip Teigen, HMD, LO 5. Organizational Responsibility for Preservation Activities 
Chair: Betsy Humphreys 
Members: James Cassedy, HMD, LO 
Judith Duff, LO 
Lillian Kozuma, LO 
Jacque-Lynne Schulman, RSD, LO 
Sheldon Kotzin, BSD, LO 
6. Cooperative Preservation Activities 
Chair: Duane Arenales, TSD, LO 
Members: Jeanne Brand, EP 
Martha Fishel, TSD, LO 
Becky Lyon-Hartmann, RML, LO 
Scott Plutchak, BSD, LO 
7. Disaster Recovery Task Force 
Chair: Carol Ditzler, RSD, LO 
Members: Norman Smith, LO 
lone Auston, RSD, LO Appendix 3 
Procedures Used in the Survey of the 
Physical Condition of the Collection PHYSICAL CONDITION SURVEY 
The books you are to examine in the stacks have been preselected 
at random. Your tally sheet indicates which range, section, 
shelf, and book you are to look at. Here is a diagram which 
explains what is meant by the terms: range, section, shelf and 
book. 
All ranges are numbered in the library stacks, both in the 
General Collection (A, B, and C levels) and in the History of 
Medicine Division. A double range has only one number, so for 
ease in this project, they are subdivided into "A" and "B" 
halves. "A" is the side to the North or closest to HMD in the 
General Col 1ecti on. 
The number of the Section is counted from the aisle. Count 
sections from left to right as you are facing the section. This 
will ensure that the same section is reached no matter what aisle 
you may enter the section from.. 
Count shelves from top to bottom. Count books from left to 
right. If there is no book that matches the one you are supposed 
to pull, place a large "X" in the call number area of the tally 
sheet. When you pull the book you are to examine, first write 
down the call number with volume and year information. Be as 
complete as necessary to identify the specific volume. You may 
shorten the title. 
Examine the book and enter your results following the 
"Instructions for Examining Paper Media for Physical 
Condition". INSTRUCTIONS FOR EXAMINING PAPER MEDIA 
FOR PHYSICAL CONDITION 
A survey of selected titles will be performed to collect data on 
their physical condition. Volumes to be examined will be 
randomly selected. The information on the worksheet will lead 
you to the specific volume to test. 
There are two components to the physical condition to be 
recorded. The first is the fold test for brittleness of paper. 
The second is the state of the binding and overall condition of 
the piece. 
The fold test is conducted in the following manner. A random 
page of the volume (chosen from the midpart of the book, not the 
first or last few pages) is selected and the upper corner tested. 
Fold, without creasing, the corner forward 135 degrees (almost 
all the way down), then fold it back in the opposite direction 
approximately 270 degrees (almost all the way down in the 
opposite direction), then bring it forward approximately 135 
degrees to its original postition. Do not crease. This three- 
step procedure constitutes "one foT3" TT the corner remains 
attached to the page. If the corner breaks off during the first 
test, it is in "zero fold" condition. If it completes one full 
test, and breaks during the second, it is in "one fold" 
condition, etc. . . . Record the number of completed folds. Do 
not test further than 10 folds. 
The condition of the binding and pages will fit into one of the 
following categories. Record the letter code which best 
describes the book you are examining. 
A. Good binding, no loose pages. 
B. Text block intact, sewing tight, but loose from binding. 
C. Text block intact, sewing tight, but out of binding. 
D. intact, sewing tight , binding badly 
damaged, red rot, etc. 
E. Good binding, but torn pages. 
F. Unbound issue. 
G. Text block intact,but loose from binding andtorn 
pages. 
H. Text block intact, but out of binding and torn pages. 
I. Text block intact, but binding damaged and torn pages. 
J. Unbound issue with torn pages. 
K. Environmental damage, including insects, water, mold, 
etc. (Give these to Carol Unger immediately after 
recording so that further damage or contaminatation 
can be prevented . ) 
L. Bound, text block and sewing coming apart. Condition Grades for Manuscript Materials 
* A. Container and Manuscripts in good condition. 
B. Container damage, including torn boxes and folders. 
* C. Manuscripts have frayed edges or tears 
D. Container damage, and manuscripts have frayed edges or tears. 
E. Manuscripts have rusting metal clips, staples, etc. present. 
F. Container damage, and manuscripts havd rusting metal clips, 
staples, etc, present. 
G. Manuscripts have frayed edges or tears, and rusting metal clips, 
staples, etc. are present. 
H. Container damage, and manuscripts have frayed edges and tears, 
and rusting metal clips, staples, etc. are present. 
I. Manuscripts are badly yellowed and/or foxed (over 30% of item). 
J. Enviromental damage to manuscripts, including insects, water, 
mold, etc. Summary Categories for Physical Condition 
Bound Paper Media 
A = Good 
B,C,D,L = Binding Damaged 
E,6,H,I = Pages Torn 
F,J = Unbound 
K = Environmental Damage 
Unbound Manuscripts 
A = Good 
B,C,D,E,F = Moderate 
G,H,I,J = Poor/Environmental Damage INSTRUCTIONS FOR SAMPLING 
16MM FILM FOR PHYSICAL CONDITION 
There are eight (8) components to the physical condition to be 
recorded. The material to be examined will be randomly selected. 
The information on the worksheet will lead you to the specific 
item to be examined. The conditions should fitMnto one of the 
following categories. Record the letter code which best describes 
the item being examined. 
COMPONENT 
DESCRIPTION 
A) GOOD - No splices or obvious scratches, or 
pulled sprockets 
B) FAIR - Maximum of four (4) splices, and minimal 
scratching 
1_ C) POOR - Excess of four (4) splices, heavily 
scratched 
D) SHRUNKEN - Distance between sprockets shortened, 
(use guage) 
E) BRITTLE - Use end fold test (maximum of 10 folds 
of 180 6) 
F) MISSING - Not on shelf 
2_ A) NORMAL COLOR - Realistic flesh color or recog- 
nizable item color 
B) OFF-COLOR - Unrealistic flesh color (Blue, green, 
etc.) of recognizable item color 
C) FADED OVERALL - Everything same color 
_3 A) GOOD - Clear, sharp, black & white images 
B) POOR - "Washed-outM images or extremely dark 
images 
A) GOOD - Clear, distinct voice sounds 
4_ B) DISTORTED - Garbled voice sounds 
C) N/A - Not applicable (slient) 
A) COMPLETE - Correct number films (Part I, Part II, 
etc. ) 
J5 B) INCOMPLETE - Missing film parts from the title 
C) MISSING - Not on shelf 
A) GOOD - Beeper in place and no adhesive leakage 
iL B) OOZING - Beeper in place but adhesive leaking 
C) MISSING - No Beeper applied or was removed 
A) GOOD - Label in place, legible 
7 B) POOR - Label defaced, illegible 
C) MISSING - No label visible A) GOOD - Binding tight, no loose or missing pages 
B) POOR - Binding loose, torn and pages missing 
8_ C) BRITTLE - Apply print media fold test (10 fold 
limitation) 
D) MISSING - Not with film \ 
E) N/A - Not applicable INSTRUCTIONS FOR SAMPLING SLIDES & SLIDE/TAPES 
FOR PHYSICAL CONDITION 
There are nine(9) components to the physical condition to be recorded. The 
material to be examined will be randomly selected. The information work sheet 
will lead you to the specific item to be examined. 
The conditions of the sample should fit into one of the following categories. 
Record the letter code which best describes the item being examined. 
COMPONENT 
DESCRIPTION 
1 A) GOOD - no physical damage visible 
D) MISSING - not in kit 
A) NORMAL COLOR - Realistic flesh color or recognizable item color 
2 B) OFF-COLOR - unrealistic flesh color (Blue, green, etc.) or 
recognizable item color 
C) FADED OVERALL - Everything same color 
3 A) GOOD - No apparent damage visible 
N/A - Not applicable 
4 (Self-explanatory) 
N/A - Not applicable 
A) GOOD - Clear distinct voice sound 
B) DISTORTED - Garbled voice sound 
5 C) NO AUDIO - No voice sound recorded 
D) MISSING - No cassette/s 
E) N/A - Not applicable 
A) GOOD - No tears or separation of binder 
6 B) FAIR - Clasp does not hold, otherwise binder is all right 
C) MISSING - Not on shelf 
A) GOOD - Beeper in place, no adhesive leakage 
7_ B) OOZING - Beeper in place, adhesive leakage 
C) MISSING - No beeper applied or was removed 
A) GOOD - No label, adhesive leekage or smearing 
8 ' B) OOZING - Label adhesive leaking, smearing 
C) MISSING - No label visible 
A) GOOD - No torn or missing pages 
B) POOR - Torn and missing pages 
9 C) BRITTLE - Apply print media fold test, (10 fold limitation) 
D) MISSING - Not with cassette/s 
E) N/A - Not applicable INSTRUCTIONS FOR SAMPLING FILM STRIPS 
FOR PHYSICAL CONDITION 
There are ten (10) components to the physical condition to be 
recorded. The material to be examined will be randomly selected. 
The information worksheet will lead you to the specific item to 
be examined. The conditions of the sample should fit into one 
of the following categories. Record the letter code which best 
describes the item being examined. 
COMPONENT 
DESCRIPTION 
A) GOOD - No obviously torn or pulled sprocket 
holes or scratches 
1_ B) FAIR - Some pulled sprocket holes, minimal 
scratches • 
C) POOR - Badly pulled sprocket holes, deeply 
scratched, and/or multiple splices 
A) GOOD - Normal flesh color or recognizable item 
color 
2 B) OFF-COLOR - Unrealistic flesh color (green faces, 
etc.), or recognizable item color 
C) FADED OVERALL - Everything same color 
3_ A) GOOD - No physical damage visible 
B) N/A - Not applicable, not required 
4_ (Self-explanatory) 
N/A - Not applicable 
A) GOOD - Clear, distinct voice sound 
B) DISTORTED - Garbled voice sound 
_5 C) NO AUDIO - No voice sound recorded 
D) MISSING - No cassette 
E) N/A - Not applicable 
A) COMPLETE - Correct number of film strips/cassettes 
in kit 
£ B) INCOMPLETE - Film strips/cassettes missing from 
kit 
C) MISSING - Not on shelf 
A) GOOD - No tears of separation of binder 
2 B) FAIR - Clasp does not hold or close properly, 
otherwise it is alright 
C) MISSING - Not on shelf 
A) GOOD - Beeper in place, no adhesive leakage 
2 B) OOZING - Beeper in place, adhesive leakage 
C) MISSING - No beeper applied or was removed A) GOOD - No label adhesive leakage or smearing 
B) OOZING - Label adhesive leaking, smearing 
C) MISSING - No label visible 
A) GOOD - Binding tight, no torn,Moose, or missing 
pages 
B) POOR - Binding loose, torn and missing pages 
10 C) BRITTLE - Apply print media fold test (10 fold 
limitation) 
D) MISSING - Not with kit 
E) N/A - Not applicable INSTRUCTIONS FOR SAMPLING VIDEO TAPE CASSETTES 
FOR PHYSICAL CONDITION 
There are eleven (11) components to the physical condition to be recorded. The 
material to be examined will be randomly selected. The information worksheet 
will lead you to the specific item to be examined. The conditions of the sample 
should fit into one of the cateogries. Record the letter code which best describes 
the item being examined. 
COMPONENT 
DESCRIPTION 
A) GOOD - No apparent damage visible 
1 B) DAMAGED - Cracked, screws missing 
C) MISSING - Not on shelf 
2 A) NO - (Self explanatory) 
B) YES - Note number of video dropouts 
2 A) NO - (Self explanatory) 
B) YES - Note number of audio dropouts 
A) GOOD - Cassette tape runs smoothly 
i. B) ERRATIC - Cassette tape runs noisily 
C) JAMMED - Cassette tape locked will run 
5 A) NORMAL - Realistic flesh color are recognizable item color 
B) OFF-COLOR - (green faces, etc.) 
2 A) NORMAL - Clear, sharp images 
B) POOR - Weak, washed-out images 
A) COMPLETE - Correct number of films in kit 
7 B) INCOMPLETE - Films and/or cassettes missing from kit 
C) MISSING - Not on shelf 
A) GOOD - No tears or separation of binder 
8 B) FAIR - Binder does not close properly, otherwise binder is 
all right 
C) MISSING - Not on shelf 
A) GOOD - Beeper in place, no adhesive leakage 
2 B) OOZING - Beeper in place, adhesive leakage 
C) MISSING-- No beeper applied or was removed 
A) GOOD - No label adhesive leakage or smearing 
10 B> OOZING - Label adhesive leaking, smearing 
C) MISSING - No label visible 
A) GOOD - Binding tight, no loose or missing pages 
B) POOR - Binding loose, torn, and pages missing 
11 C) BRITTLE - Apply print media fold test (10 fold limitation) 
D) MISSING - Not with video cassettes 
E) N/A - Not applicable (not provided) INSTRUCTIONS FOR SAMPLING AUDIO TAPE 
CASSETTES FOR PHYSICAL CONDITION 
There are eight (8) components to the physical condition to be recorded. The 
material to be examined will be randomly selected. The information on the work- 
sheet will lead you to the specific item to be examined. 
The conditions should fit into one of the following cateogries. Record the letter 
code which best describes the item being examined. 
COMPONENT 
DESCRIPTION 
A) GOOD - No apparent damage visible 
1 B) CRACKED/WARPED - Cassette shows apparent damage 
C) MISSING - Not on shelf 
A) GOOD - Cassette tape runs smoothly 
2_ B) ERRATIC - Cassette tape drags 
C) JAMMED - Cassette tape locked will not run 
A) GOOD - Clear distinct voice sound 
_3 B) DISTORTED - Garbled voice sound 
C) NO AUDIO - No voice sound recorded (blank) 
D) MISSING - Not on shelf 
A) COMPLETE - Correct number of cassettes in kit 
4 B) INCOMPLETE - Cassettes missing from kit 
C) MISSING - Not on shelf 
A) GOOD - No visible damage 
_5 B) FAIR - Torn, or fails to close properly 
C) MISSING - Not on shelf 
D) N/A - Binder not supplied 
A) GOOD - Beeper in place and no adhesive leakage 
_6 B) OOZING - Beeper in place but adhesive leaking 
C) MISSING - No beeper applied or was removed 
A) GOOD - Label in place, no adhesive leakage 
7 B) OOZING - Label in place, adhesive leaking 
• C) MISSING - No label visible 
A) GOOD - Binding tight, no loose or missing pages 
B) POOR - Binding loose, torn and pages missing 
5 C) BRITTLE - Apply print media fold test, (10 fold limitation) 
D) MISSING - Not with cassette/s 
E) N/A - Not applicable Appendix 4 
553-J-85 
Indoor Pollutant Measurements of Sul-fur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, 
and Ozone in the National Library of Medicine 
Richard C. Myers 
National Bureau of Standards 
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899 
introduction 
Levels of atmospheric pollutants, specifically sulfur 
dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and ozone were measured at two 
locations inside building #38 of the National Library of Medicine 
between April 8 and April 15, 1985. The locations at which these 
species were monitored were a stack area on the B2 level and the 
southeast corner of the main reading area on the B1 level. Ozone 
also was measured in the photocopy room on the B1 level 
identified as room 1W-27. 
Measurement Plan 
Continuous monitoring analyzers were used to sample the air 
exiting the ventilation system -for periods of at least 48 hours 
at each site. Ambient sulfur dioxide levels were measured with a 
pulsed fluorescent sulfur dioxide analyzer. Nitrogen oxides, as 
NQx <N02 + NO), were measured with an oxides of nitrogen analyzer 
utilizing the photometric detection of chemi1uminescent light 
resulting from the reaction of nitric oxide with ozone. Ambient 
ozone levels were measured with a microcoulomb ozone sensing 
i nstrument. 
The signals generated by the three analyzers were 
continuously recorded on strip chart recorders. 
The sampling probe for the nitrogen oxides and sulfur 
dioxide analyzers was located directly in the path of incoming 
air exiting the ventilation system at both sites. The sample 
inlet of the ozone analyzer on the B2 level was positioned to 
sample air away from the inlet vents. This was done for two 
reasons. First, to reduce the probability of loss of ozone due to 
the length of the sampling probe needed to reach the ventilation 
inlet vents located at ceiling level and second, to include in 
the sample air surrounding a nearby photocopy machine to 
determine whether ozone was being generated by the machine. On 
the B1 level it was possible to sample incoming air for ozone 
directly in front of a ventilation vent. Measurements of ozone 
made in the photocopy room were intended only to quantify any 
ozone produced by the photocopiers. 
1 Calibrations 
Calibrations of the sul-fur dioxide and nitrogen oxides 
analyzers were performed on a daily basis with the use of 
permeation tubes. The permeation devices used in the calibrations 
were themselves calibrated at NBS. These devices produce low 
known concentrations of sulfur dioxide or nitrogen dioxide in air 
by placing the tube of interest in a stream of purified air 
flowing at a known rate and at a known temperature. The flow of 
diluent air passed over each tube was measured with a calibrated 
mass flow meter. The permeation rate of the tubes at the times of 
calibrations was estimated from the measured temperature 
dependence of the rate and the temperature at which they were 
used. 
To assign an estimated uncertainty to the concentrations of 
the generated calibration mixtures, the variations in the 
measured instrument sensitivities were used. The observed 
variation of the sensitivity (signal/concentration) for both the 
sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides analyzers was about + 10 
percent relative over the entire monitoring period during which 
measurements were taken. 
The ozone sensitivity of the ozone analyzer was determined 
at NBS using an ultraviolet adsorption instrument and a standard 
reference photometer instrument. The signal generated by the 
analyzer is linearly proportional to the oxidant content of the 
gas sampled, however its response can be affected by interfering 
substances common to pollutants present in the atmosphere. For 
example, sulfur dioxide can interfere thus reducing the ozone- 
caused signal. Though it is difficult to accurately quantitate 
ozone levels, the values recorded by the analyzer show relative 
differences in concentrations of ozone in the air sampled. 
Data Presentation 
The concentration levels found for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen 
oxides, and ozone are summarized in Tables 1-9. The 
concentrations are given in parts per billion (ppb) by mole. 
These values indicate the levels measured at the approximate 
times indicated, and are not hourly averages. 
Figures 1-9 contain plots of the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen 
oxides data taken from Tables 1-9 respectively. 
Figures 10 and 11 represent plots of ozone measured based on 
the appropiate data tables. 
Daily temperature and relative humidity measurements were 
made at the library within the vicinity of the monitoring sites. 
These data are listed in Table 10. Results: Ni£csg»n Oxides 
With the major contribution of nitrogen oxides being that 
generated by the automobile engine, it can be expected that 
increases in levels would occur during high densities o-f traffic 
(e.g. a.m. and p.m. rush hours). Care-ful examination o-f several 
o-f the plots show an increase in levels which can be correlated 
with tra-f-fic patterns. For example, figure 1 shows a nitrogen 
oxides peak between the hours of 4s00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., the 
evening rush hours. 
Figure 6 shows a relatively large nitrogen oxides peak. The 
highest concentration recorded was 208 ppb and was measured in 
the main reading area on the B1 level. On this particular day, 
weather information obtained from the Washington National Airport 
indicated the wind direction as being from the south-southeast at 
8 mph. This would correspond with an air movement across 
Wisconsin Avenue picking up quantities of "traffic gases" and 
moving them directly toward the library building. When the wind 
is from other directions, north or west, considerable dilution of 
the traffic gases from other major traffic arteries would occur 
and the maximum in the nitrogen oxides measurements during rush 
hour periods would be reduced or non-existent. 
Results: Sulfur Di_gxi.de 
From the data obtained, the most significant amount of 
sulfur dioxide measured was from the inlet vent located on the B2 
level on April 9, 1935. The wind direction during the day was 
from the west at 15 mph. Such a wind direction would carry 
effluent from the power plant on the grounds at NIH and 
conceivably could be the source of the increased sulfur dioxide. 
In general, the maximum values measured on the B2 level are 
higher than the maximum measured on the B1 level. However, the 
background concentrations as indicated by the minimum levels are 
the same indicating that the source of the higher concentrations 
observed on the B2 level is probably external and does not 
originate within the B2 level or its associated ventilation 
system. Results: Ozone 
No significant amounts of o:one were detected on the B2 
level except tor a period ot about 1 hour on April 9, 1985, 
peaking at about 11:30 a.m. At this time, the photocopy machine 
was in constant use. A sudden i ncrease in ozone from 1 to 8 ppb 
occurred at that time. 
Higher levels were recorded on the B1 level due to the 
greater access!bi1ity to the inlet vent. 
The Council ot Government reported an air quality index ot 
30 tor ozone on April 9, 35 on April 10, and 40 on April 11, 
1985. Figure 10 represents ozone measured on April 11, 1985, 
during the day which the index was 40. 
The most significant amount ot ozone in the library was 
measured inside the photocopy room IW-27 which contained five 
photocopy machines that were in frequent use. Tables 6-9 
contain concentrations measured ot ozone determined in the 
photocopying room IW-27 (marked with an asterisk). Figure 11 
depicts ozone levels measured inside room IW-27 during April 13, 
1985. This figure shows that the ozone level increased at 
approximately 9:00 a.m. and decreased at approximately 5:00 p.m., 
which correlates with the opening and closing hours ot the 
1ibrary. 
Conclusions 
The concentrations ot the three pollutants measured and the 
variations noted follow the general pattern observed in a 
previous study 111 tor a large building in which the ventilation 
system does not act as a scrubber or purifier. The minimum values 
tor each pollutant are approximately the same as was found in the 
previous study. The character ot the concentration changes during 
an extended sampling period, 24 hours, and the height ot the 
daily maxi mums were not as comparable but the difference in 
nature ot the locations ot the building could easily explain the 
difference. A conclusion to be drawn from this data is that in 
this particular building the interior atmosphere will reflect 
almost without change the external atmosphere except in those 
areas where, in this case ozone, is being internally generated. 
The characteristic odor ot ozone detected along with the 
results obtained indicate that significant levels are being 
generated and accumulated within room IW-27 by the photocopy 
machines during times when the machines are in frequent use. It 
should be noted that greater accumulations ot ozone within room 
IW-27 than those measured could result in a potential health 
hazzard C2I due to the low recommended "permissible exposure 
limits" established tor ozone. 
4 References 
C1D Hughes, E. , and Myers, R., Measurement of the Concentration 
of Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, and Ozone in the National 
Archives Building, NBSIR 83-2767 , Natl. Bureau of Standards, 
Gaithersburg, Md. 
C21 Little, A., NIOSH/OSHA Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards, 
Aug. 1980. Heasureaents of Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, 
and Ozone in the National Library of Nedicine 
Table 1 
Concentrations listed are in parts per billion (ppb) by aole. 
SaapIing site 
Date 
Tiie 
Sulfur dioxide 
Nitrogen oxides 
Ozone 
B2 level 
4/8/85 
1200 
— 
65 
— 
B2 level 
4/8/85 
1300 
— 
38 
— 
B2 level 
4/8/85 
1400 
— 
34 
— 
B2 level 
4/8/85 
1500 
— 
46 
— 
B2 level 
4/8/85 
1600 
4 
38 
1 
B2 level 
4/8/85 
1700 
21 
65 
1 
62 level 
4/8/85 
1800 
24 
65 
1 
B2 level 
4/8/85 
1900 
7 
42 
I 
B2 level 
4/8/85 
2000 
2 
34 
2 
82 level 
4/8/85 
2100 
2 
27 
2 
B2 level 
4/8/85 
2200 
2 
34 
1 
B2 level 
4/8/85 
2300 
2 
38 
I 
62 level 
4/8/85 
2400 
3 
46 
1 
Ninnui 
2 
27 
I 
Haxiiue 
24 
65 
2 
— No leasureients 
Here aade at 
this tiae. 
6 Measurements of Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, 
and Ozone in the National Library of Nedicme 
Table 2 
Concentrations listed are in parts per billion (ppb) by sole. 
Sampling site 
Date 
Tiie 
Sulfur dioxide 
Nitrogen oxides 
Ozone 
B2 level 
4/9/65 
0100 
3 
46 
1 
B2 level 
4/9/85 
0200 
2 
38 
I 
62 level 
4/9/85 
0300 
2 
27 
2 
B2 level 
4/9/85 
0400 
2 
27 
1 
L. 
62 level 
4/9/85 
0500 
1 
27 
1 
B2 level 
4/9/85 
0600 
1 
27 
I 
B2 level 
4/9/85 
0700 
2 
27 
1 
B2 level 
4/9/85 
0800 
2 
30 
2 
B2 level 
4/9/35 
0900 
4 
34 
1 
62 level 
4/9/85 
1000 
36 
57 
I 
62 level 
4/9/85 
1100 
— 
49 
1 
62 level 
4/9/85 
1200 
7 
42 
•> 
L 
62 level 
4/9/85 
1300 
— 
57 
1 
B2 level 
4/9/85 
1400 
12 
49 
2 
62 level 
4/9/85 
1500 
22 
53 
1 
B2 level 
4/9/85 
1600 
22 
34 
1 
62 level 
4/9/85 
1700 
22 
46 
1 
B2 level 
4/9/85 
1800 
47 
42 
I 
62 level 
4/9/85 
1900 
36 
65 
1 
B2 level 
4/9/85 
2000 
49 
65 
1 
B2 level 
4/9/85 
2100 
44 
57 
1 
B2 level 
4/9/85 
2200 
30 
57 
I 
52 level 
4/9/35 
2300 
26 
53 
1 
B2 level 
4/9/35 
2400 
32 
49 
1 
Nmiiui 
1 
LI 
1 
Naxiiui 
49 
65 
2 
--- No leasureients 
were lade 
at this tiie. 
7 Measurements of Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, 
and Ozone in the National Library of Medicine 
Table 3 
Concentrations listed are in parts per billion (ppb) by eole. 
Sampling site 
Date 
Tue 
Sulfur dioxide 
Nitrogen oxides 
Ozone 
B2 level 
4/10/85 
0100 
6 
30 
1 
B2 level 
4/10/85 
0200 
20 
30 
I 
B2 level 
4/10/85 
0300 
3 
23 
1 
B2 level 
4/10/85 
0400 
14 
27 
1 
B2 level 
4/10/85 
0500 
4 
27 
1 
B2 level 
4/10/85 
0600 
4 
27 
I 
62 level 
4/10/85 
0700 
2 
30 
I 
B2 level 
4/10/85 
0800 
IB 
49 
1 
B2 level 
4/10/85 
0900 
10 
42 
1 
B2 level 
4/10/85 
1000 
— 
I 
Niniaui 
2 
23 
1 
Haxitui 
20 
49 
1 
— No aeasureaents were aade at 
this tue. 
8 Measurements of Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, 
and 0:one in the National Library of Medicine 
Table 4 
Concentrations listed are in parts per billion (ppb) by tole. 
Sampling site 
Date 
Tile 
Sulfur dioxide 
Nitrogen oxides 
Ozone 
B1 level 
4/10/85 
1500 
- 
— 
— 
11 
Bl level 
4/10/85 
1600 
3 
59 
14 
B1 level 
4/10/85 
1700 
2 
43 
13 
Bl level 
4/10/85 
1800 
2 
37 
14 
Bl level 
4/10/85 
1900 
3 
37 
10 
Bl level 
4/10/85 
2000 
5 
46 
2 
Bl level 
4/10/85 
2100 
5 
59 
2 
Bl level 
4/10/85 
2200 
5 
43 
4 
Bl level 
4/10/85 
2300 
3 
37 
6 
Bl level 
4/10/85 
2400 
0 
34 
7 
Minima 
2 
34 
2 
Maxima 
5 
59 
14 
— No aeasureaents 
Mere aade at 
this tiae. 
9 Measurements of Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, 
and Ozone in the National Library of Medicine 
Table 5 
Concentrations listed are in parts per billion (ppb) by aole. 
Saapling site 
Date 
Tiie 
Sulfur dioxide 
Nitrogen oxides 
Ozone 
61 level 
4/11/85 
0100 
2 
28 
12 
61 level 
4/11/85 
0200 
n 
28 
12 
61 level 
4/11/85 
0300 
1 
28 
12 
81 level 
4/11/85 
0400 
2 
31 
13 
61 level 
4/11/85 
0500 
1 
31 
11 
81 level 
4/11/85 
0600 
2 
28 
10 
61 level 
4/11/85 
0700 
2 
28 
8 
61 level 
4/11/85 
0800 
2 
37 
4 
81 level 
4/11/85 
0900 
£ 
46 
3 
81 level 
4/11/85 
1000 
2 
46 
— 
61 level 
4/11/85 
1100 
— 
43 
11 
61 level 
4/11/85 
1200 
— 
— 
13 
61 level 
4/11/85 
1300 
19 
46 
13 
61 level 
4/11/85 
1400 
6 
43 
16 
81 level 
4/11/85 
1500 
5 
46 
17 
61 level 
4/11/85 
1600 
6 
46 
16 
61 level 
4/11/85 
1700 
8 
53 
13 
81 level 
4/11/85 
1800 
8 
37 
17 
81 level 
4/11/85 
1900 
4 
37 
12 
61 level 
4/11/35 
2000 
5 
43 
y 
J 
61 level 
4/11/85 
2100 
5 
140 
2 
61 level 
4/11/85 
2200 
4 
71 
2 
81 level 
4/11/85 
2300 
4 
59 
4 
61 level 
4/11/85 
2400 
4 
53 
4 
Himaua 
1 
28 
2 
Haxiaua 
19 
140 
17 
— No aeasureaents 
were aade 
at this tiae. 
10 Measurements of Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, 
and Ozone in the National Library of Medicine 
Table 6 
Concentrations listed are in parts per billion (ppb) by mole. 
Sampling site 
Date 
Tiae 
Sulfur dioxide 
Nitrogen oxides 
Ozone 
B1 level 
4/12/85 
0100 
4 
40 
2 
01 level 
4/12/85 
0200 
4 
46 
n 
L 
61 level 
4/12/85 
0300 
3 
81 
1 
01 level 
4/12/85 
0400 
3 
155 
2 
01 level 
4/12/85 
0500 
2 
177 
2 
01 level 
4/12/85 
0600 
4 
152 
2 
01 level 
4/12/85 
0700 
4 
180 
2 
61 level 
4/12/85 
0800 
6 
208 
2 
01 level 
4/12/85 
0900 
11 
130 
2 
61 level 
4/12/85 
1000 
15 
93 
2 
01 level 
4/12/85 
1100 
11 
71 
3 
61 level 
4/12/85 
1200 
9 
53 
5 
61 level 
4/12/85 
1300 
— 
7 
61 level 
4/12/85 
1400 
— 
— 
40 1 
01 level 
4/12/85 
1500 
3 
34 
29 1 
01 level 
4/12/85 
1600 
2 
31 
27 1 
01 level 
4/12/85 
1700 
3 
31 
40 1 
61 level 
4/12/85 
1800 
4 
46 
52 1 
01 level 
4/12/85 
1900 
4 
56 
8 I 
61 level 
4/12/85 
2000 
y 
J 
53 
6 t 
01 level 
4/12/85 
2100 
ii 
56 
5 1 
B1 level 
4/12/85 
2200 
6 
50 
6 t 
61 level 
4/12/85 
2300 
8 
34 
7 1 
01 level 
4/12/35 
2400 
4 
31 
9 1 
Niniaua 
2 
31 
1 
Haxiaua 
15 
208 
52 
— No aeasureaents 
Mere aade at this 
tiae. 
t Ozone aeasureaents 
Mere Bade in the photocopy rooa located in 
rooa IN-27. . 
11 Measurements of Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, 
and Ozone in the National Library of Medicine 
Table 7 
Concentrations listed are in parts per billion (ppb) by aole. 
Saaphng site 
Date 
Tiae 
Sulfur dioxide 
Nitrogen oxides 
Ozone 
B1 level 
4/13/85 
0100 
2 
28 
10 1 
Bi level 
4/13/85 
0200 
2 
25 
10 1 
B1 level 
4/13/85 
0300 
2 
28 
8 t 
61 level 
4/13/85 
0400 
3 
34 
3 1 
Bl level 
4/13/35 
0500 
2 
50 
3 1 
Bl level 
4/13/85 
0600 
1 
L 
46 
4 t 
Bl level 
4/13/85 
0700 
3 
46 
4 t 
61 level 
4/13/85 
0800 
4 
43 
5 1 
Bl level 
4/13/85 
0900 
2 
31 
9 1 
Bl level 
4/13/85 
1000 
T 
31 
26 t 
61 level 
4/13/85 
1100 
2 
31 
29 1 
Bl level 
4/13/85 
1200 
2 
34 
54 X 
Bl level 
4/13/85 
1300 
2 
28 
38 1 
Bl level 
4/13/85 
1400 
2 
34 
48 t 
61 level 
4/13/85 
1500 
O 
L 
37 
62 X 
Bl level 
4/13/85 
1600 
2 
34 
60 X 
61 level 
4/13/85 
1700 
2 
31 
53 1 
61 level 
4/13/85 
1800 
1 
31 
14 1 
Bl level 
4/13/85 
1900 
I 
34 
12 1 
Bl level 
4/13/85 
2000 
1 
31 
12 1 
Bl level 
4/13/85 
2100 
1 
31 
10 t 
61 level 
4/13/85 
2200 
1 
28 
11 t 
61 level 
4/13/85 
2300 
0 
28 
8 X 
61 level 
4/13/05 
2400 
0 
28 
1 X 
Hiniaaa 0 
25 
3 
Maxima 4 
50 
62 
— No aeasureaents 
Mere eade at this 
tiae. 
1 Ozone aeasureaents 
Mere aade in the photocopy rooe located in 
rcca IN-27. . 
12 Measurements of Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, 
and Ozone in the National Library of Medicine 
Table 8 
Concentrations listed are in parts per billion (ppb) by eole. 
Satplmg site 
Date 
Tiae 
Sulfur 
dioxide 
Nitrogen oxides 
Ozone 
B1 level 
4/14/85 
0100 
1 
25 
7 1 
Bi level 
4/14/85 
0200 
3 
25 
5 X 
61 level 
4/14/85 
0300 
T 
0 
25 
4 X 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
0400 
4 
25 
3 t 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
0500 
5 
25 
2 1 
61 level 
4/14/85 
0600 
6 
25 
2 t 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
0700 
6 
31 
2 1 
61 level 
4/14/85 
0800 
7 
31 
2 t 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
0900 
7 
31 
2 t 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
1000 
6 
31 
3 1 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
1100 
6 
34 
3 t 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
1200 
6 
31 
5 X 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
1300 
3 
28 
10 1 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
1400 
T 
a. 
28 
10 1 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
1500 
n 
L 
25 
10 1 
61 level 
4/14/85 
1600 
2 
25 
10 X 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
1700 
2 
25 
10 I 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
1800 
2 
25 
9 1 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
1900 
2 
28 
9 X 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
2000 
2 . 
28 
8 t 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
2100 
<y 
L 
40 
5 1 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
2200 
2 
43 
4 t 
61 level 
4/14/85 
2300 
1 
34 
5 1 
Bl level 
4/14/85 
2400 
2 
31 
4 t 
Himaua 
I 
25 
2 
Haxiaua 
7 
43 
10 
— No aeasureaents 
xere «ade at this 
tue. 
t Ozone aeasureaents 
*ere eade in the photocopy root 1 
ocated in 
rooa IN-27. . 
13 Measurements of Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxides, 
and Ozone in the National Library of Medicine 
Table 9 
Concentrations listed are in parts per billion (ppb) by mole. 
Sampling site 
Date 
Tiee Sulfur dioxide 
Nitrogen oxides 
Ozone 
B1 level 
4/15/85 
0100 
2 
28 
5 1 
B1 level 
4/15/85 
0200 
n 
A. 
22 
7 1 
B1 level 
4/15/85 
0300 
2 
40 
8 t 
Bl level 
4/15/85 
0400 
1 
34 
8 I 
B1 level 
4/15/85 
0500 
2 
22 
3 t 
Bl level 
4/15/85 
0600 
3 
22 
6 t 
Bl level 
4/15/85 
0700 
2 
31 
3 1 
61 level 
4/15/85 
0800 
5 
50 
2 1 
61 level 
4/15/85 
0900 
— 
— 
3 t 
61 level 
4/15/85 
1000 
— 
— 
4 t 
Bl level 
4/15/85 
1100 
— 
— 
30 t 
Nimiui 
1 
22 
2 
Haxiiui 
5 
50 
30 
— No leasureients 
Mere eade at this tiee. 
1 Ozone eeasureients 
were eade in the photocopy root 
located in 
rooi IN-27. . 
14 Temperature and Relative Hueidity Heasureeents 
Table 10 
Teiperatures listed are in degrees Celsius. 
Stapling site 
Date 
Tiae 
Teaperature 
Relative 
huaidity 
B2 level 
4/08/85 
1455 
22.0 
36 2 
B2 level 
4/09/85 
0930 
22.1 
36 2 
B2 level 
4/09/85 
1155 
22.0 
36 2 
62 level 
4/10/85 
1000 
22.0 
29 2 
61 level 
4/10/85 
Average teiperature 
1510 
22.0 
22.7 
29 2 
61 level 
4/11/85 
1055 
22.8 
34 2 
61 level 
4/12/85 
1300 
23.2 
45 2 
B1 level 
4/15/85 
1055 
23.3 
56 2 
Average teaperature 
23.0 
15 INDOOR POLLUTANT MEASUREMENTS 
FIGURE 1. 
APRIL 0. 1905 (TIME IN HOURS) 
SULFUR 
DIOXIDE 
OXIDES 
OF NITROGEN 
CONCENTRATION (PRB) INDOOR POLLUTANT MEASUREMENTS 
FIGURE 2. 
APRIL 9, 1985 (TIME IN HOURS) 
SULFUR 
DIOXIDE 
OXIDES 
OF NITROGEN 
CONCENTRATION (PPB) INDOOR POLLUTANT MEASUREMENTS 
FIGURE 3. 
APRIL 10. 1985 (TIME IN HOURS) 
SULFUR 
DIOXIDE 
OXIDES 
OF NITROGEN 
CONCENTRATION (PPB) INDOOR POLLUTANT MEASUREMENTS 
FIGURE 4. 
APRIL 10. 1985 (TIME IN HOURS) 
SULFUR 
DIOXIDE 
OXIDES 
OF NITROGEN 
CONCENTRATION (PPB) INDOOR POLLUTANT MEASUREMENTS 
FIGURE 5. 
APRIL 11.1985 (TIME IN HOURS) 
SULFUR 
DIOXIDE 
OXIDES 
OF NITROGEN 
CONCENTRATION <PPB) INDOOR POLLUTANT MEASUREMENTS 
FIGURE 6. 
APRIL 12, 1905 CTIME IN HOURS) 
SULFUR 
DIOXIDE 
OXIDES 
OF NITROGEN 
CONCENTRATION <PPB> INDOOR POLLUTANT MEASUREMENTS 
FIGURE 7. 
APRIL 13, 1985 (TIME IN HOURS) 
SULFUR 
DIOXIDE 
OXIDES 
OF NITROGEN 
CONCENTRATION (PPB) INDOOR POLLUTANT MEASUREMENTS 
FIGURE 8. 
APRIL 14. 1985 (TIME IN HOURS) 
sum* 
DIOXIDE 
OXIDES 
OF NITROGEN 
CONCENTRATION CPPB) INDOOR POLLUTANT MEASUREMENTS 
FIGURE 9. 
APRIL 15. 1985 (TIME IN HOURS) 
SULFUR 
DIOXIDE 
OXIDES 
OF NITROGEN 
CONCENTRATION (PRO) INDOOR POLLUTANT MEASUREMENTS 
FIGURE 10. 
ozoc 
APRIL 11.1905 (TIME IN HOURS) 
CONCENTRATION (PPB) INDOOR POLLUTANT MEASUREMENTS 
FIGURE 11. 
OZONE 
APRIL 13. 1985 <TIME IN HOURS) 
CONCENTRATION <PPB> Appendix 5 
DRAFT PRESERVATION POLICY 
This Preservation Policy is established for the National Library of 
Medicine (NLM) pursuant to the authority contained in the National 
Library of Medicine Act of 1956 (P.L. 84-941), which charges the Library 
to "acquire and preserve ... library materials pertinent to medicine." 
NLM has an obligation not only to provide information needed by today's 
health professionals but also to ensure the availability of the 
scholarly biomedical record for future generations. 
NLM's preservation program is governed by the guidelines for selection 
of the biomedical literature for the NLM collection, as described in the 
Collection Development Manual of the National Library of Medicine. 
NLM's principal responsibility is to ensure the preservation of the core 
biomedical literature that it collects at the comprehensive level. The 
Library has a lesser responsibility to assist in the preservation of 
literature in the subjects related to medicine and health that it 
collects at the research level, NLM assumes no responsibility for 
preservation of materials in subjects it collects at the basic informa- 
tion level. Within these parameters NLM must ensure that the biomedical 
literature is preserved. The preservation of NLM's own collection is a 
major step toward the preservation of the entire scholarly biomedical 
record. NLM also has a responsibility to assist the preservation of 
important biomedical literature held by other U.S. institutions. NLM's 
preservation efforts should be coordinated with those of other national 
libraries, research libraries and biomedical libraries. 
Subject to the coverage guidelines in the Collection Development Manual, 
NLM seeks to preserve biomedical literature in all formats, including 
printed works, manuscripts, prints, photographs, audiovisual programs, 
and any additional formats that the Library may acquire in the future. 
Although most items in the NLM collection may be retained in the 
original form as long as they remain useful, NLM's primary preservation 
responsibility is for the content of the biomedical literature rather 
than its original format. The need to preserve the original format as 
well as the content of the literature varies depending on the nature of 
the literature. In general, the items in the NLM collection with high 
intrinsic value are rare books, manuscripts, prints, and photographs, 
but individual items that deserve preservation in the original format 
may be found throughout the collection. 
Preservation of all the core biomedical literature that NLM collects at 
the comprehensive level is desirable and probably achievable. In 
assigning preservation priority to groups of material, consideration 
shall be given to: 
uniqueness of the material 
level of use of the material state of deterioration of the material 
existence of preserved originals or preservation 
copies at other institutions 
relationship of the material to existing 
cooperative preservation activities 
availability of suitable preservation methods 
The NLH staff shall monitor developments in preservation techniques to 
ensure the use of the most cost-effective methods available and shall 
participate in research, development, testing, and evaluation of 
preservation technology. In selecting specific techniques for 
particular groups of material, the staff shall consider the likely 
future demand for the material, ease of use of the preserved originals 
or preservation copies, the cost and reliability of the preservation 
method, the cost of long-term storage of the preserved originals or 
preservation copies, and other factors as appropriate. 
Operational guidelines and procedures for selecting items to be pre- 
served, choosing preservation techniques, and processing items for 
preservation shall be detailed in a manual to be developed and amended 
from time to time in a manner to be determined by the Director. 
Definitions; 
"Biomedical" shall mean pertaining to health care, to 
the practice of the science and art of medicine broadly 
conceived, or to those branches of life sciences which 
are fundamental to that science and art. 
"Literature" shall be construed to include information 
not only in the form of the written or printed word, 
microforms and graphic materials, etc., but also such 
non-print information formats as audiotapes, videotapes, 
films (both still and motion picture), slides, computer 
tapes, etc. 
"Preservation" is the management of library materials to 
ensure their availability for use by future generations. 
Preservation encompasses such diverse activities as main- 
taining an appropriate storage environment, minimizing use 
practices that are harmful, providing physical or chemical 
protection to items, and making copies of literature in 
archival formats. 
"Comprehensive Level" shall describe a collection in which a 
library endeavors, so far as is reasonably possible, to 
include all significant works of recorded knowledge 
(publications, manuscripts, other forms) in all applicable 
languages, for a necessarily defined and limited field. This level of collecting intensity is one that maintains 
a "special collection;" the aim, if not the achievement, is 
exhaustiveness. Older material is retained for historical 
research. 
NLM collects the core biomedical subjects at the compre- 
hensive level. 
"Research Level" shall describe a collection that includes the 
major published source materials required for dissertations 
and independent research, including materials containing 
research reporting new findings, scientific experimental 
results, and other information useful to researchers. It is 
intended to include all important reference works and a wide 
selection of specialized monographs, as well as a very 
extensive collection of journals and major indexing and 
abstracting services in the field. Older material is retained 
for historical research. 
NLM collects these subjects it defines as related to 
medicine at the Research Level. Selections in these sub- 
jects are generally in English and selected foreign 
languages only. The selected foreign languages are usually 
French, German, Japanese, and Russian, but may vary 
depending on the primary centers of research in particular 
subject. Special language criteria, if any, are described 
under the individual subject. 
"Basic Information Level" shall describe a collection of 
up-to-date general materials that serve to introduce and 
define a subject and to indicate the varieties of informa- 
tion available elsewhere. It may include dictionaries, 
encyclopedias, selected editions, surveys, bibliographies, 
handbooks, a few major periodicals, in the minimum number 
that will serve the purpose. A basic information collection 
is not sufficiently intensive to support any courses or 
independent study in the subject area involved. 
NLM collects those subjects it defines as peripheral to 
medicine at the Basic Information Level. Selections in 
these subjects are generally in the English language 
only. Appendix 6 
Proposed Preservation Section: Rationale and Functions 
The formation of a new Preservation Section in the Reference Services 
Division is considered the most suitable option for a new organizational 
unit for the following reasons. 
1. Policy, planning, and most operational responsi- 
bilities are combined in one place so there is less 
potential for coordination problems and no split 
between the "glamorous" and "routine" aspects of the 
job. 
2. Host preservation workers are together under a 
single line authority. 
3. The size of LO senior staff and number of people 
reporting to ADLO remain unchanged. 
4. The responsibilities of the Office of the Chief, RSD, 
remain the same. 
5. The healthy tension between service demands and 
preservation considerations remains within RSD. 
6. A new Section with responsibilities comparable to 
existing LO Sections can be formed within the 
existing LO staffing level. 
Other options, including a small Preservation Office reporting directly 
to the Office of the Associate Director for Library Operations and a 
Preservation Division, appear to have significant disadvantages with 
NLM’s current organizational context. (A discussion of the various 
organizational options considered by the Planning Team appears in the 
"Report of the Task Force on Organizational Responsibility for 
Preservation Activities.") 
The new Preservation Section should be assigned the following respon- 
sibilities (asterisks denote functions not currently performed by any 
NLM unit): 
Management 
1, Coordinate the development of preservation 
policies (including preservation priorities, 
copyright implications, and use of archival 
copies). 
2. Plan and coordinate preservation programs. 3. Identify budget and staffing needed. 
4. Initiate and manage contract actions. (HMD 
will share this function.) 
* 5. Evaluate effectiveness of preservation 
programs. 
Cooperative Programs 
* 6. Work with publishers to promote original 
publication on archival quality materials, 
reprinting of important works, etc. 
* 7. Consult with professional societies when 
determining preservation priorities. 
* 8. Develop cooperative preservation activities 
with other national libraries, research 
libraries (ARL, RLG, etc.), U.S. biomedical 
libraries (the RML network), and foreign 
national libraries. 
* 9. Share preservation information. Including what 
has been preserved. 
Collection Maintenance 
10. Bind library materials. 
11. Make minor repairs. 
Technical Preservation/Conservation 
* 13. Monitor developments in preservation 
techniques, equipment, supplies and 
programs. 
* 14. Evaluate preservation impact of equipment 
and supplies used in processing and service 
activities. 
15. Monitor and control environmental conditions. 
16. Select items to be preserved. (HMD will share 
this function.) 
17. Search to determine if preservation copies 
already exist. 
18. Preserve library materials by appropriate methods. (HMD will share this function.) 
Education/Public Information/Consultation 
19. Train staff in the safe handling and 
processing of material. 
20. Provide users with information/training on how 
to use material without causing unnecessary 
damage. 
21. Provide consultation/education to other bio- 
medical libraries, special collections in 
medical history, etc,, regarding preservation 
issues and methods. 
Research 
22. Identify appropriate research efforts to be 
undertaken in conjunction with the Lister Hill 
Center and/or other organizations. 
The following preservation functions should continue to be handled by 
other units: 
1. Collection maintenance - storing and controlling 
the collections, gapping, shelfreading. 
(Circulation and Control Section, RSD) 
2. Collection integrity and security - preventing and 
detecting theft, guard force orientation and 
liaison, disaster prevention (including fire, 
water damage, mutilation, vandalism, etc.). 
(Circulation and Control Section, RSD; HMD; 
OA) 
3. Preservation and collection maintenance activi- 
ties related to special collections (e.g., 
manuscripts, prints and photographs, rare books) 
(HMD) 
4. Research related to preservation. (Lister Hill 
Center) 
In developing the plan for implementing the new Section, care should be 
taken to clarify its relationship to the other units that will continue 
to exercise responsibility for some preservation-related activities. 
Tables 7 and 8 provide a summary of recommended preservation activities 
and budget levels for the next five years.