Selecting Rare Books for Physical Conservation: Guidelines for Decision Making

When funds are limited, librarians and curators responsible for selecting rare books for conser vation treatment must base their decisions not only upon physical condition, but also upon the ''value'' assigned to each physically deteriorated book. This article discusses the rationale for, and possible uses of, guidelines designed to facilitate conservation decisions by systematically evaluating and weighing such factors as monetary, intellectual, and aesthetic value, projected use, and usability. eciding which books in a library collection should receive con servation treatment is rarely simple. Particularly in a special collections department or rare book li brary, conservation is a complex process of analysis, evaluation, and resolution, as the physical requirements of each volume must be weighed against its intellectual and intrinsic value, the availability of fi nancial resources, and the priorities of the institution. Although any consideration of book conservation by librarians generally focuses on the technical aspects of diagno sis and treatment, another level of deci sion making is usually required: in a time when severely curtailed budgets are the norm, librarians, curators, and conserva tors are forced to select for treatment only a few of the many potential candidates in a collection. The failure to consider this essential ad ministrative aspect of the book conserva tion process is clearly apparent in the liter ature. It is not news that library materials are physically deteriorating and that li braries must accept the responsibility for their preservation. The problem of unsta ble and brittle books has become a major topic in ~brary lit~rature. · Book conservation has emerged as an independent and growing subfield of librarianship with a literature of its own. But, while technical problems have received considerable at tention, the role of the librarian or admin istrator in conservation has been all but overlooked.