Caring for America's Library
Paper and Environmental Challenges
Since the late 1800s, preservation has been a documented subject of attention at the Library of Congress. However, only in more recent times have policies and programs become formalized. Utilizing appropriate treatments and technologies, the Preservation Directorate today aims to preserve for the current and future use of the Congress and the Nation a comprehensive record of American history and creativity and a universal collection of human knowledge.
In the final year of the 20th century, the directorate had a staff of 172, an appropriated budget of $11 million, and either program or budgetary responsibility for preserving all of the Library's holdings, including the approximately 10,000 items on average that are added to the institution's collections each working day. One of the first noted concerns by LC over preservation can be found in the 1898 annual report of the Librarian of Congress when John Russell Young commented on the "questionable quality of the paper upon which so much of the Library material is printed," the papers that were then being mass produced from wood pulp being far less permanent than the papers made prior to the 1840s which utilized rags. Decrying the use of this cheap, nondurable paper by publishers, Young warned that many of the works coming into the Library "threaten in a few years to crumble into a waste heap, with no value as record."9
Not only has the quality of paper been of continuing concern to the Library, but also the effect of the Washington, D.C. environment upon the Library's holdings. One of the first steps to minimize deterioration induced by the environment was taken in the early 1900s by Herbert Putnam, Young's successor as Librarian of Congress. Learning of British studies which indicated that sunlight was an agent of deterioration in leather book bindings, Putnam had the Library design a system for controlling sunlight in rooms. He directed the Superintendent of Buildings to devise a "system of blinds which will protect the . . . west windows" of the stack areas which were normally flooded by sunlight.
The final "Report of the Committee of the Society of Arts on Leather for Bookbinding"10 had confirmed the view that bookbinding leathers being used then were inferior to those used 50 years earlier; degradation was attributed to mechanical causes (changes in methods of manufacture and tanning) but also to the "injurious effect of light and gas fumes which at that time were common in many libraries."
Interestingly, similar findings of one of the earliest investigations into the causes and prevention of the decay of leather were reported some 60 years earlier by Michael Faraday to the Royal Institution.11 This resulted from a request by the Athenaeum Club, which had employed Professor Faraday to determine what was causing the deterioration of their leather chairs and books. Faraday "ascribed the damage to the heat and sulphur fumes emanating from the illuminating gas then used."
Coping with the oppressively hot and humid summer climate of Washington awaited the development several decades later of suitable air conditioning and dehumidification systems and controls. The Library's climate is now regulated to maintain temperature and humidity conditions appropriate to different types of collections. In addition, systems have been installed in all three LC buildings to filter out contaminants.
Notes:
9. John Russell Young, Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1898. [55th Congress, 3d Session, Senate Document No. 24.] Delivered December 12, 1898, pp. 45-46. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1898.
10. London: George Bell and Sons, 1905.
11. Michael Faraday, Light and Ventilation. London: Royal Institution, April 7, 1843.