Needs and potential solutions in conservation

There is a certain challenge to discussing the conservation needs of nonbook materials at a meeting of library specialists. While most of the presentations in this volume deal with the preservation of nonbook materials which librarians may very well encounter in the collections of their institutions, this paper addresses the "state of conservation" in general, in or outside the library field. To do so, the author did not have to start from scratch; in fact, his homework had been done already by the National Institute for Conservation of Cultural Property (NIC), about which more will be said later in this paper. This paper uses as its reference point a figure, prepared by NIC, that gives an overall assessment of the existing needs in various areas.published or submitted for publicatio