Introduction to Conserving and preserving materials in nonbook formats (Papers presented at the Allerton Park Institute held November 6-9, 1988)

The thirtieth Allerton Institute was the second in the three decades of these Institutes to be devoted wholly to preservation of library materials. The first with this theme was the twenty-seventh Institute in 1981. In that conference, all but one paper dealt with paper-based materials. In that lone paper, Gerald D. Gibson covered preservation problems of "film, sound recordings, tapes, computer records, and other nonpaper materials" (Gibson, 1981, pp. 89-1 10). In his introduction, Gibson noted the difficulty he had experienced in covering the problems of each of these formats in one paper and hinted that each could well have formed the content of a discrete paper, so the germ of the idea for the 1988 conference came from Gibson's 1981 remark. In the intervening years, much effort has gone into identifying preservation needs and a great deal of attention has been given to paper preservation. Of course, many problems still remain in these areas; however, considerable progress has been made, especially in the realization that many other institutions share preservation problems with libraries. Meanwhile, the growing collections of nonbook materials in archives, museums, and libraries have increasingly shown the need to focus on the preservation problems of these formats. Each format has its own special conservation and preservation problems; yet, many formats are paper-based or have components that contain paper and are, therefore, also subject to all the problems related to paper. Some formats require special equipment which may become obsolete or present other preservation difficulties. This conference addressed the care and preservation of a wide range of nonbook materials and attempted to accomplish the following five general goals and purposes: (1) to identify issues and problems related to the preservation of nonbook materials; (2) to examine different methods and techniques used in the care and preservation of these materials; (3) to provide perspectives on research activities and future trends in nonbook preservation; (4) to indicate the role of vendors and suppliers in the preservation process; and (5) to suggest ways of utilizing strategic planning in the preservation process.published or submitted for publicatio