United States Serial Set Preservation Project

U.S. Serial Set Preservation Project

Day 16 - 13 June 2003

Gail worked on dusting and shifting from 10am to noon.

Day 15 - 10 June 2003

Gail worked on dusting and shifting from 10:30am to noon.

Day 14 - 6 June 2003

Gail worked on dusting and shifting from 3pm to 4:30pm. 210 linear feet moved so far.

Day 13 - 4 June 2003

Abbie, Mary Linn, and Gail discussed contingency plans for the event that the project budget is not approved. Mary Linn may be able to absorb some of the costs with the Archives budget. She also has some supplies already on hand including cleaning supplies, bookslips, and wrapping paper.

Gail worked on shifting and dusting 3:30pm - 4:30pm.

Day 12 - 3 June 2003

Gail worked on shifting and dusting from 3pm to 4:30pm.

Fleming installed a pipe to hold the paper roll securely on the wrapping station.

In order to avoid duplication of effort and missing dirty volumes, we decided that as Gail shifts, she will mark volumes in need of cleaning with a slip of acid-free paper. Then, as time permits, someone will go back and clean these volumes and remove the slip.

Day 11 - 29 May 2003

Mary Linn and Dale Sauter (Special Collections Librarian) set up the wrapping area on two tall tables. Fleming Thomas will acquire a piece of 1/2 inch pipe to support the roll of paper. We decided that the paper is too heavy to be easily supported with a wooden rod.

Gail, Abbie and Mary Linn discussed methods for cleaning dirty volumes, which have good bindings. Mary Linn suggested either document cleaning powder or groom/stick paper cleaner. Both methods are effective, but time consuming.

Gail worked on dusting and shifting from 3:00pm to 4:45pm.

Abbie worked on cleaning dirty volumes from 4:00pm to 4:45pm

Here are some more pictures of older volumes desperately in need of preservation. It is these volumes that we will wrap and tie.

We are working on a budget right now, and when it has been finalized and approved I will post it here. Preliminary figures estimate the cost to be in the range of $5,500 - $6,000 for the project making it a little less than $1 per volume.

Day 10 - 28 May 2003

Gail worked on dusting and shifting from 4:00pm to 5:00pm.

Gail and Abbie discussed a few issues concerning dirty volumes. Many volumes, which do not need to be wrapped are just plain filthy. Is there a way to clean these? Need to discuss with Mary Linn.

Will there be enough shelving for oversize volumes? Map/atlas cases will house the thinner volumes, but we will probably need to save some shelving for larger, thicker volumes.

Day 9 - 27 May 2003

Gail worked on dusting and shifting from 3:45pm to 4:45pm. 51 shelves or 127.5 linear feet shifted so far.

Day 8 - 26 May 2003

Gail worked on dusting and shifting from 11am to noon.

Mary Linn Wernet is working to schedule some comp-time in June to work on the project.

Gail set up a box fan in the area to help with cooling and air circulation.

Day 7 - 22 May 2003

Gail worked on dusting and shifting from 3pm to 5pm. Finished the first side of shelving. So far I have shifted 32 shelves or 80 linear feet.

Day 6 - 21 May 2003

Fleming Thomas and Lee Moses moved two empty atlas cases from the Cammie G. Henry Research Center to the serial set area. Shreveport is donating a map/atlas case and we are waiting for it to be moved from there to here. We will use these to store oversize volumes.

Gail worked on shifting and dusting from 3:30pm to 5pm.

Day 5 - 20 May 2003

Mary Linn Wernet spent 1 hour counting volumes that need to be wrapped. She estimates that approximately 3,500 volumes will need to be wrapped. All volumes will need rare book tags.

Gail and Mary Linn talked to Martha Henderson (cataloger and Head of Technical Processes) about cataloging. She agreed that a serial record with holdings for each volume is the best way to go since full cataloging would be too consuming of time and resources. However, she believes that each volume should have a barcode for the sake of inventory and because of consistency between collections.

Day 4 - 16 May 2003

Mary Linn Wernet (Archivist) reviewed the older leather bound volumes. Many volumes are not as damaged as originally believed. We will discuss this in greater detail later.

Day 3 -15 May 2003

Fleming Thomas and Lee Moses moved two tall tables into the area. These will be used later as a surface for wrapping and tying the older volumes.

Gail worked on shifting and dusting from 4pm to 5pm

Day 2 - 13 May 2003

Today Gail worked on dusting and shifting from 11am - 1pm. During this time she also shelf read volumes 5218 - 13171-4 looking mainly for sections out of order. There were none.

Issues for further discussion -

Housing oversize volumes - shelving or atlas/map cases
Intermittent missing volumes - possibility of acquisition? Should we leave room on the shelves for them?
Cataloging - serial record vs. full cataloging? Must each volume have a barcode?

Day 1 - 12 May 2003

Today Abbie Landry, Mary Linn Wernet and I began by doing some general cleaning and dusting of the area. We picked some Serial Set volumes up off the floor, rearranged some shelving and began the dusting and shifting of the newer (and better bound) Serial Set volumes.

Some "before" pictures -