Letter of Compromise

Group 1: Tarlton Law Library, Rare Books, Dr. Elizabeth Haluska-Rausch
Laura Bedford and John William Nordhaus

Letter of Compromise

Laura Bedford and John William Nordhaus request your permission to conduct a preservation assessment survey on a portion of the rare books included in the Tarlton Law Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections overall catalogue. We propose performing a stratified random sampling of the following nine collections as represented by their call numbers: KD, KGF, KJA, KJV, KK, KKT, France, Mexico, and Spain. Based upon the inventory listing provided to us, we believe these nine collections to contain approximately 1,134 titles, including oversize and small formats. We intend to sample between 8 and 15% of the 1,134 titles in order to provide a basic binding description, a condition assessment, and rehousing or treatment suggestions which will be broken down into three categories by degree of degradation: text block consolidation issues, text to board attachments, and general surface, aesthetic concerns. We will conduct this survey on consecutive Wednesday mornings from 9:30 am to noon, beginning February 11th and finishing no later than April 29, 2009.

We will construct a survey form, to be vetted by yourself prior to performing our survey, that will categorize descriptive binding information including but not limited to covering material and type, format, board to text attachment types, date of imprint, and whether or not prior conservation work has been performed. Condition information will include evidence of RH exposure, light damage, brittleness of text block, as well as specific notations directly relating to the aforementioned three treatment categories such as broken text block, missing boards, detached spine labels, or exterior bloom due to prior application of leather bloom. A pilot test of the survey tool will be performed on February 11th to determine the amount of time necessary to document and assess the condition of a book. Based upon these results, we will fix a percentage of the nine collections to then be sampled.

On or before May 6, 2009, we will provide you with both written documentation and a PowerPoint presentation of our sampling results. We will include at this time suggested preservation policies that can be applied to the collections specifically as well as scaled out to your overall inventory. Examples of such preservation policies might include: providing sturdy pamphlet binders to unsupported pamphlets interspersed with books on the shelves; using large size check-out place markers when removing books from the shelves to avoid having the adjacent books slump over or fall down; or removing ephemera (such as loose adhesive-backed bookplates) from the volumes and store them in another filing location.

If at any time during our survey we believe our time estimates or survey questions to no longer be valid or appropriate, we will adjust the scope of our survey and inform you immediately. All appropriate user handling guidelines, as referenced in the ‘Rules for Use of Materials in the Tarlton Law Library Rare Books and Special Collections’ on the TALLONS website, will be followed closely. We also understand if at any time and for any reason you need to reschedule our allotted survey time, and will adjust our project accordingly. Both Laura and John are equal participants in this project and either can be contacted for any questions or concerns you may have at the following contact points:

Laura Bedford – laurabedford@earthlink.net cell: 617-5494-8943
John William Nordhaus – jwnord@gmail.com cell: 972-977-3732