In 2005 the Preservation Directorate completed more than 12 million assessments, treatments, rehousings and reformattings for books, codices, manuscripts, maps, cartoons, political posters, palm leaves, architectural drawings, photographs, newspapers, discs, film, magnetic tapes and artifacts. A total of 7,143,845 items were repaired, mass deacidified or microfilmed—a 70 percent increase over the previous year—attributable to advanced training for staff.
Left, a conservator removes laminate from a manuscript; right, a senior rare book conservator tags Thomas Jefferson's books for treatment. - Marita Clance
The Library took action to preserve its collections by:
- Deacidifying 296,119 books and 1,012,599 sheets of paper as part of the Thirty Year (One Generation) Mass Deacidification Plan to stabilize 8.5 million general collection books and more than 30 million pages of manuscripts in 30 years. Since the project's inception in 1995, the Library has deacidified 1.4 million bound volumes and nearly 3 million sheets of manuscript materials.
- Using a single-sheet treatment cylinder onsite at the Library to deacidify nonbook, paper-based materials that were too valuable to be transported to the mass deacidification vendor plant near Pittsburgh.
- Surveying 3.7 million special collection items for treatment, digitization, exhibition and relocation to off-site storage.
- Rehousing 786,676 documents, photographs, discs, film and magnetic tape reels and cassettes.
- Converting 4,664,992 documents, newspaper pages and motion picture reels to microfilm and digital format.
- Treating 4,188 items for mounting on the Library's Web site.
- Treating 577 items for display in Library exhibitions.
- Preservation microfilming of 2.7 million exposures (4.6 million pages).
The Library continued to play a leadership role in the preservation of materials in a variety of formats such as photographs, newspapers, films and sound recordings. The Library also played an outreach role in the preservation of the nation's heritage through several oral history projects. Highlights of these appear below:
Photographs. In August the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded a $40,000 grant to the Preservation Directorate to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the Library's photograph collections, create and evaluate a database structure to use as an assessment tool and make recommendations to address the needs identified in the survey. The survey of the Library's approximately 13.9 million photographs will allow photo conservators to plan and conduct photo preservation activities effectively and efficiently with limited staff and resources, and will provide a model that can be used to survey other photograph collections in large research institutions.
Newspapers. Over the past 23 years, access to American newspapers has been greatly enhanced through the efforts of the United States Newspaper Program (USNP) to catalog and preserve on microfilm approximately 67.5 million historical newspaper pages. In 2005 the Library continued to provide technical support to USNP grant recipients under an interagency agreement with the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which announced U.S. Newspaper Program awards of $1.4 million to fund continuing projects in California, Illinois and Virginia. Since 1982 the NEH has provided more than $52 million in support of USNP projects in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Building on the U.S. Newspaper Program, the Library of Congress and the NEH established the National Digital Newspaper Program in October with the awarding of more than $1.9 million in grants to six institutions to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers now in the public domain.
Left, Heloise visited the Library to interview conservation specialists for her "Ask Heloise" radio program on Lifestyle Talk Radio Network. She is joined by senior paper conservator Holly Krueger, center, and senior rare book conservator Yasmeen Kahn; right, CBS correspondent Steve Hartman, seated, and CBS Sunday Morning producer Mary Raffalli comb through the Library's collection of big-city and small-town newspapers looking for "good news" to feature on the show. Cameraman Tony Furlow taped the researchers in the processing area of the Newspaper Section, Serial and Government Publications Division. - Michaela McNichol
Two-year projects in California, Florida, Kentucky, New York, Utah and Virginia each will digitize 100,000 or more pages of each state's most historically significant newspapers published between 1900 and 1910. When completed, digitized newspapers will be made available through the Library's Web site.
Films. The Library continued its commitment to preserving the nation's film heritage. On April 27, 2005, President Bush signed into law the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-9), which included a provision reauthorizing the National Film Preservation Board program at the Library of Congress. The act authorized the National Film Registry, the National Film Preservation Board and the National Film Preservation Foundation until Oct. 11, 2009, and increased the Foundation's annual federal matching fund level from $250,000 to $530,000.
In December 2005 the Librarian of Congress announced the addition of the 25 films listed below to the National Film Registry, bringing the total to 425. Under the terms of the national Film Preservation Act, the Librarian of Congress is responsible for annually selecting motion pictures that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."
Sound Recordings. In October the Library announced the results of its commissioned study on the nation's audio heritage. The study, "Survey of Reissues of U.S. Recordings," found that most of America's historical sound recordings have become virtually inaccessible—available neither commercially nor in the public domain. Laws still protect the rights to fully 84 percent of recordings of interest to scholars and collectors made in the United States between 1890 and 1964.
Of those protected, rights holders have reissued only 14 percent on compact disc. This means that the vast majority of historically important sound recordings are available for hearing only through private collectors or at research libraries that collect the nation's audio heritage and have the equipment to play obsolete recordings.
During the year the Library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) discovered a seminal jazz tape featuring the Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane, recorded at Carnegie Hall in November 1957.
No recording of this landmark concert had been thought to exist until it was discovered as part of the Library's Voice of America Collection, preserved in the MBRS Recording Lab. Blue Note records released a CD of the recording in September, to public and critical acclaim.
In April the Librarian of Congress announced the third annual selection of 50 sound recordings to the National Recording Registry. Under the terms of the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, the Librarian is responsible for annually selecting recordings that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."
