Caring for America's Library
Administrators of Preservation Offices and Divisions
In 1971, Peter Waters became head (Restoration Officer) of the Restoration Office, later renamed the Conservation Office and even later (1995) the Conservation Division. Waters was succeeded in 1998 by Mark M. Roosa as Chief of the Conservation Division, who was in turn succeeded in 2001 by Dianne van der Reyden. Dr. John C. Williams served as the first Research Officer of the Preservation Research and Testing Office; he was succeeded in 1982 by Dr. Chandru J. Shahani, who is now Chief of the Preservation Research and Testing Division. Lawrence S. Robinson initially directed the Preservation Microfilming Office, which was first designated as the Brittle Books Project when this program began in 1963. Robinson, who then served as Assistant Director for Preservation from 1980 until his retirement in 1989, was succeeded as manager of the reformatting program by Bohdan Yasinsky, then by Tamara Swora, and subsequently by Irene Schubert, and then Mark Sweeney, who is now Chief of the recently-renamed Preservation Reformatting Division. GPO's direction of binding activities from 1900 to 1967 was successively managed by Arthur Kimball, George Morgan, David Wahl, Ruth Kline, and George Smith. Direct Library management of the binding program continued in 1967 with Smith as the Binding Officer. He was succeeded by August Domer, Matt Roberts, William Underdue, and then by Debra McKern, now Chief of the Binding and Collections Care Division (as this office has been retitled). Dating from the 1930s, the Photoduplication Service was managed, successively, by Donald Holmes; Charles LaHood, Jr.; Norman Shaffer; and Linda Washington; followed by today's Chief, Kevin Flood. Collections maintenance, i.e., physical care (including inventorying, housing, movement, and cleaning) of the general collections, was initially a separate operation within this new preservation set-up, under the supervision of Emmett Trainor. This general collections maintenance activity was later moved to the Stack and Reader Division and is now managed by Steven Herman, Chief of the Collections Management Division.