Background
The Barrow Book Collection is comprised of 1000 books from the period of 1507-1899 that William James Barrow (1904-1967) used in a series of scientific studies on the degradation of paper. The research was funded by the Council on Library Resources and conducted at the W. J. Barrow Research Laboratory at the Virginia Historical Society during 1963-1965. The studies involved performing analyses of book leaves including fiber analysis; physical testing for fold endurance and tear resistance; chemical testing for pH (cold extraction); chemical spot testing for aluminum, rosin, and ground wood; and chemical testing for the presence of carbonates.
Results from the research were published posthumously in two reports entitled Permanence/Durability of the Book (V and VII). The work was significant because it demonstrated clearly for librarians, archivists, and paper conservators what had been well known in the chemical, pulp and paper, and historical literature regarding the negative impact of acidity on the longevity of paper. Barrow's data clearly show that over the centuries from 1500-1900, the increasing use of alum and rosin sizing, and the concomitant decreasing levels of carbonates (alkaline reserve), caused the pH of 100% rag (linen) paper to decrease (become more acidic), which resulted in significant reductions in paper strength. The use of wood for making paper occurred in the early 1840s, and wood cellulose inherently becomes more brittle faster than linen cellulose. However, Barrow's data for wood vs. rag papers produced during the 16th-early 20th centuries show that acidity overwhelmingly determines the strength of the papers, not the quantity of wood present.
Contributing Studies
Barrett, T.; Ormsby, M.; Shannon, R.; Schilling, M.; Mazurek, J.; Wade, J.; Brückle, I.; Lang, J.; and White, J. Non-Destructive Analysis of 14th–19th Century Papers. The Book And Paper Group Annual 29 (2010), American Institute of Conservation, Washington, DC 2010. p.111.
Barrett, T.; Shannon, R.; Wade, J.; and Lang, J. XRF Analysis of Historical Paper in Open Books. In: L Shugar, A. and Mass, J., 2012. Handheld XRF for Art and Archaeology, 191-214. Leuven University Press.
Roggia, S. William James Barrow: A Biographical Study of His Formative Years and His Role in the History of Library and Archives Conservation From 1931 to 1941. Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1999.
Stephens, C.; Barrett, T.; Whitmore, P.; Wade, J.; Mazurek, J.; and Schilling, M. Composition and Condition of Naturally Aged Papers. Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 47 #3 (2008): 201-215.
Permanence/Durability of the Book—V: Strength and Other Characteristics of Book Papers 1800-1899. W. J. Barrow Research Laboratory, Richmond, VA, 1967.
Permanence/Durability of the Book—VII. Physical and Chemical Properties of Book Papers, 1507-1949. W. J. Barrow Research Laboratory, Richmond, VA, 1974.
Project Description
The Barrow Book Collection was donated to the Preservation Directorate in the 1970s. When the original Barrow research was conducted, the analytical chemical methodology available for the studies was limited. However, new 21st century analytical instrumentation and methodologies for elucidating the chemistry of paper degradation can be applied to samples from the Collection, which may significantly advance our current understanding of the detailed mechanisms behind paper degradation. In addition, the collection has now aged over 50 additional years under known, shared environmental conditions, making it a unique resource for comparative aging studies.
The collection also forms a small scale “museum” of the history of book arts, incorporating a diverse assortment of historic parchment and velum bindings, decorative 19th c. publisher's bindings, and typical bindings from the 400 years it spans. Numerous printing methods, paper types, and typefaces are also represented.
Outcomes and Findings
A comprehensive database has been prepared that contains all the original data from Barrow's work, scanned and transcribed from the original microfiches, which can be sorted and statistically analyzed. This database has subsequently been expanded with the bibliographic data for each item, and detailed descriptive cataloging of the size, page count, paper type, watermarks, printing media, binding style, illustrations or supplemental plates, and condition. Pages previously removed for analysis have been indexed.
The books have been cleaned and re-housed in archival clamshell boxes in the Library's Center for Analytical Scientific Samples (CLASS), and are serving as one of the model projects in the development of the CLASS-D metadata framework.
Books from the Barrow Collection are now being utilized for research, both in projects internal to the Library of Congress, and collaborative projects with other institutions. These new research projects include statistical re-analysis of the full Barrow data set, repeated measurements of the Barrow Book Collection after accumulating an additional 50 years of natural aging, and assessment of books with new analytical tools, such as size exclusion chromatography and fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy.
Presentations and Publications
“Centuries of Cellulose: Lessons Learned from the Molecular Analysis of Cellulose in Aged Paper Collections”. Topics in Preservation Series, Aug. 29 2017. //www.loc.gov/preservation/outreach/tops/davis/index.html
“Chemistry in a library”. 254th American Chemical Society National Meeting, Washington D.C. Aug. 21 2017. https://tpa.acs.org/abstract/acsnm254-2751810/chemistry-in-a-library (ACS username and password required)
Acknowledgements
Frazer Glendon Poole (1915-1999), former Preservation Officer of the Preservation Office (now the Preservation Directorate), was instrumental in securing this collection for the Library.
Interns Adam Coffman, Jose Martinez, William Bennett, Delia Titzell, Alex Duroc-Danner and Megan Massanelli contributed to the data transcription, CLASS-D classification, surveying, cleaning, descriptive cataloging, and rehousing of the collection between 2008-2011.
PRTD interns Alice Han, Christopher Bolser, Lou Gwen Pacheco, Darlin Paredes, Riley Thomas, and Kristin Watts have contributed to analytical projects utilizing portions of the collection.
Barrow Books re-housed and used for modern analyses.
