Paper and Reformatting Chapter 2: Reformatting

Hopeless Cases and Indentification: To Replace or Reformat That is the

Hopeless Cases and Indentification: ► Books that require an unreasonable amount of work to repair ► Knowing you options:  Replacement  Reformatting

Replacement: ► Activities that result in the receipt of a duplicate of the irreparable volume through routine acquisition and gift processing ► This can include in-print vendors, antiquarian, e-bay, microform publisher

Reformatting: ► Activities that involve special efforts to have the text transferred to another medium in order to preserve the text ► Transfer to paper, microfilm and digital images

Brittle Books Programs: ► Programs are based on a couple of questions:  Based upon the library’s collecting policy.  Must the book be considered in its original format as a rare book or artifact?

Research Questions ► What treatment decisions should be made? ► Who should make the decisions? ► Should preservation staff play a role in the decision. ► All answers dependent upon type of organization. ► Base our decisions on a Search Results sheet-Who else has the item?

What about Copyright? ► Law allows for preservation of copyrighted works, “solely for the purposed of preservation and security”  Section 108 ► Include a notice or disclaimer indicating copy ► Reformatting is NOT to be used as acquisition ► Archives – Donor restrictions

Overview of Microfilm

Why Microfilm? ► It was used as an important part brittle books programs ► Predicted long life of up to 500 years ► Huge infrastructure developed for the creation and viewing of microfilm ► In 1989, Congress authorized NEH to implement a 20 year initiative to preserve intellectual content via microfilming. This ended in 2009

Why microfilm? (continued) ► No matter how you feel about microformats it is important to understand the procedures and development of microfilming and preservation facsimiles: ► Because:  As in the case of facsimiles, many patrons still prefer to have a copy in their hands  Libraries & archives must deal with microfilm and any continuing projects in their collection

Microfilm: ► Adhere to RLG standards ► Creation of three generations  Preservation copy or archival copy  Duplicate  Use or service copy

Microfilm (continued): ► Silver Halide – silver gelatin microfilm with a polyester base  Stable metal  Image on silver film is metallic silver  Tested lifespan 500 years  Scratches easily  Archival copy

Microfilm (continued) ► Diazo Film:  Intended for service copies  Polyester base  Life expectancy of up to 50 years because of possible fading  Chemical duplication using Ammonia  Blue Black image is produced

Microfilm (continued) ► Vesicular Film  Also intended for service copies  Polyester base  Life expectancy 10 – 20 years  Not vulnerable to fungal growth  Duplication by heat and emulsion to emulsion contact  White image on blue background

Microfilming Process: ► Decisions:  Outsourced or in-house?  Contracts and RFP’s ► Vendor Question Examples:  What are the costs?  Do you allow for visits to the facility?  Preservation guidelines?  Type of film?

Preparation of Material for Microfilming: ► Bibliographic searching ► Database searching – record keeping ► Collation ► Reel programming Source: microfilm.htm

Microfilm ► Typically get 600 – 900 frames in a reel ► With books, tend to get 2 pages per frame ► With oversized documents, 1 page per frame ► The number of frames on a reel depends on the orientation and size of the originals being filmed

Evaluation and Quality Control ► Methylene blue tests to check amount of residual thiosulfates on film  3 rd party ► Technical – cannot allow for scratches unless it is on leader - 6 splices are allowed ► Quality Index- at what level do you see the “e” and its relation to the linepair ► Bibliographic – Targets are in order

Filming Process: ► Reduction ratio desired:  Desired is 12:1 or 14:1 ► Microfiche – 16 mm, 24:1 ► Density – degree of blackness ► Image presentation:  Cine or comic mode Micro-File MRD-2 shoots 35mm and/ or 16mm film. Source: y_Microfilmers.html

Digitization ► The more popular reformatting choice ► Many projects that used to be done on microfilm have evolved to become digitization projects ► More grants are now issued for digital projects Source: php?id=164

Reformatting: Digitization vs. Microformat ► Still need to collate the items ► Still need to adhere to current best practices and standards ► Still need to consider access to the surrogate ► Still need bibliographic control ► If the items aren’t unique, investigate if someone else has already done the work

Paper and Reformatting Chapter 2: Reformatting