College and Research Libraries Use-Based Selection for Preservation Microfilming Paula De Stefano The national brittle books program and, by extension, the development of a nationally preserved collection have followed a very narrow selec- tion approach that excludes those portions of the nation's research li- braries that are used. Sole reliance on the collection-based , or subject- based, approach to preserving brittle books has dominated microfilm- ing activities in the nation's research libraries. Even though use has served historically to trigger other preservation treatments, such as re- pair, it has become practically extinct as a method of identifying brittle books for preservation microfilming and, thus, contributing to a nation- ally preserved collection of scholarship. The author questions the sole reliance on the collection-based approach to preserve brittle books and, at the same time, argues for the development of a more coherent strat- egy for the long-term preservation of brittle , circulating materials. Ill ethods of selection are an emi- nently important part of pres- ervation, while the ability to question, reexamine, and change, where needed, is fundamental to the whole of any profession. 1 The discus- sion here intends to promote use as a valid and worthy selection method for numerous reasons. Surprisingly, use has received little serious consideration in the literature to date. Yet, when queried, pres- ervation professionals strongly advocate its merit and, curiously (or, perhaps, not so curiously), use is gaining favor as a possible method for selecting materials for digitization. 2 The selection method that dominates traditional preservation microfilming projects to date is the sub- ject- or collection-based approach. Lest librarians turn a deaf ear to the future re- searchers we expect to serve through the rigid embracing of a single selection ap- proach to preservation, there needs to be more inquiry into possible supplements to the collection-based approach to ensure that the limited resources expended on preservation do preserve materials rel- evant and useful to future scholars. More- over, we must be attentive to the fact that society will not continue to support the large-scale preservation of research ma- terials without the assurance that ratio- nal, well-reasoned choices are made in an economical, financially responsible fash- ion. It behooves us, then, to reexamine our decision-making apparatus periodically and to contemplate continually new and better ways of proceeding. This examina- tion of use-based selection is not an in- dictment of the subject- or collection- based approach. Rather, it is a deliberate Paula De Stefano is Head of the Preservation Department at the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University, 70 Wa shington Square South, New York, NY 10012; e-mail: destefan @elmer1.bobst.nyu.edu . 409 410 College & Research Libraries attempt to focus attention on questions that not only have not been seriously, or adequately, answered, but also, in some cases, have not been asked. In the words of F. Gerald Ham, "the real cause for con- cern is that there doesn't seem to be any concern." 3 The use-based method of selection has long been a traditional means of trigger- ing preservation treatment in libraries. Margaret Child writes: Libraries always have been con- cerned about maintaining the us- ability of as large a portion of their collections as possible. Policies and procedures are therefore in place in most libraries to intercept materials identified, usually at the point of circulation or shelving, as in some way damaged or deteriorated.4 Yet, despite its traditional roots as a method of triggering a preservation de- cision, employing a use-based method of identifying candidates for filming has never been pursued seriously as a legiti- mate vehicle for selecting titles to add to the national collection of microfilm mas- ters. Rather, the collection-based para- digm has been widely accepted and wholly embraced as a model. Why? One essential reason draws on the mechanics of paradigm development and another involves positive reinforcement of the paradigm itself, primarily for reasons set up by the group that adopted it. Thomas Kuhn's valuable research in the develop- ment and evolution of scientific para- digms in The Structure of Scientific Revo- lutions, pr.ovides insight into the mechan- ics of that phenomena. Kuhn states, "Paradigms gain their status because they are more successful than their competi- tors in solving a few problems that the group of practitioners has come to recog- nize as acute." 5 The problem that the preservation community has recognized as acute, of course, is the brittle books problem. Tre- September 1995 mendous attention has focused on that issue in the professional literature. The specter of millions of decaying, unrecov- erable volumes of scholarship on the shelves of research libraries all across the · nation stunned the library community. Working against time, expediency fueled the engines of huge microfilming projects as collection-based selection proved itself most practicable in reformatting as many brittle, or soon to become brittle, materi- als as fast as possible. Deemed far too slow to address such a catastrophic cri- sis, other competing paradigms, such as selection based upon use and biblio- graphic models of selection involving title-by-title reviews, were not equally employed, nor have their merits been tested or evaluated. 6 Positive reinforcement of the collec- tion-based paradigm by the preservation community has established it further as an almost de facto method of selecting materials for preservation microfilming projects. Beginning with the early Re- search Libraries Group (RLG) Americana projects in 1984 and continuing with the RLG "Great Collections" projects, subject- and collection-based approaches, respec- tively, were tested c;tnd widely deemed acceptable. Furthermore, the National Endowment for the Humanities' (NEH) strong endorsement has limited micro- filming projects to ones with subject- or collection-based selection approaches, thereby reinforcing the concept with the lure of funding ? Likewise, the Commission on Preser- vation and Access advocated in 1989 that although scholars may initially reject an approach that does not proceed on a title- by-title basis, the collection-based ap- proach "is more efficient to preserve all . the materials in a particular category than to deliberate lengthily about the relative importance of specific titles." 8 So much conviction in the concept of the collection- based approach promoted a belief in its viability as a sole source selection method to combat the brittle books crisis.9 The following explains further the last stage of such widespread acceptance of the collection-based approach. Kuhn aptly points out that: "During the period when the paradigm is successful, the pro- fession will have solved problems that its members could scarcely have imagined and would never have undertaken with- out commitment to the paradigm." 10 In this case, that is indisputably true. In no other way could so many brittle books have been committed to microfilm on such a huge scale. The ambitious, na- tional brittle books program, originally proposed by the Commission on Preser- vation and Access in 1988, has resulted in NEH' s tally of 640,000 brittle books mi- crofilmed between 1988 and 1994.11 Sweeping through collections enabled the filming of brittle books to proceed at a remarkably rapid pace. And, for that reason, the collection-based approach continues to be accepted and employed to fulfill a mission of expediency and to resolve what has been perceived as an acute problem-with expected re- sults. In fact, it is quite possible that the collection-based approach has inadvert- ently fostered an immoderate propensity toward quantity and competition for funds, rather than promoting an inclina- tion towqrd quality of selection, as well as a more rational development of guide- lines to support the selection process it- selfY The credibility of the argument of ex- pediency and the utility of the subject- or collection-based approach is not disputed here. Such an approach clearly is by far more efficient than title-by-title decision- making, and it is significant that the con- sensus among well-informed preserva- tion librarians and collection develop- ment professionals supported the collec- tion-based paradigm as it gained national popularity. What is disturbing, however, is the degree to which this method of se- lection has been adopted as the sole ap- proach to selecting materials for preser- vation from the great stores of knowledge Use-Based Selection 411 held in the nation's research libraries. The question remains, does the sole reliance upon "strong" collections produce the kind of preserved national collection that properly records intellectual diversity and important scholarship, or does it just passively repeat existing patterns of col- lecting in an attempt to save time? Embedded in the attitude of expedi- ency another question remains: who are we serving? Is the preservation commu- nity really serving the scholars of tomor- row? Or are we satiating our fears and stemming our panic? The wholesale adoption of a collection-based approach has been predicated on the brittle books crisis, but is the imminent deterioration of large segments of the nation's research materials an accurate judgment? Exist- ing scientific inquiries seem to refute that urgent claim.B As Dan Hazen points out ... does the sole reliance upon "strong" collections produce the kind of preserved national collection that properly records intellectual diversity and important scholarship? and Barclay Ogden illustrates, "straight- line graphs, which are plotted on semi- log scales on pages 38-43 (of W. J. Barrow's Permanence/Durability of the Book: A Two- Year Research Program), may mis- lead casual readers. Fixed-interval verti- cal axes would produce curves that in all cases level off over time." 14 Proceeding from Barrow's indication that rates of deterioration do level off, Hazen postulates that "[t]he time frame in which we must act may be longer than we first assumed, and our options corre- spondingly broader." 15 If this is indeed true, a policy of expediency is foolish be- cause the "presumed urgency of preser- vation puts us in some danger of proceed- ing without having fully assessed the pri- orities and possibilities." 16 Expediency fosters reactionary behavior, which, by some, may be interpreted as "proactive," 412 College & Research Libraries but, as Peter M. Senge points out in his impressive book on systems thinking: [A]ll too often, "proactiveness" is reac- tiveness in disguise [author's italics]. If we simply become more aggres- sive fighting the "enemy out there," we are reacting-regardless of what we call it. True proactiveness comes from seeing how we contribute to our own problems [author's italics]. It is a product of our way of thinking, not our emotional stateY Modified to take condition into ac- count, the collection-based, "vacuum cleaner" approach to selection evolved into a more acceptable, less reactionary method over time.18Still, a large percent- age of the titles selected for microfilming within a given collection are of very low use; while circulating titles, by and large, are not being microfilmed, or, by exten- sion, not being added to the nationally developed collection of microfilm mas- ters.19 It is exceedingly odd that what re- ceives little use in our research collections is considered "nationally" important enough to microfilm as part of the na- tional brittle books program. Yet, at the same time, materials that are used are, in effect, deemed insignificant contributions to the national brittle books program by virtue of the decision not to microfilm them.20 In doing so, preservation and col- lection development professionals imply that materials that are used are somehow inferior to what remains on the shelf. Re- grettably, what results is an incoherent, misguided approach to preserving valu- able scholarly materials simply because they are currently of use to today' s re- searchers. Ironically, the argument that little-used materials are precisely the ones most ap- propriate for microfilming may justify local decision-making for today's re- search needs, but that argument does nothing to address the needs of future scholars. 21 Following Ross Atkinson's September 1995 proposition, researchers of the future will have class 3, low-use materials at their disposal because they were preserved on microfilm, but class 2, high-use materials may never have been considered for a long-term preservation decision because the libraries' local decision was to photo- copy and bind them instead. It isn't clear exactly when or even if the high-use items will ever receive a long-term preservation decision as part of our national brittle books program. Only a tacit assumption prevails that these materials will be pre- served eventually, and the issue is left at that. In fact, it is quite possible that funds may disappear before today' s high-use materials are ever preserved for future scholars. The fact is, use does generate thousands of brittle materials in need of preserva- tion in many of the large academic re- search libraries in the country every year. 22 What is alarming is that many of those volumes, for which no replace- ments exist, sit in backlogs for years, or only receive the cheapest, most inconse- quential treatment available, e.g., some kind of wrapping or enclosure, before being returned to the shelf for further deterioration. 23 A few libraries with large enough budgets are choosing to reformat these materials, but, by and ]Jlrge, the method of reformatting is preservation photocopy (similar to Atkinson's pre- scription for level2 collections, it seems), not preservation microfilming, i.e., short- term preservation, not long-term preser- vation. While photocopying may serve a local preference, on a national scale, in deference to the long-term preservation and access that our national brittle books crisis is built upon, what long-term pres- ervation benefits can the future scholar derive from a photocopy? Photocopied books become damaged through han- dling and may get lost, stolen, or muti- lated. For that reason, preservation pho- tocopying is more like a replacement choice than a preservation option. Is it sensible to be ignoring the clues that today' s scholars and researchers are giving us about what is important to their research? Is it prudent to defer the long-term preservation decision? Why not use those clues now to contribute to the national preservation microfilm- ing effort and to make a separate, local decision to photocopy, or wrap, mate- rials and return them to the shelves at the same time? Two arguments are lodged by critics against use as a method of selection for preservation microfilming projects. One argument states that not everything that is used can be deemed worthy of preser- vation. The other claim is that such a se- lection method would result in a hodge- podge of unrelated materials. The former argument is no more than a specious ob- servation, easily resolved by a subject specialist's review. Not surprisingly, re- spondents to a recently conducted survey aimed at eliciting information specifically about procedures for processing brittle materials identified through use mecha- nisms, reported overwhelmingly that materials identified for microfilming through use, like their collection-based counterparts, were always reviewed by subject specialists before a preservation decision was made. 24 And all respondents answered "no" when asked specifically if items were preserved simply because they had been used. 25 Moreover, some respondents indicated that items selected through use were given a more thorough review than those reviewed for collection- based preservation projects.26 In discussing Ogden's "condition and use" method of selection for preservation, Atkinson agrees that such an approach could represent a complementary system of cooperation, but renounces it on the grounds that if institutions based their se- lection decisions upon local decisions alone, the net result could be "an uncoor- dinated and randomly developed na- tional collection." 27 This may be true if use were adopted as the sole method of se- lection, but not if use were employed in Use-Based Selection 413 tandem with a collection-based approach. A supplemental scheme would be purely complementary. There are other reasons not to rely solely on a collection-based approach to preserve our national heritage. Although many strong collections exist in the ma- jor research libraries of this country, and although it is tempting to believe that one strong collection is sure to have most of what's important in a given subject, these assumptions provide false confidence. Although many strong collections exist in the major research libraries of this country, and although it is tempting to believe that one strong collection is sure to have most of what's important in a given subject, these assumptions provide false confidence. Even our basic texts tell us that "[t]here is no such thing as a typical university library collection .... " 28 The history of collection development in academic libraries in the United States attests to an inconsistency in book selec- tion and a lack of coherent selection poli- cies, especially during the period 1850 to 1940, which is also the most significant period for most preservation microfilm- ing projects. Up until the end of the nine- teenth century, American university li- braries were considered feeble : "[R]egular book budgets were tiny or nonexistent; the collections · were almost exclusively the result of more or less chance gifts; [and] teaching was by textbook. ... " 29 Not until the 1920s did American uni- versity libraries begin to grow signifi- cantly, as a consequence of increased book funds. 30 Further, according to J. Periam Danton, as American libraries were built well into the twentieth century, collection develop- ment was done 100 percent by the faculty, rather than the library and resulted in "what is, possibly, the most serious criti- 414 College & Research Libraries cism of present American practice, namely the largely uncoordinated nature of the selection and resulting collec- tions." 31 Pointing out the vagaries of such practice, Danton continues: "The major- ity of titles in the book stock of the typi- cal American university library are there as a result of scores of thousands of indi- vidual, uncoordinated, usually isolated decisions, independently made by hun- dreds of faculty members." 32 Such practice was part of a philosophy that was ''based upon the premise that the books for the library should be se- lected primarily by members of the teaching staff, since it is they who best know," a philosophy supported strongly by ALA and ACRL. 33 One of the disad- vantages to such a collecting policy, says Danton, is that it produces unbalanced collections because of the tendency by faculty to "purchase books on a personal- interest basis." 34 Danton recalls two "true- life" examples, one of the "philosopher in a major university who firmly and hon- estly believed that little in post-Kantian philosophy was worth studying or read- ing" and "ordered almost no philosophy books on the nineteenth or twentieth cen- turies;" and another of a political scien- tist who specialized in Central Europe at another major university, but "[b]ecause he disliked what he knew of German po- litical theory, he consistently refused to buy any books in the German language in his field." 35 To illustrate such gaps fur- ther, Danton cites the results of the Waples-Lasswell study conducted in 1936 of 500 English, French, and German so- cial sciences titles, compiled by special- ists and deemed of primary importance. The study found that "Harvard held 63 percent, and the universities of Chicago, California, and Michigan, 49, 40, and 31, respectively."36 In addition to the gaps that result from personal-interest purchases, collections also suffer from extensive buying in nar- row specialty areas in which faculty '"have left behind them accumulations of September 1995 books that will be little used by anyone else."'37 Not until the 1950s did Ameri- can university libraries collectively begin to take control of the building of their li- brary collections.38 Over the years, retrospective develop- ment and weeding of collections in American university libraries has re- dressed some imbalances. However, re- cent experience bears out the results and observations of Danton's study. For ex- ample, the American Philological Association's (APA) microfiche project to preserve the most important titles in the literature of the classics was predicated on the comprehensiveness of the classics collection at Columbia University Librar- ies. During the course of the project par- ticipants discovered that Columbia lacked over thirty percent of the titles considered most important by the project's editorial board of classicists.39 Margaret Child cau- tions against full reliance upon the col- lections approach to preservation, using the APA project as an example. She says that "simply filming a single strong col- lection is insufficient to provide the 'rep- resentative collection."'40 She points out further that, in addition to the thirty per- cent of titles lacking in the Columbia clas- sics collection for the AP A project, "A pre- liminary check of a sample of 100 titles not found in the Columbia libraries against theit NUC [National Union Cata- log] records showed that no library re- ported having more than 53 of them." 41 Using samples compiled from multiple bibliographic sources, RLG verification studies conducted in the 1980s measured collection strengths in a number of sub- ject areas among RLG institutions. Its purpose was to evaluate collection strengths among member libraries for the purpose of comparison.42 The data the studies provide indicate a wide range of collection strengths among RLG libraries when measuring absolute titles in a given subject area. For example, the verification study for French literature shows that per- centages of holdings for the 1,000 mono- graph and serial titles in the sample ranged between sixteen and sixty-two percent among the participating member libraries. The report's remarks indicate that "(1) thirty-one items were held by all institutions; (2) one hundred twelve were not held by any; (3) seventy-four items were held uniquely ... . "43 This particular study indicates quite vividly the case in point: significant gaps can and do occur within even the top research libraries in the country. Some verification studies in other subject areas showed equally dra- matic results, while others did not. How- ever, in all cases, it is abundantly clear that no one collection has everything. There are other reasons to explore the idea of supplementing the collection- based approach. Ogden argued strongly for an approach based on "condition and use" to hasten the preservation of embrittled materials and allow greater participation by research libraries. He writes: "Every institution could make a contribution to the total effort by preserv- ing titles whose local use and embrittled condition warrant action. Broad partici- pation could be encouraged by establish- ing a funding program to supplement li- brary commitments with outside re- sources." 44 Jan Merrill-Oldham makes a similar observation: The Research Libraries Group project model has paved the way for stepping up efforts to film brittle books by subject. A complementary approach to preservation microfilm- ing by subject is microfilming driven by workflow .... I envision a pool of money available for the film- ing of any title identified by any li- brary that has demonstrated the ability to conduct a full biblio- graphic search for availability, to inspect filmed items according to es- tablished standards, and to create appropriate bibliographic records. In this way we can truly share the Use-Based Selection 415 burden of addressing the brittle books crisis, while fulfilling local responsibilities.45 Both Ogden and Merrill-Oldham initially made the above remarks at a meeting of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) in October 1988. Yet, years later, an organized approach based upon use- generated titles has never been pursued. More recently, in 1990, Martin Runkle al- luded to the same idea at a preconference of the ALA: I wish that we could find a way to fund the microfilming of titles that are randomly identified as micro- filming candidates in many librar- ies across the country-identified ei- ther through use or through system- atic review of the collections .. .. There should be a way to structure a program in which some defined, but relatively large, group of librar- ies could conveniently send off their embrittled copies to be microfilmed, at no cost to the library. The library could be responsible for searching the titles first for the existence of preservation copies, at least in the major databases. Such a program would complement, not replace, other approaches. 46 Whether to ensure the long-term pres- ervation of important titles omitted from collection-based microfilming projects or to spread the responsibility of preserva- tion microfilming more equitably among libraries, use-based preservation micro- filming as a component of the national brittle books effort is consistent with the philosophy of a national initiative: to pre- serve and make accessible embrittled re- search materials for future scholars. It is time to reconsider the preservation strat- egy that says only volumes identified as part of a collection are worth preserving and adding to the national collection of microfilm masters. A deliberate and co- 416 College & Research Libraries September 1995 herent strategy for the long-term preservation of used materials-that matches the same degree of preservation extended to whole collections-is overdue. Notes 1. Harold Billings recently wrote, "The single most important challenge in the preservation process is selection." See his "The Information Ark: Selection Issues in the Preservation Pro- cess," Wilson Library Bulletin 68 (Apr. 1994): 35. Also see Margaret Child's remark that, "Ulti- mately, the success or failure of late twentieth-century efforts to preserve our intellectual heri- tage will be judged by how well what we decide to save meets the needs of the future," in her "Selection for Preservation," in Advances in Preservation and Access, ed. Barbara Higginbotham (Westport, Conn.: Meckler Publishing, 1992), 147. 2. Paula De Stefano, "Use-based Selection Survey," summer 1994. Responses to this author' s recent survey indicated that 30 out of 35 preservation administrators believe that microfilming brittle books identified through use contributes to the national effort to preserve brittle books. A query of the ShaRES members of the Research Libraries Group (RLG) during spring 1994 by Carol Ann Hughes, ShaRES representative for RLG, indicated that the membership preferred use over other types of selection methods for materials to be held in the form of digitized records. I am indebted to Carol Ann Hughes for sharing this information with me. 3. F. Gerald Ham, "The Archival Edge," American Archivist (Jan. 1975): 2. Ham's discussion of the lack of acquisition guidelines in archives parallels a similar lack of selection guidelines for preservation microfilming. 4. Margaret Child, "Selections for Preservation," 153. A survey of 35 research libraries con- firms this: 31 of the 35 reporting preservation administrators indicated that damaged or deterio- rated materials were routinely identified at service points within their libraries for some kind of remedial treatment. De Stefano, "Use-based Selection Survey." 5. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d. ed. (Chicago: Chicago Univ. Pr., 1970), 23 . 6. "Selection for Preservation of Research Library Materials," Commission on Preservation and Access Report (Washington, D.C.: Commission on Preservation and Access, Aug. 1989), 3. Most notable among bibliographic approaches to selection has been the approach employed in the American Philological Association microfiche project in which an editorial board of seven scholars selected the materials for preservation. See Bagnall and Harris, "Involving Scholars in Preservation Decisions: The Case of the Classicists," Journal of Academic Librarianship 13 (July 1987): 140-46. 7. A report produced by the ARL Working Group on the Review of the NEH Preservation Program states that "Librarians believe there needs to be eligibility for other selection models that identify important endangered materials that go beyond the subject-based approach." This report refers directly to the need "to also receive funding to preserve the brittle [books that] have circulated." The report directly refers to this method of identification as "use-based" selec- tion . .. " and notes the need "to more easily fill in gaps for areas already filmed." Furthermore, the Working Group's Recommendation #3 states that NEH should supplement the subject-based approach to selecting materials for microfilming with "selection based on use and additional methods .... "Association of Research Libraries, "Report of the Association of Research Librar- ies, Working Group on the Review of the NEH Preservation Program" (Washington, D.C.: ARL, May 1993), 10-11. 8. "Selection for Preservation of Research Library Materials," 3. 9. Kuhn observes that agreement further cements a paradigm's acceptance in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 27. 10. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 24-25. 11. George F. Farr Jr., Director, Division of Preservation and Access, National Endowment for the Humanities, telephone conversation with author, September 22, 1994. (Volumes filmed are also reported in NEH' s annual report.) 12. Ham, "The Archival Edge," 6. I am indebted to Ham's connection between the idea of quantity and competition versus the advantages of quality and cooperation as they relate to the acquisition of archives materials. 13. Barclay Ogden has written that the notion that "all brittle paper is in danger of imminent disintegration" is "mostly false." See "Preservation Selection and Treatment Options," in Min- utes of the lllth ARL Membership Meeting (Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, Use-Based Selection 417 1988), 38-39; Louis Charles Willard refutes the basis of the national preservation program be- cause it is founded largely upon the fallacy of overstated percentages of brittle volumes existing in the nation's research libraries. "Brittle Books: What Order of Preservation," Microform Review 20:1 (Winter 1991):· 24. 14. Dan C. Hazen, "Preservation in Poverty and Plenty: Policy Issues for the 1990's," Journal of Academic Librarianship15 (Jan. 1990): 345, no. 3; see also Barclay Ogden's redrawn graph of Barrow's semi-log graph, in "Preservation Selection and Treatment Options," 39, and compare with W. J. Barrow, Permanence/Durability of the Book: A Two- Year Research Program (Richmond, Va.: W. J. Barrow's Research Laboratory, 1963), 40, fig. 3. 15. Ibid., 345. 16. Ibid., 346. 17. Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organiza tion (New York: Doubleday /Currency, 1990), 21. 18. Child, "Selection for Preservation," 152. Child does a superb job at defining selection methods and their evolution. 19. De Stefano, "Use-based Selection Survey." Responses to this survey indicate that 23 of 35 preservation administrators surveyed reported backlogs of brittle books in their institutions. Further, only 14 of the 35 institutions surveyed have a preservation microfilming program in place for brittle books identified through use. And most of these 14 institutions report very little filming: a total of only 4,744 volumes were filmed last year, out of 18,981 brittle books identified through use. Instead of microfilming, many more are photocopying brittle books, or simply providing some kind of protective enclosure for brittle books. Others restrict us~ of their brittle materials in backlogs. 20.1bid. When asked why microfilming of brittle books identified through use had decreased or ceased, most respondents answered that photocopying was the preferred reformatting op- tion in their institution. 21. Ross Atkinson, "Selection for Preservation: A Materialistic Approach," Library Resources and Technical Services 30 (Oct./Dec. 1986): 347. 22. De Stefano, "Use-based Selection Survey." Among the 35 libraries responding to this survey, 31 reported that an aggregate of 18,981 embrittled volumes were identified last year when returned to circulation, or at some other service point in their libraries. 23. Ibid. After photocopying, the second most common treatment cited for brittle books, among the libraries responding to this survey, involved some kind of protective enclosure. 24. Ibid. According to this survey, all of the research libraries with active preservation micro- filming programs for brittle books identified through use reported that these materials were always reviewed by a bibliographer before microfilming. 25 . 1bid. 26. Ibid. 27. Ogden, "Preservation Selection and Treatment Options," 38-42; Ross Atkinson, "Preser- vation and Collection Development: Toward a Political Synthesis," Journal of Academic Librarian- ship 16 (May1990): 101. 28. Dorothy Broderick and Arthur Curley, Building Library Collections, 6th ed. (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1985): 47; Paul Metz and Bela Foltin Jr. recently stated that, "It is generally conceded that even the best collection development programs will have gaps, so that works of potential value in a number of areas will simply not be acquired," in "A Social Appearance of Madness-or, Who's Buying This Round? Anticipating and Avoiding Gaps in Collection Devel- opment," College & Research Libraries (Jan. 1990): 33. 29. J. Periam Danton, Book Selection and Collections: A Comparison of German and American University Libraries (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1963), 13. 30. Ibid., 88-89. 31. Ibid., 34-35; 74. 32.1bid., 74. 33. Ibid., 35; 77. 34.1bid., 69. This comment brings to mind Roger Bagnall's reported experiment during the APA project. When five members of the editorial board for that project were given two shelves to review for preservation, "[t]he scholars differed significantly on the number of titles recom- mended for preservation." See Bagnall and Harris, "Involving Scholars in Preservation Deci- sions," 145. 35. Danton, Book Selection and Collections, 72. 36. Ibid ., 75. 37. Ibid., 77, n. 121. 418 College & Research Libraries September 1995 38. Ibid., 80-82. 39. Roger Bagnall, 'Who Will Save the Books? The Case of the Classicists/' The New Library Scene 6 (Apr. 1987): 17. 40. Margaret Child, "Further Thoughts on 'Selection for Preservation: A Materialistic Ap- proach'/' Library Resources and Technical Services 30 (Oct./Dec. 1986): 357. Here Child is respond- ing to Ross Atkinson's "Selection for Preservation: A Materialistic Approach/' Library Resources and Technical Services 30 (Oct./Dec. 1986): 341-43, especially his assertion that the "only one practical method for a large scale cooperative preservation program that has any chance of success and that is to begin to build the program not around subjects but rather exclusively around subject collections in place" (Child, 349). 41. Ibid., 357. Here Child is citing RogerS. Bagnalt "A Model Microfilming Project for the Classical Studies, RV-20030-84/' First Annual Performance Report (June 1, 1984-May 31, 1985): 3. Unpublished report to the National Endowment for the Humanities. 42. Paul Mosher, "The Nature and Uses of the RLG Verification Studies/' College and Research Libraries News 46 (July I Aug. 1985): 336-38. 43. Annette Melville, "Verification Studies; Statistical Summaries/' (report by the Research Libraries Group, March 30, 1989). The report indicates that the verification study for French literature was originally conducted in 1983 and included the following institutions: University of California at Berkeley, Brigham Young University, Brown University, Colorado State Univer- sity, Columbia University, Cornell University, University of California at Davis, Dartmouth Uni- versity, Indiana University, Iowa University, Johns Hopkins University, Library of Congress, Michigan University, New York Public Research Library, New York University, Northwestern University, University of Oklahoma, Penn State University, University of Pennsylvania, Princ- eton University, Stanford University, Temple University, and Yale University. 44. Ogden, "Preservation Selection and Treatment Options/' 41. 45. Jan Merrill-Oldham, "The Preservation Program Defined," in Minutes of the 111th ARL Membership Meeting (Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, 1988), 23-24. 46. Martin Runkle, "Preservation Programs, Past and Future." (Paper presented at the Asso- ciation for Library Collections and Technical Services Preconference, "Preservation Issues in Collection Management," June 22, 1990.) Letter A (Friendly) Comment (or Obser- vation) on One (Recent) Article To the Editor: Joy Tillotson's article, "Is Keyword Searching the Answer?" (C&RL 56 [May 1995]: 199-206), reminded me of the project I did many years ago for the Dem- onstration and Research Center for Early Education, George Peabody College, Nashville, Tennessee. I called it aug- mented-KWIC. It consisted of rewording the titles to include in parentheses words that searchers might be looking for. Tillotson's title might have become: "Is Keyword (subject vs. controlled vocabu- lary) searching (in online public access catalogs) the (useful) Answer?" At Peabody College much of the material was preprints and drafts. This approach led to the discovery that many articles were lacking in essen- tial details concerning the subjects studied. 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