Longer Life Collections
Mellon Foundation grant funds new conservation research
The largest grant ever made for library and archive conservation research in the United Kingdom has been awarded to the British Library. The grant of $695,000 by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation will be used for two projects, one of which will use odorous compounds given off by old books to measure how fast the books are decaying.
Books keep being published, more each year. Major libraries have to keep copies of the new and the old books in perpetuity, for current and future users.
But books deteriorate, particularly books published since the middle of the 19th century. What causes the change and how best do we stop it?
In 2005 the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded the British Library a grant of $695,000 to study the deterioration of paper and books in the six UK legal deposit libraries and two UK national archives.
The British Library and partners are carrying out research into the impact of environmental conditions on book preservation and the future of book storage and conservation. The aim is to target conservation resources more effectively. We shall ensure that the national written heritage is preserved.
The project runs from October 2006 to March 2009. State of the art methods are being used to determine the condition of books and paper in these institutions. These ideas and techniques are being cascaded to conservators and curators in the UK.
