The Section for Preservation is responsible for the physical state of the Library's collections and it is fully engaged in continual maintenance work.
This maintenance is carried out in a variety of ways, but the basic work is that of repair and conservation. Repair work is done daily on books that are so damaged that they can no longer be used by our readers. It may be a matter of loose pages that are in danger of falling out, or the spines of books that are becoming detached, or book covers that must be replaced. This repair work has to be done quickly, but we strive nonetheless for quality in the materials and methods that we use.
Older items with cultural value require greater conservation measures and cannot be dealt with in the same way as the everyday repairs. In some cases the work takes a long time and must be carried out without disturbance from routine work. A map may be in need of repair, its fragile and damaged paper must be laminated, holes filled in with paper pulp, or a water-damaged edition must be dried and flattened out. Work of this kind is also carried out on a daily basis at the section.
Preservation however is not just a matter of such practical measures. Preventative conservation is a big and important area of our work. This may be a question of improving contingency plans for water damage, careful selection of materials for book binding and climate control in the stacks and in the display cabinets in the Exhibition Hall. This part of the work is more often than not a case of giving advice to other sections of the Library. An example is the out-sourced binding work where a training programme is planned in co-operation with the Carolina Library (which is responsible for binding issues), in an attempt to improve the quality of the book covers that are used for the Library. At present we are planning to implement the following Swedish Standard for quality assurance: SS 66 70 05 "Documentation - Requirements for binding of books, periodicals, serials and other paper documents for archive and library use - Methods and materials ".
