College and Research Libraries By B E N C. B O W M A N Xerography, Possible Solution to The Bad-Paper Book Problem IN 1719, according to Dard Hunter, Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur first suggested wood as a substitute for rag or linen in the manufacture of paper. By 1885, sulphite pulp was being manu- factured and used extensively in the United States. Today, the question of how best to preserve and, at the same time, make available the vast literary, historical, and scholarly record commit- ted to pulp paper is a vexing problem for librarians. This seems especially true of research collections, wherein the ques- tion applies to materials which differ widely in kind, monetary value, availa- bility for replacement, and intrinsic value. T h e purpose of these remarks is to describe briefly one library's possible answers to this question and to invite comment and suggestion from others who may find them of interest. At the Newberry Library we continu- ally are faced with the well known prob- lem of what to do about books which are essential, expensive to replace (if indeed they can be found at all), and printed on paper so poor that any re- pair or rebinding is impractical. Dust is the destiny of such books, it seems, no matter how carefully they are used. During the past year we have selected a few of these books and made Xerox editions-of-one for circulation copies. At present, Newberry makes a 35 mm. mi- crofilm on its own camera and sends the negative to a Xerox processing company in Chicago which operates continu- ous Xerox printers developed recently Mr. Bowman is Assistant Librarian, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois. by the Haloid Xerox Company. T h e re- sults are quite satisfactory reading copies of a number of books Newberry was about to lose by reader erosion and for which it had expended considerable time and effort to obtain replacements, as well as to prevent careless handling. T h e cost of obtaining such a reading copy is, of course, relative. Depending upon the size of the original book, either two or four pages can be photographed per exposure. T h e more pages per ex- posure of film, the more pages per foot of Xerox paper, and this means lower cost of reproduction. Whether or not to make a Xerox copy for circulation also depends upon availability and price, and upon intrinsic value, for no research collection will want to replace every- thing automatically and without ap- praisal. Some books are best allowed, if not encouraged, to go their way to "dusty death." A book that would seem to be an ideal candidate for Xerox replacement is Volume IV of Yale Studies in English. It is an essay about Dryden that merits preservation; it is printed on bad paper; it is not easily found; it runs to 110 pages only; it measures 6x3i/2 inches, ideal dimensions for four pages per ex- posure; it was published in 1898. New- berry, consequently, made a Xerox copy of the book and introduced it into cir- culation. While our cost study of these Xerox replacements has not been car- ried out to the last penny, it is clear that this particular replacement cost well under five dollars for the complete job —camera time, binding, and handling. This use of xerography has been ap- MAY 1958 185 plied to other books at Newberry, books much less suited to economical repro- duction. For example, various volumes of the British Calendars were originally manufactured interspersed with gather- ings of varying length of very poor quali- ty sulphite pulp. Wherever these volumes are heavily used, it is not long before they are either unusable or withdrawn from circulation. At Newberry, in terms of their intrinsic value, the cost of tak- ing out the bad-paper sections, xerox- ing, and binding them into a volume with the good-paper sections was not found excessive. By the time one has gone this far with X e r o x and the prob- lem of bad paper, a number of ques- tions about the process, its practicality, its economy, and its general application manifest themselves. First, of course, are any other librar- ies doing something similar? Volume III, No. 4, of Microcosm announces the in- stallation of a X e r o x continuous printer at University Microfilms and prices for the prints. T h e existence in combination of a X e r o x continuous printer and a large negative microfilm archive suggests a second question for the bad-paper problem: Can multiple use of negatives be made practical? If Newberry has made a negative microfilm of Volume IV of Yale Studies in English, from which a Xerox edition-of-one can be made for a reasonable price, are there other libraries which also might want such an edition? Compiling a list of available microfilm negatives and circu- lating it might be worth while for re- M A L C at Carbondale search collections wanting to use Xero- graphy for replacing bad-paper items. At present, the negatives Newberry re- tains from the X e r o x processing com- pany in Chicago are not given an archi- val wash. T h i s poses questions of stand- ards, storage, and preservation. Working out costs and prices is another matter for makers of negatives and buyers of prints to consider. T h e least expensive X e r o x prints are on twenty-pound sul- phite paper, but the X e r o x continuous printers can turn out prints on papers of different quality. Paper more expen- sive than twenty-pound sulphite means, of course, an increase in cost. In any event, when one research li- brary has found it practical and econom- ical to X e r o x an essential or valuable bad-paper book from its collection, it seems desirable to give thought to the possibility of multiple use of the micro- film negative by other libraries wanting a like replacement of the same book. Recently, for example, while New- berry was considering the advisability of xeroxing an 1871 scholarly edition of Boethius printed on bad paper, an interlibrary loan request for the book came from Columbia. T h i s coincidence suggests that a standardized, locatable, and perhaps centrally deposited negative microfilm of a needed but disintegrat- ing book would be an asset to research libraries, and enable them to cooperate in acquiring replacements, in book form, of items that do not necessarily fall with- in the scope of the reprint projects. T H E M I D W E S T A C A D E M I C L I B R A R I A N S C O N F E R E N C E was held on the campus of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, April 25 and 26. T h e conference, de- signed for professional staff of academic libraries in the seven midwestern states, was addressed on Friday evening by Francis H . Horn, former president of Pratt In- stitute. On Saturday morning, Robert H . Muller, assistant director, University of Michigan Libraries, led a panel discussion on the question " W h a t Is Professional?" 186 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES