Funding for Library Preservation: Endowments as Income Streams

Abstract

Preservation activities have existed in libraries since the early days of librarianship, but these efforts were mostly decentralized and buried in the work of many different departments. Not until the 1970s did library organizations begin to add preservation to organizational charts on a departmental or middle management level, along with its new administrative costs. At that time, libraries were struggling with early efforts at automation and the many changes it would bring to their organizations. Preservation department functions, formerly decentralized from an administrative and budgetary standpoint under the headings of commercial binding, book repair, special collections, or circulation, were now identified as a budget line forced to compete for funds with newly formed library systems departments as well as other traditional library functions. This was particularly difficult given that a large portion of the costs of a comprehensive preservation department were new and additive (Fasana and Baker, 1992, p. 132), yet provided few immediately evident benefits. A burgeoning library systems unit could place libraries on the cutting edge of technology; automated card catalogs could improve productivity and efficiency for staff, and also provide for better patron access to collections. Needless to say, systems departments were much better funded than preservation units at this time.

Citation

Pape, W. and Shoaf, E.C. (2009), "Funding for Library Preservation: Endowments as Income Streams", Lynden, F.C. (Ed.) Advances in Librarianship (Advances in Librarianship, Vol. 27), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 119-158. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2830(03)27005-7