User and Staff Education

Preservation education programs for library staff and patrons are important in any library.

Library employees on the front lines in Circulation, Reference, or in the Stacks handle far more material than those in Preservation and thus have more opportunity to either shorten or prolong the life of library items. For this reason, Preservation communicates regularly with supervisors in departments and branches throughout the University Libraries about issues such as shelving and identifying volumes in need of treatment.

Library patrons have considerable opportunity to affect the condition of a few items at a time. In order to directly reach these patrons and the many employees of the University Libraries, Preservation conducts an annual “Book Doctor Clinic,” to which library staff, university staff, and students are invited to bring books from their personal libraries for examination and either a referral to a conservator or a quick repair.

Preservation also provides library service desks with informative bookmarks and periodically creates exhibits for the Hodges Library display case.

A future venue for staff preservation education in the University Libraries will be an online tutorial. The tutorial is under development and will be similar in focus to the preservation tutorial developed by Northwestern University found here:

Care and Handling of Books Tutorial Link

30-Nov-2006