The mission of the Barbara Goldsmith Preservation Department is to preserve, protect and thereby extend the usable life of the NYU Libraries' collections. The department pursues this objective in accordance with the mission and goals of the Libraries, and in conjunction with the University's research mission.
The Preservation Department is responsible for the following activities: commercial binding, conservation treatment, reformatting, disaster preparedness, staff and patron education, and a program to monitor climate control in the Library. In addition, department include programs for moving image and sound preservation, as well as digital conversion. The conservation treatments used in the conservation lab include rebinding, recasing, rebacking, boxing, deacidification, paper cleaning, washing and, mending, as well as other minor repair work in order to preserve collections for current and future scholars. Conservation treatments preserve the physical object through professionally accepted treatments that prolong the life of the materials.
Reformatting techniques are used for books and archive materials that cannot be physically repaired because the paper is too brittle to sustain conservation treatment. These techniques include preservation microfilming and preservation photocopying. In addition, special grant-funded preservation projects are conducted on an ongoing basis within the department to preserve damaged and deteriorating non-book materials, such as, photographs, music scores and audio/visual materials. Moving image and sound preservation are designed to provide collections care, such as proper housing, and reformatting for these rapidly deteriorating collections. The department also administers digital conversion projects that include a preservation component.
From the guide to the Records of the Barbara Goldsmith Preservation and Conservation Department, 1990-1996, 2004-2009, (New York University Archives)
