FOR THIS AND FUTURE GENERATIONS MANAGING THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CONSERVATION AND USE Available to Purchase

MY THEME affects all of the community who live with or by books. This theme is that all of the book community, but most particularly librarians, have given priority to the exploitation of library materials over their conservation in use to such an extent that accumulated neglect is almost irrecoverable in economic terms. Particularly is this the case with modern books, say those published from the middle of the nineteenth century. Within them the seeds of destruction in the form of lignin and the acidic content of paper, sizing, adhesives, leather and even the ink upon the pages could condemn them to an unusable state in less that a lifetime even if kept in reasonable conditions.