Library Technical Services

John M. Olin Library Federal Depository Library

Binding and Replacement Policy and Procedures

REASON FOR POLICY

The Federal Depository Library Program recommends that its depository libraries have in place a written binding and replacement policy for documents. The Olin Library documents collection is an integrated collection, and the materials are treated as part of the larger collection of materials in Olin Library. Olin Library does not have a written binding or replacement policy for its materials, but it does have an active program. This policy will serve to describe how federal depository documents are treated with respect to binding and replacement in Olin Library.

BINDING GUIDELINES

1. There is no written binding policy, but documents receive binding and all other preservation and conservation treatment on the same basis as other library materials.

2. The Preservation and Conservation Department has a Commercial Binding Office which oversees binding of periodicals and serials.

3. A variety of techniques for treating unbound materials have been developed by the Conservation Department and are applied under the direction of the Commercial Binding Office.

4. Periodicals are often bound in quarter buckram with paper sides using the fan-glued binding technique.

5. Many serial issues and unbound monographs have their covers stiffened according to a conservation procedure.

6. Acid-free pamphlet binders are used when appropriate.

7. Congressional hearings and committee prints which arrive with brown or green paper covers are generally not bound or stiffened under current practice. Hearings and prints which do not have covers and are too large for pamphlet binding are given stiff paper covers, similar to the brown and green GPO covers, in a special procedure carried out by the staff who also stiffen books.

8. Books in need of repair are identified through the circulation process by Olin Access Services. The Book Repair unit of the Preservation and Conservation Department applies conservationally sound techniques for book repair.

9. The Preservation and Conservation Department has a Preservation Reformatting Unit to which a selector may recommend a title for digitizing or photographic replacement. (The Checklist of United States Public Documents, 1789-1909 was digitized in 1999.)

REPLACEMENT GUIDELINES

1. There is no written replacement policy, but documents are replaced and decisions are made on the same basis as decisions to replace other library materials.

2. Given the integrated nature of our documents collection, missing materials are reported to selectors by the Olin Access Services Department. Selectors make individual decisions about replacing missing titles and pay for replacements from their general book funds.

3. A decision to replace a missing Federal document might be influenced by the fact that Olin has a nearly complete collection of Readex microprint/microfiche and the appropriate machinery for reading and printing both microprint and microfiche. However, missing paper documents are often replaced with paper equivalents.

4. Replacements of Federal documents are ordered at the request of selectors by the Documents Librarian from standard sources, such as GPO, NTIS, the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, and commercial microform sources such as CIS.

Last Revised October 2002