Due in large measure to the considerable efforts of Robert Futernick and Craig Jensen The Book and Paper Group Annual has become a significant resource for the members of the Book and Paper Group who sponsor it and for whom, primarily, it is designed to serve. As evidenced by the rapid and growing sales of back issues and reprints, however, the Annual is also finding a larger audience among other conservators and among libraries and institutions in North American and Europe. This larger audience incurs a collegial responsibility to ease the acquisition and cataloging of the. Annual while at the same time incurring an ethical responsibility to restrain or at least caution an unknown and possibly untrained readership against mishandling information the Annual disseminates. Readers familiar with the Annual will notice a variety of new features -- ranging from international distribution numbers to cautionary statements -- added in response to the growing demand for it.
The use of photographic documentation has become an essential aspect of conservation research, verification, and publication. Yet, the reproduction of such illustrations is often beyond the means of publications of modest ambitions such as the Annual. It is therefore especially satisfying to report that an expanded use of photographic reproductions in the Annual has been made possible with a five-year grant from the Reva and David Logan Foundation. The Book and Paper Group is grateful to Reva and David Logan for their sensitivity to the specialized nature of this problem and for providing support designated specifically towards ameliorating it. The Book and Paper Group is also indebted to Bill Hollinger of Conservation Resources International for readily and enthusiastically continuing his in-kind support.
The editor also wishes to acknowledge Craig Jensen, Randall Couch, Elizabeth West FitzHugh and, through Elizabeth's good offices, the Board of Directors of the American Institute for Conservation. Their thoughtful and constructive comments concerning a refinement and articulation of the editorial policy of the Annual have been personally as well as professionally edifying. Provisional expression of the policy has been given in "A Note to the Reader" which follows.
In the "Dedicatory Epistle" for his Nature and Culture in the Iliad (1975) James Redfield observed:
Today the scholar perhaps believes that he has no patrons and requires none; he is of course deluded. It is only that his patrons have become more numerous, anonymous, and removed from his view, mediated by such agencies as the universities, the foundations, and the state. Patrons do not now support individual scholars but rather the enterprise of science and scholarship in general; the individual scholar will be wrong if he concludes that he has therefore no one to thank.
The authors whose writings appear herein and their editor offer their gratitude to Martin Runkle, Director of The University of Chicago Library and to Robert Rosenthal, Curator of its Special Collections, for allowing staff and facilities of one such mediating agency to help bring volume four of the Annual to fruition. This support is only a more recent manifestation of the considerable understanding and support both men have shown toward the needs of conservation broadly conceived.
To this must be added a word of personal and deeply-felt thanks to Elizabeth Rosenblatt. Throughout innumerable rounds of typing, correcting, and reformatting -- all the while for an editor famous for unpredictable changes of mind and with a computer well-known for its unreliability—she has kept a warm sense of humor and caught many errors before they became permanently fixed in print—bien des remerciements.
The formulas, materials, and techniques described herein should not be understood as having received the endorsement of the Book and Paper Group or that of its parent organization, the American Institute for Conservation. Furthermore, the articles which follow have not been subjected to peer review and responsibility for their accuracy and verifiability rests solely with the authors.
The practice of conservation is a specialized and often highly technical science. It requires several years of formal training and practical experience, especially in the testing and application of new or unfamiliar materials and methods to the conservation of historic artifacts. Readers untrained in conservation are strongly discouraged from attempting to put the information which follows into practice. Those interested in the application of materials or methods presented in the Annual may contact the authors directly by writing their addresses given at the conclusion of each article, or by contacting the American Institute for Conservation, 3545 Williamsburg Lane, N.W., Washington, D.C., 20008 for assistance in locating a conservator nearby.
The Book and Paper Group Annual is designed as a forum for members of the conservation community to share current information on the conservation and preservation of books, documents, works of art on paper, and photographic materials. Authors interested in submitting articles which fall within the Annual's scope should write the editor at the address on the copyright page of this volume.
Those interested in contributing articles outside the Annual's scope, or of interest to the conservation profession generally, are urged to write Marjorie B. Cohn, Editor, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, Harvard University Art Museum, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138. Additionally, articles which have appeared in the Annual and which have been well-received and stimulated further discussion should be considered by their authors for submission to the Journal.