The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Preservation Endowment was established in 1999 to preserve Humanities research materials housed in Brown University's libraries.
Funding for the personnel and activities of this unit is provided through an endowment established by an NEH Challenge Grant awarded to the library in 1996, with fundraising completed in 1999. NEH Endowment work is based in the Rockefeller Library, although endowment funds help preserve Humanities materials housed throughout the Brown campus libraries.
The activities of the unit, supervised by Whitney Pape, include:
- Deacidification: A treatment to extend the life of acidic but not yet brittle paper media.
- Conservation Treatment and Repair of Collections: Including rebinding, minor repairs and mold removal.
- Rehousing: Including custom-designed boxes, archival quality housings, commercial and in-house binding and custom mats and boxes.
- Reformatting: Including preservation facsimiles and surrogates, and digitization of all types of library materials.
The NEH endowment surveys, tests, and provides treatment for existing materials as well as new acquisitions in humanities subject areas. Although endowment funds are focused on eight collections of note here at Brown: Old World Art and Archeology, Music and Ethnomusicology, Ancient Studies and Classics, the Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays, the History of Mathematics, the H. P. Lovecraft Collection, Egyptology and the McLellan Lincoln Collection, all humanities collections treatments are covered by the endowment.
For further information, please contact the NEH Preservation Librarian.
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