During the coming year the TS/SIS Preservation Committee will be preparing a national plan for the preservation of legal materials. The goal of the Committee is to have a final report prepared by the summer of 2002. The plan will address the following five questions:

1. What do we mean by preservation? What methods do law libraries use to preserve materials?
2. Who is responsible for preserving legal materials?
3. What are we going to preserve?
4. Who decides what we are going to preserve?
5. Who is going to coordinate preservation work among libraries?

One component of preservation planning is the identification of various preservation projects in law libraries. Two such projects are described below.

The Historic State Codes Preservation Project, Edward Bennett Williams Law Library, Georgetown University Law Center.

-The following information is taken directly from Georgetown Law Library's website at http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/.

The Edward Bennett Williams Law Library is carrying out a project to preserve the historic state codes printed between 1840 and 1930 for all fifty states and the District of Columbia. There are two goals for this project: 1) to create a complete preservation collection of historic state codes from 1840-1930, and 2) to provide other libraries the opportunity to acquire these titles so that there are partial or complete preservation collections across the country.

In 1996, the Georgetown Law Library began the project to preserve historic state codes. Due to the nature of the paper used and the often unstable environments in which these books have been stored, the information housed in these books is at risk of being lost. Like other brittle books, these state codes require preservation reformatting in which contents of books are reproduced on a medium that is chemically, physically and technologically stable so that the information will continue to be accessible in several hundred years if stored under appropriate environmental conditions and used carefully. In the beginning, the codes were preservation photocopied by BookLab, Inc. in Austin, Texas, which closed in 1998. The project has since moved to Acme Bookbinding in Charlestown, MA where the codes are being preservation reformatted; pages are digitally imaged and printed on permanent paper (ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992) and then bound to meet Library Binding Institute standards (ANSI/NISO/LBI Z39.78-2000). The collection at Georgetown contains 960 titles, which represents roughly 50% of the state codes identified in Pimsleur's Checklist of Basic American Legal Publications (1992).

Supporting the efforts to create a complete preservation collection of historic state codes, the Maryland State Law Library, Delaware State Law Library, Washburn University Law Library, Arizona State Law Library, Gordon D. Schaber Law Library (UOP), Florida State University College of Law Library, Arkansas Supreme Court Library, and the University of Arkansas Library have contributed titles to the project. Georgetown encourages other libraries to contribute titles to fill in gaps so that they can preserve as many of these codes as possible.

Because the books are being scanned and the images stored, preservation facsimiles can be printed without having to re-scan the original. As a result, all titles completed in this project will be available for purchase from Acme Bookbinding. The list of titles completed and the list of titles in the pipeline are available on Georgetown's website. The lists are organized by state and therein by call number, and contain links to the bibliographic records in Georgetown's online catalog to assist with the identification of titles. Librarians may contact Acme directly if they are interested in any of these titles or have questions regarding pricing, availability, binding, or preservation photocopying.

If you have questions about this project or wish to contribute titles not on these lists, please contact Hilary Seo, Project Director and Preservation Librarian at the Edward Bennett Williams Law Library.

Records and Briefs Preservation Project, Library, Supreme Court of the United States

-by Diane Simpson, Assistant Librarian for Technical Services/ Special Collections

The Supreme Court of the United States started a project to preserve the early records and briefs of the Court in December, 2000. Preference has been given to the older volumes, from 1832-1900, due to their uniqueness. These volumes are filled with hand drawn maps, charts, graphs, and pictures, some in color. These inserts vary in size from 3 inches by 5 inches to 4 feet by 2 feet. Some of them have been folded, many times in some cases, to fit into the volumes. Through age and use, these volumes are in the early stages of deterioration. The Court has one of the few remaining paper copies and one of the most complete sets still in existence. Most libraries have purchased the microform collection and have discarded the original volumes. Through the use of these microform collections, it has been discovered that many of the inserts were omitted.

The decision was made to have an archival copy made of each volume and its inserts. The project is labor-intensive in its detail, but it contributes to the historic preservation of court documents that is necessary for the work of the Court and public use. As each shipment is returned to the library, the spine title, each page and the placement of each insert in the archival copy is compared to the spine title, pages and inserts in the original volume to ensure accuracy. The original inserts are being unfolded, and placed in labeled polyester sleeves, and will have conservation work done as needed at a later time. The project is being done by the Etherington Conservation Center. A project to digitize the records and briefs of the Court is in the planning stages.

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Members of AALL who have thoughts on the development of a national plan for legal materials are encouraged to contact Will Meredith, Chair of the TS/SIS Preservation Committee–or any member of the TS/SIS Preservation Committee. The Committee is very interested in hearing from libraries engaged in particular preservation projects. If your library has embarked on a project that contributes to the overall preservation of legal materials, let us know about it! The members of the 2001/02 TS/SIS Preservation Committee are as follows:

• Will Meredith, Chair (Harvard)
• Chris Anglim (St. Mary's University)
• Hope Breeze (Duke)
• Katherine Hedin (University of Minnesota)
• Kathryn Fitzhugh (University of Arkansas)
• Kevin Butterfield (University of Illinois)
• Pat Turpening (University of Cincinnati)
• Sally Wambold (University of Richmond)