so, what is malacology, anyway? melissa bradshaw may 30-july 6, 2002

So, What Is So, What Is MALACOLOGYMALACOLOGY, ,

Anyway?Anyway?

Melissa Bradshaw

May 30-July 6, 2002

mal·a·col·o·gy \mal- -`käl- -jē\ n.:

e e

a branch of zoology dealing with mollusks—invertebrate creatures with soft, unsegmented bodies, many of which house themselves in shells.

About the Project

Arranged for May 20 to June 21

Lisa Rebori, Collections Manager

John Wise, Curator of Malacology

Goal: to create a finding aid and needs assessment survey for an estimated 600 volumes and housing for 400 Chenu prints

Houses the Burke Baker Planetarium, Wortham IMAX Theatre, Cockrell Butterfly Center, and three floors of natural science halls and exhibits

About the Museum

Founded in 1909Fourth most highly attended museum in the U.S.Most highly attended attraction in Texas (over two million visitors annually)

About the Museum

Permanent exhibits Astronomy

Space Science

Native Americans

Paleontology

Energy

Chemistry

Gems and minerals

Malacology

Texas wildlife

Largest malacology library in the U.S.

Used as a reference collection for the curator, researchers, and volunteers

Books do not circulate and most are not highly used

A volunteer librarian had created a list with most of the titles and had organized the library into sections

About the Library

About the Library

Began building the library inthe 1960sHad friends in the oil business who helped acquire much of the collection

Various malacologists and malacological organizations donate their collections to HMNSAppraised at over $400,000Almost complete set of prints by malacogist J. C. Chenu valuing over $40,000

Dr. Tom Pulley, curator of malacology and museum director

About the Library

Types of publications:Monographs

Multi-volume sets

Serials• Journals• Newsletters

Atlases

Catalogs

OversizeReprints

• Bound• Unbound

Voyages & ExpeditionsSet of over 400 prints by J. C. Chenu

About the Library

Dates of publication of volumes:1 from the 17th century (1684)39 from the 18th century (1731-1799)618 from the 19th century321 from the first half of the 20th century573 from the second half of the 20th century 5 from the 21st century (2000-2001)33 unknown (no printed publication date)

About the Library

It takes up roughly two rows of

compact shelving located in the Collections department

The books are in all types of formats and sizes and in many different languages

A number of items that are part of multi-volume sets have been commercially rebound in half-style leather

Chapter 1: OrganizationCut and pasted list from Word to Excel

Added titles to list

Changed organization of sections

Rearranged Atlases, Catalogs, Voyages & Expeditions, and Bound Reprints sections

Chapter 2: Labelling

I created bookmarks for each volume containing

Location on the shelf

Author

Title

Date of publication

I matched the bookmarks with the appropriate volumes

There was no previous labeling system for books

There were discrepancies and errors in the listBooks in a multi-volume set often had different publication dates and different authorsI constantly came across books that had not been added to the listThe final count of titles came out to 1,578

The bookmarking process took five weeks to complete because…

Chapter 2: Labelling

Chapter 3: Creating the Survey

I referred to “The Yale Survey: A Large-Scale Study of Book Deterioration in the Yale University Library” and sample surveys from students’ needs assessment survey projects for ideas

I created a sample survey and tested it on ten booksEllen had suggestions on customizing it better to fit the books in the collection

PreliminarySurvey

Tool

Chapter 3: Creating the Survey

The final survey tool contained…Bibliographic information

• Author• Title• Year of publication• Whether item is a first or special edition

Dimensions

Location on shelves

Structure

Final Survey Tool

32.5 26.7 5.8

Chapter 3: Creating the Survey

Condition of paper

Condition of binding

Leaf attachment

Leaf attachment condition

Environmental damage

Treatment needed• Minor• Major• Immediacy of treatment

For conservation treatment

Chapter 3: Methodology

Random samplingAlphabeticalEvery tenth book

Twenty percent of the collection (316 books)Only books from the Monographs & Serials sectionEnlisted the help of some Ecoteens (high school summer volunteers)

Chapter 4: Results

Of the 316 books surveyed…35 need conservation treatment (11%)

• 11 minor repairs• 24 major repairs

19 need phase boxes (6%)9 need pamphlet binding (3%)11 need commercial rebinding (3.5%)251 can be shelved as is (79%)77 have yellowing paper (24%)53 have brittle paper (17%)

Chapter 5: Wrapping Up

Reshelving/Combining sections“Books” and “Series” sections

“Fossil Malacology” section

New books

Wrote summary of project with results for Lisa and John

Would like to continue project and evaluate remaining sections (Periodicals, Newsletters, Reprints), the Chenu prints, and perform treatments

Many Thanks to…

Lisa Rebori

John Wise

Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa (for helping with a project I’d never done before!)

Chela Metzger (for helping identify those unfamiliar binding structures)

Karen Pavelka (for helping to land the project in the first place)