# The Real Thing: Using Collections for Collaborative Conservation

The British Library is one of the top libraries in the world with responsibilities for a large number of books, approximately 625 kilometers (400 miles) of shelved items, including iconic books. In the United Kingdom, this responsibility is shared with five other legal deposit libraries. Many of the items are now becoming fragile, depending on the paper used to make them and the subsequent degradation. The legal deposit libraries along with two major British archives are performing research into the state of preservation of identical books deposited in the libraries. This group of institutions is looking at novel ways of assessing preservation condition. One method currently being explored is to correlate the volatile compounds being released by the books to their condition. The presentation is a description of the achievements and difficulties of this collaborative research.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2008
- By: Library Of Congress
- Genres: Science
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2021688169/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/2021688169?play=1)