2007 Reports

Final Performance Report: Preservation Microfilming Project: Slavic Culture and History, Phase IV

Gertz, Janet Elaine

The Slavic Culture and History Project was designed to preserve Columbia's exceptionally rich Slavic collections. These materials had been identified in CUL's preservation master plan as an extremely high priority because of their importance to researchers both locally and nationally, and because the often extreme embrittlement and poor physical condition of large portions of the collection placed them at risk of imminent loss. Selected from the printed holdings of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library and from the history and humanities general collections in Butler Library, many of these titles are not widely held or are held uniquely by Columbia.

Thanks to the generous support of the Endowment, this seven-year long project has achieved remarkable success. A total of 14,294 pamphlet and monograph volumes and 7,132 serial volumes have been preserved, catalog records for all of the titles filmed have been added to the national databases, and these materials have been made available for the use of current and future humanities scholars.