The Core Preservation Administration Interest Group (PAIG) has released the 2022 Core Library Binding Survey: A Report of Findings to highlight national library binding practices.
After the 2022 PAIG Symposium on the Future of Library Binding, the Core Library Binding Survey Project Team was convened to explore issues that arose during the event. Team members volunteered to create a survey on current library binding practices to gain a better understanding of who is using library binding as a preservation and access method, how they are using such services, and the challenges that face the community.
The group was composed of four practitioners working in library Conservation and Preservation, one Assessment professional with expertise conducting surveys and analyzing data, and an ALA Liaison. The survey was designed by the Team and distributed by Duke University Libraries using Qualtrics survey software. The Team distributed the survey to more than 30 professional mailing lists in September 2022, requesting that only one response be submitted per institution. The Team read through and coded the responses in order to start identifying trends in both the objective data and free-text responses.
Beth Doyle, convenor of the Survey Team, noted, “There have been past surveys where library binding information has been included in the data collection, but those tools included that data along with other critical preservation-related data. This survey focuses solely on library binding as a preservation tool. The data more fully explore where this work happens within libraries, what budgetary and human resource trends are shaping the use of library binding as a preservation tool, and will identify the concerns that library binding managers have regarding its current and future use.”
Core thanks members Beth Doyle, Richenda Lea Brim, Mark Coulbourne, and Tanya Cathlene Ellenburg-Kimmet for their work to create the survey and subsequent report.
