11. war propaganda: During the war, “a division for the study of propaganda analysis was established. What later became the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services was first set up as the Division of Special Information in the Library of Congress….A War Agencies Collection gave duly accredited representatives of the Government access to materials which, for reasons of security, had to be withheld from the public….Exhibits, broadcasts, lectures were designed to reflect the war aims of the United States….Mr. MacLeish was frequently absent, sometimes for extended periods, first as director of the Office of Facts and Figures, subsequently as assistant director of the Office of War Information.” David C. Mearns, The Story Up to Now: The Library of Congress, 1800–1946 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1947), p. 214.
12. letter of agreement: The text of the agreement between MacLeish and Donovan is reproduced in William R. Corson, The Armies of Ignorance (New York: Dial, 1977), pp. 141–44n.
13. “bursting at the seams”: Gurney and Apple, Library of Congress, p. 17.
14. marble-finned kitsch box: The building “reminds some critics of the monumental architecture of the Third Reich.” Stephen Klaidman, “Cultural Center Problems Are Space, Money, Boredom,” The Washington Post, June 12, 1977, p. B1.
15. “miniaturiz[ing] existing collections”: Welsh, “Libraries and Librarians.”
16. “Networking can and should”: Welsh, “Libraries and Librarians.”
CHAPTER 15 — The Road to Avernus
1. groundless guesswork: “Perhaps the most outrageous of Barrow’s distortions of prior work was his equation of 25 years of natural age to 72 hours in a dry oven at 100ºC., with his use of multiples of 72 hours to represent multiples of 25 years. This must have been based on ruler measurement of freehand lines in charts in one NBS [National Bureau of Standards] study; yet this study, the only direct comparison of natural and accelerated aging available when Barrow introduced his equation, warned explicitly and repeatedly that the four data points on which the charts were based were insufficient for quantitative treatment. Later work has removed all credibility from Barrow’s equation; yet it is apparently still used by some librarians and vendors.” Thomas Conroy, “The Need for a Re-evaluation of the Use of Alum in Book Conservation and the Book Arts,” Book and Paper Group Annual 8 (Washington, D.C.: Book and Paper Group of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 1989), p. 14n.
2. three days in an artificial-aging oven: Barrow Research Laboratory, Test Data of Naturally Aged Papers (Richmond, Va.: Barrow Research Laboratory, 1964), p. 21. See also Verner Clapp, “The Story of Permanent/Durable Book Paper, 1115–1970 (part 2),” Scholarly Publishing, April 1971, and Smith, “Paper Impermanence,” p. 186.
3. Barrow’s results: Deterioration of Book Stock, Causes and Remedies, conducted by W. J. Barrow, ed. Randolph W. Church (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1959), p. 15.
4. “The research carried out”: Leon J. Stout et al. of the Preservation Committee of the Pennsylvania State University Libraries, “Guaranteeing a Library for the Future,” Restaurator 8:4 (1987).
5. “Barrow startled the library world”: Rutherford D. Rogers, “Library Preservation: Its Scope, History, and Importance,” in Merrill-Oldham and Smith, Library Preservation Program.
6. Perhaps all those who, like Peter Sparks: “Library officials say that unless the destruction is stopped, 97 percent of the volumes in the federal government’s premier library — also the world’s largest information storage center — will eventually disintegrate. All other libraries are thought to face the same problem. ‘It’s a very serious problem but, fortunately, we think we’re moving rapidly toward a solution that we think is very promising,’ said Peter G. Sparks, director of the library’s Mass Deacidification Program.” Rensenberger, “Acid Test.”
7. “From the investigations”: Clapp, Future of the Research Library, p. 87.
8. hire some statisticians: Council on Library Resources, Sixth Annual Report, p. 22.
9. “these 1.75 billion pages”: Clapp, Future of the Research Library, p. 27.
10. Robert N. DuPuis: DuPuis also worked at General Foods. At Philip Morris, he became chairman of the Industry Technical Group of TIRC, the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, stalwart funder of pro-cigarette scientific research. Another Philip Morris scientist, John D. Hind, served as a consultant to the Barrow lab; see Barrow Research Laboratory, Permanence/Durability of the Book: A Two-Year Research Program (Richmond: Barrow Research Laboratory, 1963).
11. DuPuis wrote memos: Richard Kluger writes that “Philip Morris’s research director, Robert DuPuis, sent a memo dated July 20, 1956, from Richmond to the company’s top officers in New York reporting in ventilated cigarettes ‘a proved decrease in carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide plus an increase in oxygen content of the smoke’; the former, he explained, was ‘related to decreased harm to the circulatory system as a result of smoking,’ while the latter meant there would be less chance of depriving cells of oxygen ‘and of starting a possible chain of events leading to the formation of a cancer cell.’ ” Richard Kluger, Ashes to Ashes: America’s Hundred-Year Cigarette War, the Public Health, and the Unabashed Triumph of Philip Morris (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), p. 184. See also Council on Library Resources, Twelfth Annual Report (1968), p. 29.
12. “If we do find any”: Gene Borio, Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue Draft: Corporate Activity Project: Part 1, undated, www.tobacco.org/Documents/jonesday1.htm, p. 101. DuPuis appeared on the second of two See It Now programs on “Cigarettes and Lung Cancer,” CBS TV, June 7, 1955.
13. Vacudyne: See Gwinn, “CLR and Preservation,” and Gene Borio, “Secret Tobacco Document Quotes,” www.tobacco.org; Kluger, Ashes to Ashes, discusses tobacco ammoniation.
14. Litton Bionetics: Gwinn, “CLR and Preservation.” Litton also performed the DEZ tests on guinea pigs: the report is entitled Guinea Pig Dermal Sensitization Study DEZ (Diethyl Zinc) Treated Paper and Untreated Paper, Final Report (Rockville, Md.: Litton Bionetics), 1984.
15. caused headaches and nausea: U.S. Congress, Book Preservation Technologies, p. 27.
16. “comparatively expensive”: Clapp, Future of the Research Library, p. 28.
17. “sensible solution”: Clapp, Future of the Research Library, p. 29.
18. “storage, binding, and other maintenance costs”: Clapp, Future of the Research Library, p. 28.
19. “already the standard method”: Clapp, Future of the Research Library, p. 28.
20. long, multi-part essay: Clapp, “Story of Permanent/Durable Book Paper,” Scholarly Publishing, January, April, and July 1971.
21. known and advised since 1948: Crowe, “Verner W. Clapp as Opinion Leader,” p. 47.
22. “an essentially solitary worker”: Clapp, “The Story of Permanent/Durable Book Paper” (July 1971), p. 362.
23. a formula developed by the S. D. Warren: S. D. Warren had a recipe that employed “lime mud,” an alkaline substance; the paper performed better in accelerated-aging tests. See Richard D. Smith, “Deacidification Technologies: State of the Art,” in Luner, Paper Preservation.