Tag Archives: statistics

FY2022: By The Numbers

November 11, 2022 Beth Doyle

It’s annual statistics time! We love a good stat.

One Stat That Stands Out

42% of overall productivity in FY2022 was disaster recovery, mostly attributed to mold removal.

FY 2022 Statistics

371 Book repairs
964 Pamphlet bindings
16 Treatments: Other (objects, textiles, etc.)
694 Flat Paper repairs (includes paper, parchment, and photos)
3,094 Protective enclosures
3,784 Disaster recovery
3 Exhibit mounts [these are primarily done in the Exhibits Department now]
44 Hours in support of Exhibits (meetings, treatment, installation, etc.)
123 Digital preparation repairs
8 Hours in support of Digital Projects (meetings, consultations, handling, etc.)

73% of production was for Special Collections
27% of production was for Circulating Collections

42.7% of work was Level 1 [less than 15 minutes to complete; 3,810 items]
54.5% of work was Level 2 [15 minutes – 2 hours to complete; 4,864 items]
2.7% of work was Level 3 [2 – 5 hours to complete; 240 items]
0.1% of work was Level 4 [more than 5 hours; 12 items]

Staffing: 5 full time conservation staff, 1 student assistant

We are still seeing the effects of the pandemic on our total production. But we are also seeing a bounce back from the last two years. We remain hopeful that FY2023 will be closer to “normal,” whatever that is these days.

Totals	FY19	FY20	FY21	FY22
Level 1	9556	5422	1841	3810
Level 2	15725	1522	972	4864
Level 3	246	146	94	240
Level 4	19	31	10	12
total	25546	7121	2917	8926

Total Productivity 2003 to 2022

This year we surpassed the 280,800 mark for total production since the department began in 2002. Overall, enclosures are still the largest single type of work we do, holding steady at 44% of output. Followed by disaster recovery at 20%, and pamphlet binding at 18%.

Other Things We Did This Year

We received a LYRASIS Catalyst Fund grant to digitize our legacy conservation treatment documentation. We are calling it the Conservation Documentation Archive (CDA). This includes both written and photographic documentation, reaching back to the earliest treatment records we have. You will be hearing much more about that in the coming year as we get these materials into our digital repository.
We had several internal conversations about the lack of diversity in our treatment terminology. We aim to be more cognizant of this going forward. We want to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of book history so that we can be more inclusive in describing the materials we work on.
We took a deeper dive into issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the conservation profession and our department this year through readings and discussions. These will be ongoing conversations. We are focusing on ideas that can be put into action now, while also identifying stretch goals that may take more time and resources than what we have at the moment.
The Lilly Library renovation is back on track. We are in the middle of preparing the collections, and the art and artifacts for the move. Much more to come on this project.

Conservation

FY 2017 By The Numbers

August 11, 2017 Beth Doyle

It’s the end of the fiscal year and time to write reports. We had a very productive year. The only metric we track that didn’t increase this year was mold removal. It’s difficult to be sad about that.

FY2017 Statistics

1,625 book repairs (up 90% due to a very large acquisition project)
1,735 pamphlets bound (up 40%)
11,007 flat paper repairs (up 390% due to a very large digitization project)
7,018 protective enclosures (up 23%)
1,333 disaster recovery (down 56%)
22 exhibit mounts created (up 47%)
135 hours of time in support of exhibits (includes meetings, treatment, installation, etc.)
339.25 hours in support of digital projects (includes meetings, treatment, evaluation, etc.)

66% of total work was for Special Collections
34% of total work was for Circulating Collections

82% of work was Level 1 [less than 15 minutes to complete]*
17% of work was Level 2 [15 minutes – 2 hours to complete]
1% of work was Level 3 [more than 2 hours to complete]

Looking at a graph of the past few years of production you can see the impact that digital projects have had on our work (mostly working on archival collections, aka “flat paper repairs”). This trend is likely to continue.

*This number is skewed from past years due some very large projects that needed a lot of minor repairs.

Not Everything Is A Statistic

We gave tours to 121 people last year.
We created a new Sewn-Board Workflow for fine-press bindings in our circulating collections.
We had a wonderful pre-program volunteer who worked with us for almost a year to learn more about library conservation and treatment.
We worked with library colleagues to set up the new multi-spectral imaging equipment; and worked with campus resources to CT-scan some objects in the History of Medicine Collection.
We hosted a “preservation of digitally printed materials” workshop taught by Daniel Burge, Senior Research Scientist at IPI.
We helped to research and procure two new freezers for disaster recovery.
Occasionally we stopped to do some fun activities and learn new things.

Announcements, News

Happy Anniversary Preservation Underground!

November 25, 2016 Henry Hebert

We started Preservation Underground in 2009 as a way to bring our work out of the basement and into the light. In the past seven years, we’ve had some fun and we’ve had some disasters. What we really hope is that we’ve shown you a little bit of what we do and why our work is so important.

glass eyes — Glass eyeballs from the History of Medicine Collection. Here’s looking at you, statistics!

We wanted to take a look back at some data about our blog and highlight our most-favorited posts. The data is a bit sticky because WordPress analytics appear to begin in March 2011, while Google analytics start in September 2012. But, as my grad school chemistry professor always said, “Close enough for conservation.”

WordPress analytics appear to begin in March 2011…
87, 940 total views
279 comments

Google Analytics start in September 2012
Only reporting 9,000 page views
Traffic from 95 countries.

These posts received the most hits the past seven years:

Quick Pic: Mysterious Messages (January 2012)
1091 Project: Making Enclosures (March 2012)
Hold me closer… protective enclosure (January 2016)
Florence: Days of Destruction (A Film by Franco Zeffirelli) (February 2012)
DIY Book Repair And Its Consequences (July 2012)
Why I Hate Mr. Clippy (January 2013)
The ‘Largest Sheet of Paper Ever Made and Printed’ (October 2015)

Do you have a favorite post you want to share? if so, tell us in the comments.

Conservation

A Very Busy Year for Conservation Services

October 12, 2012 Beth Doyle

Conservation’s FY2012 annual report in a tweet.

As anyone in the lab will tell you, I love statistics. I wrote last year about the Conservation Department’s fiscal year 2011 statistics, I thought I would write about fiscal year 2012.

We have seven staff members, one of whom works only on the renovation project; seven students, five of whom worked on the renovation project; and two volunteers.
We repaired or rehoused 20,512 items from the collections last year.
Of that number, over 14,000 were enclosures, over half of these were renovation related.
62% of our output was for Rubenstein Library; 24% for Perkins/Bostock; the remaining work was for our branch libraries.
We also presented two papers at AIC, served on ALA committees, participated in several library committees, gained skills in conserving papyrus and transparent papers, and Jennifer earned her MLIS (yea Jennifer!).
We had an 11% increase in unique visits to Preservation Underground; a 9% increase in overall page views; we passed 400 Facebook followers; have more than 500 images on Flickr; and we helped start the library’s Pinterest account.

Trends We Are Tracking

We are doing more preparation and conservation work in support of the Exhibits Program. We expect this upward trend to continue as we expand our program as part of Rubenstein Library renovation.
In FY2011 we started separating out stats for work we do to support digitization projects. Last year that total was 656. We expect this workflow to increase as our digitization program expands in the future.

Since fiscal year 2003, we have repaired or rehoused over 132,000 items from the library’s collections. This year we celebrate Conservation’s 10th year of service to the library. It is an honor to work with such an amazing, dedicated and fun group of people. Thanks to everyone in Conservation for their hard work!