Actually, trouble has been brewing for many of the books at the Boston Public Library for centuries but current day politics and funding are making resolution of this problem almost out of reach of fixing.

What’s going on?

Well, the BPL is one of the top five libraries in the nation, and has one of the greatest collections of rare books and manuscripts in the world. Rare books mean “old” - like 500 years in some cases - and the collection at BPL is around one million.

The problem is the paper and methods used to bind these centuries’ old books is literally “eating” them away.

It’s not unusual for one of these rare books to be opened and the pages disintegrates as they are turned. The glue in the very old books, and the paper in the more recent treasures, contain acids that initially provided the means to produce the book, but today are destroying the very thing they helped to create.

Many of the rare books were donated to the BPL during the period when Boston was known as the Athens of America in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century. Though, generous as the gifts were at the time, this abundance of rare books came with no funding foresight for preservation. And so today, the Boston Public Library now finds itself in a bind, having to make difficult choices about which books it can restore, and which ones are left to perish and lost forever.

The restoration of one of these rare books is a painstaking process. It requires taking away the old binding - washing each page individually and very carefully, and then rebinding the book. At each step of the process disaster can strike, especially during the delicate washing process.

Like all public resources budget cuts have severely crippled the BPL’s capability of preserving these treasures. The Rare Book and Manuscripts department and restoration staff has been cut to the bone.

Add in the recent widely publicized ousting of BPL’s President Benard Magolis by Mayor Tom Menino - who too many appears to be no friend of the rare book collection at BPL, then the task ahead is monumental - maybe even out of reach.

The BPL collection is not just Boston’s, but also a national treasure that should not be lost to the masses forever because of the actions or inactions of the few today. So help is needed.

Options being considered are selling some of the rare books to fund the restoration of the rest - an option that has been vehemently opposed to by the outgoing Magolis, who feels these books were gifted in trust to the BPL and they should be kept by the library, as it would be a betrayal to the donors to put them on the auction block.

Another option being considered is to donate portions of the collection to the Library of Congress where funding and resources is more likely to be obtainable to preserve these valuable works for the nation. This option seems more palatable to the friends of the library, and personally to me.

As an avid reader and lover of books I enjoy the feeling of one in my hands. I gre up with books and though my children do much of their reading on the Internet these days, my wife and I still purchase and give them books as gifts for their enjoyment.

The thought of these irreplaceable and priceless manuscripts literally turning to dust because we just don’t care enough to help, seems an indictment of what we’ve become in this country - a nation that would rather spend $500 on the latest iPhone that is junked within 9 months when the next model comes out, than shell out a few pennies to preserve our heritage.

I have no fight with anybody at BPL or the Mayor’s office, but encourage you to make your voice heard by contacting the Associates of the Boston Public Library which has partnered with Pulitizer Prize winner David McCullough in fundraising efforts for manuscript restoration work.

While the Boston Public Library is one of my favorite hangouts in the city there’s lots more things to do in Boston and you can find a list at my special Boston vacations section at my web site here.

I’d also like to hear your thoughts on the subject of this post, and so please post a comment below for me and others to see.

Another post in a few days so check back soon or subscribe to my RSS feed here to get notified automatically.

Cliff Calderwood
Editor
New England Vacations Guide