Brittle Books Program

The University of Kansas Libraries' Brittle Books Program is an interdepartmental program that actively involves staff from the Preservation, Retrieval Services, and Cataloging departments in addition to subject bibliographers. In an effort to preserve the information contained in the Libraries' growing number of embrittled volumes, the Brittle Books Program endeavors to replace embrittled volumes with either new copies from publishers (e.g., reprints), or with preservation-quality photocopy replacements. The University of Kansas Libraries has contracted with Heckman Bindery to produce preservation-quality photocopy replacements.

The modus operandi for Brittle is an electronic listserve on which participating libraries post titles they wish to preserve. If other libraries wish to acquire preservation copies of a listed title the price for that title is reduced. Founded by former Preservation Librarian Brian Baird, this service is now managed by OCLC.

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