"There's just a real affinity to keeping these materials useful and providing the proper environment. The two are just synonymous now," Reilly says.

Rudenstine says that since climate control is only a temporary fix to the problem, the current challenge is to find a more efficient way either to treat the books themselves to prevent the decay or convert them to digital form.

A major effort is currently underway, he says, to coordinate efforts between universities so that aging books that are scanned or micro-fiched are not duplicated from one school to the next.

Why Not Harvard?

In November 1995, a pipe burst in the main reading room of Yale University's Sterling Library, its main stacks.

A few days later, again in the Sterling's main reading room with several books destroyed in the flood resting in front of him, Yale President Richard C. Levin announced a $48 million plan to renovate Sterling, $35 million of which was to go for protecting the collection from heat, humidity, ultraviolet light and air pollution.

Cline grimaces at the thought of this scenario happening at Harvard.

Standing with the President was Richard J. Franke, a member of the Yale Corporation, who gave more than a third of the money for the renovation.

Today Yale, which has the second largest academic collection in the United States--next to Harvard's--is finishing its extensive renovations to the Sterling.

Large public libraries have also taken the threat to their collections seriously. Both the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress have installed climate control. But even small institutions like the University of Connecticut have installed climate control, Reilly says.

"I'm puzzled as to why this problem has come up all of a sudden. How come it took so long to become aware of it?" asks Coolidge Professor of History David S. Landes.

Merrill-Oldam says that this problem has been known since the 1950s. Verba says that he and Cline have been "yelling about it for a long time."

And it continues to surprise people that Harvard has not already installed climate control.

"I was surprised it hadn't been done earlier, but, looking at the complexity of the problem, I understand why it kept being put off," Cline says.

When asked when this project should be done, Merrill-Oldam says, "Yesterday would be good."