Sitting a few weeks ago at a table in the librarian's office in the front corner of Widener Library, Harvard College Librarian Nancy Cline pulls out a piece of delicate, yellowing paper from a folder containing presentation materials she uses when pitching the library's preservation needs. The sheet was taken from one of the library's thousands of works from the 19th century.

Removing the sheet from its protective slipcover, Cline taps the tops corner of the page. The sheet breaks off and crumbles onto the table.

"That's the lack of temperature and climate control," Cline says. "We're baking those books.... We're not providing [the books] the proper level of stewardship."

A two-month Crimson investigation has found that one of Harvard's most valuable resources and one of the largest academic libraries in the world, the Widener stacks, are "decaying, turning to dust," in the words of Cline. And though the University has made plans to install a climate-control system to curb the decay, none of the $28 million needed to renovate Widener has yet been raised.

Chemically, the decay that Cline so dramatically presents is due to the "acid paper" books were printed on beginning in the 1800s up until the 1950s. But exacerbating the acid paper problem--which causes the books literally to bake--is the lack of climate control in the stacks.

In the longterm, Harvard has made plans to preserve its collections through scanning and micro-fiching decaying books, but doing so to a majority of Widener's 3.2 million volumes will take much longer than the quickly expiring lives of these books will allow.

And this says nothing about the almost 10 million other volumes in the Harvard University Library.

"If you don't have these books in good environmental conditions, nothing else you do to preserve them matters," says Malloy-Rabinowitz Preservation Librarian Jan Merrill-Oldam, who directs the University's preservation program.

To estimate the extent of the problem, Harvard's Preservation Center has begun sample studies of many of Harvard's libraries to tell what percentage of each collection is in serious jeopardy. Though a complete study of Widener has not been completed, a sample survey of Widener's folios found that 72 percent of the works from 1800-1950 were "imbrittled"--and in grave danger of destruction.

"We need a climate control system urgently. Every year we don't have one, we're allowing serious detriment to this huge collection we have," says Professor of Medieval Latin and Comparative Literature Jan Ziolkoski, who is a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Standing Committee on the Library. "It's like having a big old house and not painting it for 20 years."

Raising Library Funds

This weekend, the Development Office and many of the faculty and staff involved with the library will host a library weekend, "Bridging the Centuries: The Role of the Harvard Library Today."

Invited to this event were some of Harvard's wealthiest and best known givers: Steven A. Ballmer '77, Edward M. Lamont Jr. '77 and Sr. '46, Katherine B. Loker and Carl H. Pforzheimer III '58.

These five and more than 200 other invitees all said they could not attend.

Still, 40 people will gather starting today for tea, a tour and dinner and will stay through breakfast, lunch and two presentations on Saturday. Most of them, including Louis I. Kane '53, founder of Au Bon Pain, and John G.L. Cabot '56, have given significant gifts to Harvard in the past.

Despite its overall success in the Campaign, Harvard has had a difficult time fund raising for the libraries.

At the end of last year, the FAS had raised 67 percent of its $965 million goal. The College Library (which includes Widener, Lamont, Yenching, Pusey, Hilles and all other undergraduate libraries) had raised only 22 percent, $17 million, of its $78 million goal.

None of this $17 million was earmarked for the $28 million needed to renovate and install climate control in Widener, according to Leigh Macintosh, an employee in the Development Office.

Harvard officials involved in fundraising say that as a fundraiser's rule of thumb, libraries are difficult to raise money for.

"There's a general law around fund raising that the library is everyone's second favorite part of the University," says University Librarian Sidney Verba, who chairs the Library Committee.

Renovating the Widener building, in terms of projects a donor might want to fund, is a lot less glamorous than constructing a new building.

A climate control system is "not a sexy thing for a donor," says Mellon Professor of History Edward L. Keenan.

But the Development Office's fundraising brochure for the library paints the needs in graphic terms.

"Anyone who has discovered an aging newspaper in an attic can vividly picture the condition of many of the books in the Harvard Library," the brochure says.

Others contend that Harvard's difficulty raising money for the libraries has resulted from a lack of emphasis on this area of the campaign.

"I don't think it's difficult to raise money for the library...perhaps there have been some other priorities in the campaign, but I'm certain that those people close to Harvard recognize the importance of the libraries and are going to be very supportive," says John K. Castle, who personally encouraged many of this weekend's guests to attend and who has been a major donor himself.

"Now that many of the other projects of the campaign have been totally or particularly taken care of...the library is a high priority," says Professor of Greek and Latin Richard F. Thomas.

President Neil L. Rudenstine says he has long been aware of the "brittle books" problem and has been involved with finding ways to solve it since he worked on a library committee at Princeton in 1978.

"We'll find a way because it has to be done," Rudenstine says.

The Problem

While Harvard struggles to find money to install a climate control system, much of the Widener collection continues to decay because of the way paper was milled beginning in the 1800s up until the 1950s.

Harvard's "acid paper problem," as it is commonly termed among preservationists, is an inherently modern problem, affecting only books printed after the turn of the 19th century. Prior to this time, paper was made from cotton rags and books were bound with leather and glue made from animal fats.

The irony of this problem is that the oldest books actually decay slower and are consequently in better condition--assuming they have survived through the years--than the more modern books, Merrill-Oldam says.

In the 18th century, a crisis shook the paper-making industry because cotton rags became extremely scarce. In the 19th century, mills turned to making paper from wood instead.

Books are decaying rapidly today because "a tree had more to it than a cotton ball," says Merrill-Oldam. The problem is that wood contains lignin, the substance that causes newsprint even today to decay and yellow within a matter of weeks if left in the sun.

By 1900, scientists had determined the problem and began treating the wood to remove the lignin, but in the process they often reintroduced other decants and acids. In the '50s and '60s, paper was sized-smoothed out for writing--with acidic salts--another decant. It was not until the 70s that mills were reengineered to manufacture alkaline paper, which, like paper made from cotton rags, has an extremely long life.

As a consequence of all of this, literature from the 19th and much of 20th century--from the great works down to pulp fiction--was printed on rapidly decaying paper.

Preservationists have developed two techniques for conserving these problematic books.

One is a "toxic and explosive and extremely expensive" chemical treatment, which individually stabilizes the paper in each book, according to Michael McCormick, who is on the Library Committee.

The other solution is climate control, which means equipping the stacks with air conditioning and humidity control with the added benefit that the building can be sealed to keep out air pollution. The windows of Widener are often left open during the summer, which exposes the collection to air pollution and increases the books' acidity.

The importance of climate control is basic chemistry.

"The warmer and damper it gets the faster the books deteriorate. When it's hot and humid the stuff is decaying very rapidly," says James M. Reilly, director of the Image Permanence Institute.

The $28 million renovation will also involve new improved wiring and an enhanced protection system, for which the Development Office's brochure again paints a vivid need.

"Furthermore, this slow death could turn out, instead, to be a sudden one. Electrical wiring in Widener Library is antiquated, and fire protection is inadequate. Dramatic action is urgently needed," the brochure says.

The long-term solution, which Merrill-Oldam and her staff at the Preservation Center are working on, is preserving the information within the books by scanning and microfiching those that are nearly destroyed-but to do so takes years.

A climate control system will provide the preservation system with these needed years, Merrill-Oldam says.

"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."

Part of the delay is the nature of the problem. A movie documenting this crisis captures the nature of the decay in its title: "Slow Fires."

"It's an old problem of social choice. There's a serious problem, but it's slow and gradual. If there were a real fire in the stacks, everyone would be calling someone to put it out," Verba says.

What Now?

Despite the difficulty of raising the money to renovate Widener, Provost Albert Carnesale says that the University does not plan to alter how it will pay for the improvements-they will continue to work to raise the money.

Dean of the FAS Jeremy R. Knowles also says that the effort to raise the money will continue, though he suggests that as the Campaign comes closer to its end, the College will begin looking for more flexible gifts and it can put money where it is needed.

Both Knowles and Carnesale emphasize that the library's part of the campaign will receive increased emphasis in the coming months.

Rudenstine expresses a stronger sentiment of support, saying he will direct funding to the project if need be.

"We will help," he says. "We are already targeting several major donors."

But whether the money can be raised remains a pressing question.

"I think the money is going to be found. We hope, we hope, we hope," says Professor of Chinese History Peter K. Bol.

But Dean of Administration Nancy L. Maull says, "I don't really think we know yet [whether we can raise the money]. It's a very worthwhile thing to raise money for."

But even after Widener is taken care of, Merrill-Oldam says that the University libraries' problems are far from over.

Every library that stores materials printed on acid paper--every library at Harvard--needs climate control, which means many of them will need large scale environmental upgrades and renovations like Widener's, she says.

Cline plans to start the Widener renovation in the next two or three years and "no later than that," she says. Of course, it would begin sooner if funding comes through.

"Harvard should really open the next century with this library better equipped to deal with its future," Cline says.CrimsonKathleen M. O'TooleHead Librarian NANCY CLINE demonstrates the need to protect Harvard's books with a Widener volume, that has already been preserved electronically.