Preserving rare books

ALTHOUGH humans have lived on the subcontinent for thousands of years, little is known about the material culture of the early inhabitants. The earliest preserved man-made objects in South Asia, are the multitudes of stone tools. Before the development of stone-working technology, the early inhabitants of South Asia must have created vast quantities of material goods made of bones, branches, animal skins, grasses, and other perishable materials. While the full range of ephemeral objects will probably never be known, the abundant stone tools serve as a haunting prefiguration of several millennia of artistic developments in the Indic regions, for it was stone that served as the artistic medium for so many of the gigantic temples, excavated caves, and sculptures of later centuries.

Our ancestors in the hoary past started written communication by using signs and symbols, pictographic and ideograph characters on sand. Writing began among the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia, who kept records by drawing simple pictures in soft clay.

The human endeavour to search for suitable writing material on the one hand and to devise suitable writing scripts on the other, however, influenced each other to a great extent. In India, the earliest concept of the book was a collection of leaves or sheets of bark strung together between covers by a cord. Paper, which was invented in China in the 1st Century did not come into general use in northern India before the 13th Century, at about the same time as in Europe. In each case, the Muslim world was the intermediary. In south India, however, palm leaves were used for writing until the 19th century. The first references to writing in India, found in the earliest layers of the Pali Buddhist Canon of about the 5th Century B.C., speak of various types of material used for writing, such as leaves, wood or boards, and salaka, or bamboo chips or slips, and metals.

The history of writing and the history of human civilisation are inseparable entities. Writing and for that matter printing, notwithstanding our modern technologies, are still by far the most potent and effective tools used in communication which is the foundation of all human progress.

Paper is often called "the handmaiden" of civilisation. The word "paper" gets its name from the Egyptian papyrus. Paper, as we know it was invented in about AD 105 in China, but did not reach the West for 700 years. The Moors at Samarkand learnt the technique from the Chinese. Paper industry was established in Baghdad in AD 795. Subsequently, as a result of the Crusades and Moorish conquest of Northern Africa and Spain, the knowledge of paper making spread to Europe.

Before the 15th Century, books in Europe had been printed by the laborious process of carving each page as a separate woodcut. Johann Gutenberg, with his colleague Johann Fust, produced movable metal type - in which each letter is a separate block which fits perfectly together with other letters to form a line of type. The process had been developed in China four centuries earlier, but was hitherto unknown in the West. Thus it was that books as we know them came into existence.

Rare books are lying in different institutions. A rare book is one which contains rare information or is an old book of the 16th or 17th Centuries, or containing original photographs, drawings, paintings which are out of print presently. These books contains certain valuable information in the contents and also, in the form of illustrations which are antique in its nature.

Since rare collections are limited in number, they need to be kept separately under temperature control. If kept under lock and key, how can the users benefit? This is a serious problem of concern. To make it available to the public, the contents in the rare collection can be converted into microform and illustrations/drawings transferred into slide form so that there is minimum handling of the original text.

Acquisition of rare publications is a special function of libraries. Antiquarian books are acquired and made available for reference in micrographic form. Most of the books acquired so far have been published in the 16th to 19th Centuries. Where can these rare books be found? Generally, certain scholars are fond of reading and they maintain a collection of their own. After a certain number of years, these books become outdated for their offspring because of certain reasons. Sometimes their interest of study varies and they decide to part with such collections. In this way, this valuable collection of a great scholar goes to the Kabadi bazzar (scrap bazzar). These Kabadi bazaars prove to be the source of acquisition of these valuable rare books. Relevant books are segregated and a collection is made and certain institutions are informed and according to the type of acquisition of certain libraries they acquire them and make it a part of their collection. Some of the initially collected books of a library become rare with passage of time. The information content of these particular books also becomes rare in its nature as there is further development in the research area covered by the book and hence this information becomes important in the historical context.

The paper used in the rare book range from hand made to paper with different GSM. The cover of the books is of leather, cloth and resins and the bookbinding is traditional as well as of commercial nature. The manufacturing technique and make of material make it prone to deterioration. If the optimum levels of temperature and humidity are not maintained, the paper is bound to get brittle and also prone to insect attack. Keeping in view the factor the books are shelved separately and hence kept in a round-the-clock temperature and humidity controlled environment.

The illustrations/drawings published in these rare volumes throw important light on the art, architecture and culture of bygone era and the contents provide valuable information which, with the passage of time, has faded and distorted due to various reasons. The first-hand accounts of foreign visitors/writers is undoubtedly valuable for the inquisitive scholar in the field of art and culture, as these books are rare and original in nature, containing valuable source for research people. The information given in them touches the basic components which we rarely come across.

The way of shelving these rare books differ from library to library. In certain libraries the rare publications are shelved separately and thus are segregated from the general books. These publications, as they are antique in nature, are kept under controlled temperature and humidity levels. Temperature variation and moisture content in the atmosphere are the major source of deteriorating factors of these books. In certain libraries they are being shelved along with the general collection. Here accesssibility of these publications becomes easier compared to where they are kept separately. But along with this accessibility the life of the books gets reduced because of frequent usage.

Books and other sources of information, once acquired, are definitely not for storage. The main purpose of collecting them is to use them. The information should be disseminated so that it is available to the general public. When thinking of dissemination we have to consider the preservation aspect also. As already mentioned, the rare books are centuries old and would be in a delicate state. But handling them too often means there is a definite possibility of their withering away in a very short span of time. So it is absolutely necessary to see the book from every possible angle before handling them. Their binding is one of the most important aspects which has to be taken into consideration. Good quality binding gives a strong support to the entire book and the chances of their deterioration is lessened.

These rare collections need to be treated in a very special manner. For posterity it has to have a proper conservation and periodical check-up. As they contain valuable information which are very difficult to attain, they should be given special priority as far as their maintenance is concerned. These publications can be transferred in the form of microfilm/compact disks and illustrations in the form of slides. With this kind of transformation the original document can be minimally handled. Certain books can be reprinted by certain institution to minimise the handling of the original document.

We hope this article will widen awareness and lead to a better appreciation of the need for recognising the true value of storage of rare books. This was the idea of the author's modest effort.

MEKALA MANI

The author is a library professional working with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.

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