Pınar Çakar, Ayşegül Kocaman, Esra Demiröz, Nurgül Akcebe and Rümeysa Özen, Precidency of Turkey Manuscript Institution

The paper will be presented by Nil Baydar, Turkey Manuscript Institute, Istanbul

Conservation Priority Surveys in 11 manuscript libraries in Turkey

There are more than 172.000 manuscripts in the central and affiliated countryside libraries of The Presidency of Turkey Manuscripts Institution. Directorate for Conservation of Manuscript and Archive is a part of the Presidency and responsible for execution of active and passive conservation applications and research & development of those. The need for conservation has arisen with the presence of the effects of natural ageing, inappropriate environmental and storage conditions. In order to determine the conservation priorities and to retard the degradation upon ageing, the first step should be to conduct condition surveys in libraries. This paper reports the method and results of survey practice conducted at the manuscript libraries of Süleymaniye (including Nuruosmaniye, Ragıp Paşa, Köprülü and Atıf Efendi Libraries), Hacı Selim Ağa, Bursa İnebey, Edirne Selimiye, Millet and Amasya housing approximately 118.000 manuscripts.

Identification and recording of deteriorations and degradations in manuscript are important to determine the priority for advanced conservation treatments. Since the selection of manuscripts for conservation is time consuming, the process should start after revising all the data accurately. The aim of determining the degree of degradation and damage in manuscripts with a survey is to generate a database for each item from R&D and conservators’ point of views. Damages observed on manuscripts can be divided into two categories: physical and chemical.

This survey is based on the criteria of ink corrosion, paper brittleness, and cracked rules as a part of chemical degradation, microorganism and pest damages as a part of biological factors and bookbinding, sewing and tail band detachment, adhered papers and pigment abrasion on miniature paintings as a part of physical deterioration. For each item, these criteria are graded with respect to the degree of damage. Even if each criteria threatens the chemical and physical stability, some have greater effects. Due to this effect, a coefficient is identified for each criterion related to its damage impact. While the data recorded in condition survey form ensure general information about collection, it is not sufficient to choose manuscripts for conservation treatment. Taking into consideration the number of manuscripts housed in manuscript libraries, priority should be given to the most degraded and the worst conditioned ones. For this purpose all the manuscript should be considered entirely. The large numbers of manuscripts which have only microbiological deterioration or binding damage make it necessary to keep the criteria broad.

Degree of value of the manuscript should be assessed with all other criteria to determine conservation priority; otherwise forms should be reviewed repeatedly. So, the experienced directors of the libraries stated value degrees for each manuscript referring its century, author script, rareness, book arts, etc. To facilitate the selection of manuscripts with conservation priority and to group all problems under a single numeric value, a formula has been developed. After rating the damage of the factors mentioned, degrees are multiplied by predetermined coefficients and the results thus obtained are multiplied by the degree of value. When selecting the manuscript to be restored, 'conservation priority' provides information about the overall situation of the manuscript.