Purpose
In the beginning half of the 20th century it became apparent that the use of acidic wood-pulp paper, common since the 1850s, was causing paper materials to slowly burn. This has been referred to as the slow fire. A statement submitted to the House of Representatives estimated that there were 80 million brittle books in North American libraries, 12 million of which were unique titles. As mass deacidification efforts proved costly and inconsistent, librarians and archivists began looking for more practical ways to preserve the intellectual content of the decaying material. Microfilm, one of the most stable and durable mediums around at the time, was decided to be the most reasonable alternative.
Read more about this topic: Brittle Books Program
Famous quotes containing the word purpose:
“I don’t like to be idle; in fact, I often feel somewhat guilty unless there is some purpose to what I am doing. But spending a few hours—or a few days—in the woods, swamps or alongside a stream has never seemed to me a waste of time.... I derive special benefit from a period of solitude.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilised people is poetical.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
“Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.”
—George Marshall (1880–1959)