Preservation Technologies: Saving the Past, Preserving the Future
In 1731, Benjamin Franklin founded the first lending library in part to ensure important literary works would have a permanent home. What he didn’t account for was Father Time’s effect on the books and manuscripts. Preservation Technologies is doing its part to ensure Ben’s vision lives on for the next 300 years.
The Cranberry Township-based company, which received $200,000 in BFTP funding during its prototype stages in the early 1990s, has developed a chemical process that removes the acid from paper, leaving books and other precious paper documents archivally preserved for generations to come.
“We are playing a role in preserving history,” says Jim Burd, CEO. “The knowledge to preserve books has been around for some time, but it was a slow process, limited to preserving one sheet at a time and would require books to be unbound. With our technology we can do it quicker and safely without damaging the inks, adhesive or bindings.”
Antacid for Books
“When a person takes an antacid, they are neutralizing the acids in the stomach,” says Bob Strauss, vice president of marketing. “Our technology works in a similar way. We are taking a very refined particle of magnesium oxide that is known to neutralize acid and depositing it on a sheet of paper in a highly specialized way. The result is that pages will stay preserved for the next 200 to 300 years.”
The particle size is very small-on the order of one micron-and is produced using a technology that gives it a very large internal surface area, 250 times the absorbing surface area of a normal particle.
“Often we are getting materials that are ordinarily not loaned or shipped from the library,” Burd says. “A successful preservation effort will result in the archivist not being able to tell we did anything at all.”
Preservation Technologies, which employs 70 people around the world including 45 in its location just outside of Pittsburgh, has the only mass de-acidification process that meets current and projected OSHA, FTC and EPA consumer and environmental requirements.
Starting out Big
Most startups focus on getting one customer-any customer-and building up from there. Preservation Technologies’ first customer in the early 1990s was as big as they get.
“The Library of Congress was concerned about the deterioration of their books and documents, and they were looking for a commercial partner to stop that from happening,” Strauss says. Preservation Technologies’ first step was to figure out the chemistry side. They then needed to raise enough capital to build a prototype machine, create a process and do enough testing to satisfy the rigorous standards set forth by the Library.
BFTP saw the tremendous potential and supported the effort with $200,000 in funding. “At the time, we were a small company and we needed high-risk capital,” Burd says. “BFTP’s investment was important on its own, but it also helped convince other people to invest.”
The company currently has 17 employees based at the Library. “We are now in our third iteration with Library of Congress, with plans to do work for another 25 years,” Burd says. “They refer to us as a trusted partner and this has opened a lot of doors.” In fact, Preservation Technologies can also count the national libraries of Canada and France as customers.
The Future of Preservation
The company continues to grow. Outside the U.S., they have fully functioning facilities in the Netherlands, Quebec and Australia. Earlier this month, the company held a ribbon-cutting at its new facility in Poland.
“We are a small company, but we are big at what we do,” Burd says. “No one questions the safety or effectiveness of our methods anymore. Now it’s more a matter of helping libraries, collectors and preservationists recognize they have a need.”
Earlier this year, Google announced plans to digitize millions of books from libraries at Harvard, Michigan and Stanford, and other leading libraries. The company does not see this as competition.
“Our focus is on preserving collections of significance, while Google is creating something for people for use,” Strauss says. “Many of these documents are viewed like artwork. No one is going to replace the Mona Lisa with a digital copy.”
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