Preservation Assessment of the University's College of Law Library Special Collections

FAIN: PG-51714-12

Florida International University Board of Trustees (Miami, FL 33199-2516)
Marisol Floren - Romero (Project Director: May 2011 to September 2013)

The hiring of a consultant to assess the Mario Diaz Cruz Collection of historic legal materials, including books, journals, manuscripts, court cases, wills, treatises, civil codes, and writings pertaining to Cuban constitutional, civil, and commercial law from 1757 to 1959.

The NEH Preservation Assistance Grant will assist to improve Florida International University (FIU) College of Law Library’s ability to preserve and care for the Mario Diaz Cruz Collection, a unique library of 6,000 volumes of historic Cuban legal materials of great value to legal scholars from the United States and abroad. This grant will allow hiring a professional preservation consultant to conduct a general preservation assessment of the Mario Diaz Cruz Collection; assess policies, practices and conditions affecting the care and preservation of this collection; provide advice and develop a detailed plan for improving storage and re-housing the collection within the library; help draft short-term and long-term programs for the arrangement and description of this collection; provide recommendations for management and processing needs of these holdings, and other specific preservation actions to be undertaken by the library.