An item-level survey of the physical condition of rare books held by the Biblioteca Santiago Iglesias, the library of the School of Architecture at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras.  The 892 titles (1,271 volumes) include influential texts on the history of architecture, aesthetic theory, and visual representation in European art.  Highlights include the 3rd edition of Andrea Palladio’s I Quattro libri della architettura (1601), the 1769 Roman edition of Diverse maniere d'Adornare i Cammini ed ogni altra parte degli edifizi desunte dall'archiettura Egizia, Etrusca e Greca by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and the 1782 Italian edition of Leon Battista Alberti’s works Della Architettura, Della pittura e Della statua.  The rare books collection supports research and teaching at the School of Architecture, as well as at the Graduate School of Information Sciences, where faculty and students use the books to study printing techniques and the challenges rare books present for preservation and bibliographic control.

The Biblioteca Santiago Iglesias, hijo is the most important research facility of the School of Architecture at the University of Puerto Rico and of architectural studies in the whole of the Island. This information unit is requesting a grant of $10,000 from the National Endowment for Humanities’ Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions program. The reason for this request is to hire a paper conservator who will be conducting an initial item-by-item preservation assessment of our Rare Books Collection. Two librarians will be assisting the consultant. A written assessment report with recommendations for storage and proper housing of the collections will be provided. The final activity will be a two-hour workshop in which the Deans of Academic and Administrative Affairs and/or their designated representatives and Directors from other libraries can partake of the results of our endeavors.