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NOAA Library 2
Thu Oct 14, 2004
Listen in RealAudio 
Skip: It’s owned by the citizens of the United States. One of the things that we like to
say about it, is, that if an organization has a soul, the soul of NOAA, our organization,
resides in that room.
Bryan: What Skip Theberge is talking about is the rare book room at the NOAA Library
in Silver Springs, Md. He and Chief Librarian Doria Grimes took me inside.
Bryan: We’re in the rare book room here at the NOAA Library, and you’re a weather and
climate organization, and we are in a very climate-controlled room…
Doria: The temperature cannot go below 62 degrees Fahrenheit or below 35 percent
humidity. If any reason this fan stops, the alarms go off and security is here
immediately.
Bryan: Back out in the general stacks, Skip and Doria talked about how both
preservation and greater access are being accomplished together. You mentioned,
Doria, a lot of this stuff is being transferred to digital formats?
Doria: They call it climate database modernization, and through that we’ve been able
to scan an image and make available as much as we can.
Skip: In spite of the fact that we have probably close to, well, between a million and a
half, two million pages that have been imaged, we probably have another hundred to
two hundred million that haven’t been. We have numerous books in the stacks that
date from the 1800’s, early and mid, when the acid-based paper was used and this
stuff is deteriorating. This is a national treasure that should be looked at and hopefully
there will be a solution to this in the future.
The Library is available to everyone—in person or online. To find out how to get there,
go to our website: www.weathernotebook.org. Our show is produced by the Mount
Washington Observatory, with funding from Subaru of America. Thanks today to Audio
Engineer Trish Anderton.
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