The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: No doubt all of you have very carefully and thoroughly read the printed report of the Publishing Board, which was distributed at the first session of this conference. It will therefore be unnecessary for me to point out to you some of the very important recommendations, or suggestions, which appear therein, and I mention it at this time merely for the purpose of adding that since the former session, through the generosity of Mr. Walter L. Brown of the Buffalo library, the Publishing Board is enabled to distribute in connection therewith a list which illustrates one of the very strong suggestions, as we think, which appears in that report. You will find this list for distribution at the entrance, and those of you who may care for it, may help yourselves as you pass out.[2] [2] The list referred to was a reading list of selected books on Greece, prepared with annotated notes in the form advocated by Mrs. Elmendorf in the report of the Publishing Board. We will now hear from the committee on deterioration of newspaper paper. We have had for the last two years some exceptionally interesting and important reports on that very important subject, and we are glad to know that Dr. Hill will at this time present a supplemental report covering the investigations which he has made during the last year, additional to the facts which he has reported heretofore. Dr. Hill will please report for this committee. PRESERVATION OF NEWSPAPERS Two years ago a report on the "Deterioration of newspapers" was presented to the American Library Association at the Mackinac conference, and as a consequence the executive board appointed Messrs. Frank P. Hill, Brooklyn public library, Horace G. Wadlin, Boston public library, and Cedric Chivers, bookbinder, a committee to consider the subject further and report back to the association. As stated at the Pasadena conference last year, the committee was appointed too late to make any satisfactory report at that time. This year the report can be only one of progress. In order to bring the matter more clearly to your minds liberal quotations are made from the 1910 report. "An examination of old Brooklyn and Manhattan papers showed that in many instances papers published within the last forty years had begun to discolor and crumble to such an extent that it would hardly pay to bind those which had been folded for any length of time. Upon further investigation it was found that practically all of these newspapers were printed on cheap wood pulp paper, which carries with it the seeds of early decay, and that the life of a periodical printed on this inferior stock is not likely to be more than fifty years.