Peter Waters, who led a group of volunteers, called "mud angels", in restoring thousands of books and papers. This event awakened many historians, librarians, and other professionals to the importance of having a preservation plan. Many consider this flood to be one of the worst disasters since the burning of the Library of Alexandria. It spurred a resurgence in the profession of preservation and conservation worldwide, including the addition of a Preservation Office at the Library of Congress. 1987: Terry Saunders releases the film Slow Fires: On the Preservation of the Human Record which examines paper embrittlement resulting from acid decay 1989: March 7 ["Commitment Day"] Major US print publishers convene at NYPL to endorse a community-wide commitment to utilizing ISO 9706 certified permanent durable paper in order to combat the acid paper epidemic. Significant people William Barrow (1904–1967) was an American chemist and paper conservator, and a pioneer of library and archives conservation. He introduced the field of conservation to paper deacidification through alkalization. Paul N. Banks (1934–2000) was Conservator and Head of the Conservation Department at the Newberry Library from 1964 to 1981, and published regularly on bookbinding, book and paper conservation, and problems related to conservation. He designed and implemented a curriculum for Columbia University's School of Library Science that dealt directly with preservation training. Pamela Darling, author and historian, was Preservation Specialist for the Association of Research Libraries. Her works include materials to aid libraries in establishing their own comprehensive preservation programs. Carolyn Harris worked as head of Columbia University Libraries' Preservation Division from 1981 until 1987, where she worked closely with Paul Banks. She published extensive research throughout her career, especially dealing with mass deacidification of wood-pulp paper. Carolyn Price Horton (1909–2001), American conservator-restorer of books at the American Philosophical Society and Yale University. Helped museums and libraries in Florence recover books damaged from the 1966 flood of the Arno and the 1972 flood of the Corning Museum of Glass Peter Waters, former Conservation Officer at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, worked in the areas of disaster recovery and preparedness, and the salvaging of water-damaged paper goods. Nicholson Baker is a contemporary American novelist and author of Double Fold, a criticism of libraries' destruction of paper-based media. Patricia Battin, as the first president of the Commission on Preservation and Access, worked to organize a national campaign both for the use of alkaline paper