Short Subjects: Sunshine State Showpieces: Alligator-Skin Bindings in the Florida Archives

Archivists are primarily concerned with the informational value of records. Sometimes, however, that emphasis on information is so great that other properties, such as intrinsic value, are ignored. Materials have intrinsic value if they possess qualities that make their original form the only archivally acceptable one for preservation. These qualities may be physical or intellectual; that is, they may relate to the material object itself or to the information contained in it. Books, for example, can have intrinsic value because of several unique or curious features: paper, imprints, watermarks, illustrations, or bindings