Reports on a survey of the condition of paper and bindings in the British Library's Department of Humanities and Social Sciences which contains some 8.8 millions volumes. The collection was restored to gain an idea of what could be restored and what could only be microfilmed the survey method and use of a commercial software package snap (survey analysis package) are described. Interesting findings were that French, Germany, Russian and Eastern European printings post 1850 were on generally poorer quality paper. Classification of the information according to geographic area of printing may prove useful to other librairies with materials originating from these areas.