How would you change these pictures?

Wooden box and sticky notes

The photographs show what not to do with a scrapbook.  First the scrapbook was stored in a wooden case.  Wood has lignin, which produces an acid as it decays. .  That acid will speed up the deterioration of paper. In addition the wood was sealed with varnish or shellac, which may help limit the acid, but off-gasses chemical substances that may adversely affect the paper.  Second the box was not kept clean and contains the remnants of various insects and dirt.  Many bugs eat paper or glue.  Keeping your storage area clean and free from varmints and creepy crawlies is important.  Use of sticky notes to mark pages is a definite no-no.  The glue is acidic and will discolor the paper over time.  (It’s easy to forget to remove the note when you are done with your project. So use something acid-free to mark your place in case you forget.) Other glue used in this scrapbook is acidic and is particularly damaging to the newspaper clippings.  Using scotchtape, masking tape, or really any adhesive tape as was done in these scrapbooks will also damage paper materials.  As the tape ages it turns brittle and the glue, which is acidic, will turn the paper acidic, yellowed, and brittle. Fortunately for this scrapbook there is an archivist on the job.

            What do you need to do to protect these pages? First store them in an acid free box. Remove all sticky notes. Place acid free tissue between the pages.  Remove tape if possible, but not if removing will further damage the pages. Ask anyone looking at the pages to use clean white gloves to touch the pages. Place any loose items in acid free sleeves.  Use two hands if you must move the pages. Store in an environment that has controlled temperature and humidity.  Keep the area clean and bug and rodent free. Digitize if you can.

Scrapbooks and me

Started a new collection  – scrapbooks. - my least favorite type of collection.  Scrapbooks are a preservation nightmare because they are usually composed of a variety of different materials – newspapers, pamphlets, photographs, ribbons, other textiles and even wood and metal.  Most of the materials are pasted onto acidic papers using very acidic glue.  If the scrapbook is old enough you can see the glue bleeding through the paper.  The old magnetic scrapbooks used for photographs are just as bad. The covers have chemicals that can potentially harm photographs.  The glue holding the photographs in place is acidic and often so strong the pictures are impossible to unstick.  That’s breaking one of the cardinal rules of preservation, which is to do no harm.  In other words, everything that you do to something must be reversible or you don’t do it. 

When dealing with scrapbooks you need to address the preservation issues for each of the different materials on the pages. If I am deconstructing the scrapbook first I photocopy each page onto acid free paper so I have a record of the original. Photographs ideally should be in separate sleeves or envelopes that are chemically inert. (Polypropylene is an inert material)  If I am leaving the scrapbook intact which is what usually happens, I put acid free tissue between the pages of photographs, textiles, and other material.  Many scrapbooks contain newspaper clippings.  Newspaper, because it is a poor quality paper with a high lignin and, therefore, high acid content, deteriorates rather quickly no matter what you do. (The following webpage has a good explanation of acid free and lignin free for scrapbookers.  http://www.scrap-of-time.com/acidligninfree.htm. )  All paper will become yellowed and brittle over time, especially if exposed to light. Newspaper has one of the shortest lifespan.  The best action for clippings is to photograph, scan, or copy the information onto acid free paper to preserve it.  If you are keeping the clippings, you need to separate then from the other material with a piece of bond paper or acid free buffered tissue.  (Buffered paper has added calcium carbonate making it basic, that is a pH above 7, which provides an additional “buffer” to acid migration.)   Bond paper, which is made from rags (cotton fiber usually), will last 100 years and also deters acid migration that can damage adjoining pages.

Today archival materials are available for scrapbookers (Is that a word?)  These new non-acidic or inert (free of harmful chemicals) materials will help preserve your information for the future. Of course, they cost more.  It’s worth it if you really want to preserve your memories for as long as possible.

The other alternative is digitization.  Scanning material theoretically protects the information from decay.  True, but digitization has its own problems - namely the rapid change in technology. Think Betamax, floppy discs, cassette tapes.  If you scan something, you must update your images to keep abreast of the changes in hardware and software. That means upgrading every three to five years – maybe more often.  I love technology, but sometimes it gives me a headache.

Fire, water, and mud

I just finished a huge collection of papers, huge for me anyway – 90 boxes, 70 linear feet.  This collection was great in terms of the historical information in the files, but it had been in a fire.  Many papers were covered in mud, dirt, and charcoal pieces.  Some had footprints. (Could I get a CSI to identify them?) Some papers were just thrown into boxes while others were in neat, but dirty files.  The materials were both the personal papers of the Sayles family and the legal papers of the Sayles and Sayles law firm.

Partial Footprint

Brittle, fire damaged paper

            The Sayles family came to Abilene, Texas in 1886 (Abilene was founded in 1881 by the Texas and Pacific Railroad) and established the Sayles and Sayles law firm.  Henry Sayles came first followed by his father, John, a famous Texas lawyer.  Henry, also a lawyer, had ten children.  The seven boys were all involved in the family businesses through the law firm.  These family businesses included land speculation, ranching, oil and gas exploration, railroads, and farming.  The family was linked to businessmen and politicians throughout the state. They participated in civic projects in the city of Abilene including the establishment of the Abilene Public Library and the YMCA.  Their business interests stretched far beyond Abilene to a ranch in far West Texas, oil exploration in the middle of the state, water rights on the Oklahoma border, and land deals almost everywhere.

            To deal with the preservation issues related to the fire, every paper had to be carefully dusted.  Any that were too damaged to preserve were photocopied so at least the information wouldn’t be lost. The plan is to digitize the early personal family papers and business papers.  My favorites are letters between one of the Sayles’ brothers and his daughter who was at school at Mary Hardin Baylor in the early thirties.  Her letters – “Dearest darling Daddy – Please send money.”  His reply was “What happened to all your allowance?”  Even during the Depression, college coeds needed new clothes.

More conferencing

            Here is the ticket that didn’t win any door prizes at the Southwest Archivist conference.  I never win anything.  Oh yes, there was one time when I was 12 and I won a gold fish at a carnival.  I remember both the goldfish and the winning fondly, but I digress.

            Other things I learned at the conference.  These are new terms, at least new to me, and new software mentioned at the conference

Wiki.  I could have figured it out if I’d thought about it.  One needs only to think of Wikipedia, the first and probably best wiki.   I never put wiki and archives together though at least not until I read Kate Theimer’s book Web 2.0 Tools and Strategies for Archives and Local History Collections (New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2010).  I have now so I’m almost an authority.  For those of you who aren’t here is Wikipedia’s definition

 “ A wiki is a website which allows people to add, modify, or delete the

 content via a web browser usually using a simplified markup language

or a rich-text editor.” 

In the context of the conference, the presenters were referring to websites devoted to areas of archival management where individuals added and edited content. I should have known that. Duh!

Fanzine.  A fanzine is the publication of fans of a particular group or movement. Guess I was never a groupie. Anyway the fanzine collection they were talking about also was connected to a wiki.

Crowdsourcing is, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Wikipedia, “the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.“ (http:// www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crowdsourcing)  You use the internet audience to help with the task.  In this instance an archivist was using crowdsourcing to solicit donations of fanzines from unidentified online users and combining it with the sharing of ideas in a wiki. Wow!

Wayback Machine – Again according to Wikipedia a wayback machine is like Archive-It (see last post)– a method of harvesting and storing web pages and documenting their changes over set periods of time.  It was created by the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization, based in San Francisco

WIX – WIX is a website hosting and creating program.  The presenters claim that it is simple unlike Dreamweaver.  Since I have been fighting with Dreamweaver for at least a month now I’m intrigued.  I’d hate to admit failure with Dreamweaver, but simple is certainly alluring.

Standard Series - When a collection is processed it is arranged in series following the original order we talked about in a previous post. Series are quite simply headings that describe a group of similar papers.  I think of it as an outline, but this is an outline of physical papers.  You can have series of correspondence , which can be further divided into sent and received or personal and business.  Photographs could be another series, financial records, meeting minutes and so on.  In 2001 Waverly Lowell and Kelcy Shepherd received an award from the Society of American Archivists for the development of a standard series (or group headings) for architectural records.  These include groupings like drawings; plans; correspondence, business records.  I’m guessing here because I have not seen it nor have I worked with architectural records.  Guess I should investigate further if I’m going to volunteer to help process the Andrews Maya Collection.  Information about the Architectural Standard Series can be found at:  http://www.archivists.org/saagroups/archtec/standardseries.html.  There is a push in archives these days for standardization across collections and institutions.  Standard series provide one element in meeting that goal.

See what you can learn when you go to conference sessions.