Paper preservation resources

In the last blog post I listed a few websites that provide information about care of your family treasures, particularly those that are paper based.  Not sure where I got the following information.  [Me bad, I should have written the website down.]  I'm sure it was a government supported one since governmental organizations are at the forefront of preservation. Despite what the Tea Party folks think about the role of government, preservation of our past is an important governmental task and I wish they'd quit cutting the budgets that support the institutions that are charged to do that.  Enough of my soapbox. This list is quite good. Check it out. It includes general resources for caring for family collections, but it is detailed enough to be relevant for formal archives as well.  

Resources for Preserving your Collection:

General Preservation

Caring for Your Family Treasures. Jane S. Long and Richard W. Long. Heritage Preservation (Harry Abrams, Inc.), 2000. Order at www.heritagepreservation.org  See books drop down menu.

“NEDCC Offers Hints for Preserving Family Collections,” Northeast Document Conservation Center, http://www.nedcc.org/resources/family.php

“Caring for Your Family Archives,” National Archives and Records Administration, http://www.archives.gov/preservation/family-archives/

“Family Treasures,” Library of Congress,

http://www.loc.gov/preservation/family/

“When the Dust Settles: Tips for Safely Cleaning Family Treasures,” Heritage Preservation,

http://www.heritagepreservation.org/PDFS/Dustpressrelease.pdf

Conservation

American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works (AIC),

http://www.conservation-us.org/

“Choosing and Working with a Conservator,” Northeast Document Conservation Center, http://www.nedcc.org/paper-conservation-at-nedcc/

Books

“How to Protect Your Books,” American Institute of Conservation,

http://www.conservation-us.org/_data/n_0001/resources/live/books.pdf 

Scrapbooks & Albums

“Making Scrapbooks” and “Protect Your Historic Scrapbook,” State Archives of Florida, http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/archives/preservation/Scrapbook/

Science of Scrapbooking articles, Image Permanence Institute, 

http://www.archivaladvisor.org/resources/papers-articles-reports

Keys to Preservation - Dealing with dirt

           What are the factors that cause paper, or anything else organic for that matter, to deteriorate? It’s pretty obvious if you just think about it.  Light, dirt, changes in temperature and humidity, pests, pollution.  Consider the smog in Singapore that was in the news recently. Trying to protect paper in that environment would be tough unless you had special facilities.  In West Texas, the dust storms are a way of life and it is impossible to keep the fine silt from filtering in through the smallest crack.  You could go crazy trying to keep your house dust free.  Archives must address these enemies to collections every day.  To do it right can be very costly.  If you doubt me check out the steps taken by Library of Congress to protect the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence

(http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters_preservation_01.html)

Let’s consider each of the conditions leading to deterioration one at a time over several blogs.  Since we started talking about pollutants and dirt, let’s begin there.  Did you note what the National Archives has the Declaration of Independence in an oxygen free encasement filled with inert argon gas?  Well, most places can’t do that with their fragile items.  Next best is to try to control the dust and dirt. 

1.                    Store all materials in archival enclosures. The type of enclosure depends on the composition of the item.  Photographs have different requirements than paper, for example.  All of the archival supply houses have enclosures by material type.  You want something that is inert – i.e. no chemicals.  Just housingdocuments  in archival boxes is a huge step to decreasing dust.

2.                    Keep the storage area clean and dust free as possible.  Microfiber cloths are great for cleaning in home or in the archives. They have no nasty chemicals to cause damage.

3.                    Hepa filters for the vacuum!!!! Using them at home is also a good idea, especially with the rise in allergy related illnesses like asthma.

4.                    Storage areas should not be near anything that produces possible pollutants like a copy machine in an office.

5.                    Change the filters for the heating and air conditioning system frequently. You should do that at home as well as in the archives. It will keep the air cleaner and extend the life of your heating and cooling system too. Win, win.

There has been lots and lots written on line about the topic of protecting paper and photographs and whatever.  Here’s a short list. Conserv-o-grams by the National Park Service are great.  They are aimed at museums, but the information is relevant for anyone.  They have several publications about paper and photographs. (http://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/cons_toc.html) 

An additional resource is the Canadian Conservation Institute CCI notes.  Again these were written for museums, but like the National Park Service they have articles about the care of paper as well as general preservation information. http://www.cci-icc.gc.ca/publications/notes/index-eng.aspx

A few others of many, many more are:

http://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/paper.html

http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/archives/preservation/Papers/index.cfm

http://westlakeconservators.com/preservation_tips.htm

http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcrmu/rmutbl/tbl3.htm

Check out what the experts recommend. Being a good housekeeper is the best approach to protecting paper documents from dust and dirt at home or in an archive.  More on preservation next time.

Archivists and Archaeologists – Kissing cousins

           Now that we’ve talked about the disciplines which are most closely related to archival science, what about those that are more distant? Take archaeology.  What could that possibly have in common with archival processing besides the fact that they both begin with an “a?”  Since I have a PhD in archaeology I feel pretty qualified to address that question.  In fact my first job after graduate school was as a document specialist with the anthropology department of a museum.  Actually that was more records management than archives, but I did give lectures about paper and photograph preservation and I participated in the documentation of the archaeological collections (photographs and excavation reports) so I both created and curated (processed and preserved) collections.  Anyway that is one similarity, archivists are in the preservation business and so are archaeologists.  That’s not the primary similarity though.  What makes them kissing cousins is the skill set needed for both disciplines.  What do I mean by that? Well, an archaeologist studies cultures over time by digging carefully down through the layers of material that comprise an archaeological site. The goal is to tell the story of a culture and people. Excavation answers such questions as what people ate, how they lived, and even what they believed.  Having an historical record helps greatly – ask any historical archaeologist - but archaeologists can piece together a picture of past cultures without a paper trail.  Archival collections also give a picture of the past.  Through the activity of processing, an archivist uncovers information that helps tell the story of a collection creator and the time period and culture in which he lived.  The archivist does this by going through the layers of material in a collection and organizing the material so that others can study it.  The similarity is in the way of looking.  Interpretation of what you are looking at is what you do whether you are an archivist or an archaeologist or both. 

            Research skill and interpretive skill development are certainly not limited to archivists or to archaeologists.  Historians use archives to understand and interpret the past.  They too go back through time using the written record preserved by archivists to understand and interpret the happenings of the past.  I guess that makes historians kissing cousins too.  The archivist is the enabler that makes the written record accessible to the other disciplines.  Like them he is interpreter and arranger and one of the storytellers that opens the door to the past. 

More second cousins – museum professionals and archivists

          Like librarians, museum professionals are closely related to archivists.  Although I’ll probably get disagreement from other archivists, I think that museum collection managers and archivists are almost closer than librarians and archivists.  Museums are in the preservation business as are archives.  Sometimes they preserve the same type of objects – maps, photographs, documents – using the same preservation techniques. Archival collections sometimes also have other objects, like paintings that could just as easily be in a museum. Both archivists and museum professionals use those objects for educational purposes – exhibits, research, scholarly publications.  Provenance (i.e. where an object came from, its history) is important for both disciplines.

            The differences are in a matter of degree.  For archivists, the information in a document is its most important attribute.  Museums generally value the object for itself. In an archive if a paper has deteriorated or will deteriorate, like newspapers, it can be photocopied or scanned so the information is preserved.  Often archives will microfilm newspapers and other information and then discard the original paper.  Microfilm has an extremely long lifespan, takes up little space, and doesn’t require particularly high tech equipment to read.  For a museum, as just noted, it would be the newspaper itself that is important.  That said it really all depends on the newspaper. If it has historic value beyond the information in it, both entities and libraries too would preserve it.

            The other difference between the two disciplines is related to the intellectual control (fancy way to say inventory) of a collection or object.  Museums catalog each item separately and assign it a unique identifier.  Collections managers and registrars are responsible for the accessioning of objects into the museum holdings. Part of the information kept about the object is its donor, creator, and information about where it came from and when, especially in the case of archaeological objects, for example.  The archivist today processes whole collections – dare I repeat – following original order.  Most recently inventory is to the box or perhaps file level only although some collections, like photographs or oral histories, might still be to the item level.  Original order is not an issue for museums as it isn’t for libraries.

            So there you have it – archivists, librarians, and museum professionals.  Some institutions have all three on staff.  What differentiates the archivist from the others is their view of provenance and original order.  What is common among all three is the emphasis on education and their use of their collections to help tell a story.