Caring for Cultural Material 1

Caring for Cultural Material 2

Damage and Decay

Managing Collections

Managing People

Handling, Transportation, Storage and Display

Glossary

Index

reCollectionsreCollections home spacer Caring for Cultural Material 1
Image montage with navigation elementsHome pageIndexGlossaryHome pageVolume oneVolume twoVolume threeVolume fourVolume fiveVolume six
Printer Print this volume (PDF)
Print this chapter (PDF)

Caring for Cultural Material 1
In this volume:
arrow Paper
– Books
– Photographs
– Paintings
– Electronic Information Media
– Acknowledgments

Paper
In this chapter:
– Objectives
– Introduction
– Paper in collections
– What is paper?
– Ingredients and properties of paper
– What are the most common types of damage?
– Common causes of damage
– The do’s and don’ts of handling flat paper
– The do’s and don’ts of repair and labelling
– Guidelines for storing and displaying flat paper
– Materials suitable for the storage and display of paper
– Preparing flat paper for storage
arrow Housing flat paper
– Mounting/hinging flat paper
– Protective enclosures for flat paper
– Storage boxes for flat paper
– Displaying flat paper
– Framing flat paper items
– Paper items with special needs
– Papyrus and Parchment
– Some miscellaneous information
– Summary of conditions for storage and display
– Paper in Australia’s climatic zones
  MORE ABOUT PAPER
– Cellulose fibres and paper quality
– Acidity and alkalinity
– For further reading
– Self-evaluation quiz
– Answers to self-evaluation quiz

 

Search reCollections

spacer

Paper

Housing flat paper

Proper housing is essential to preventive conservation. As already noted, providing an individual item with its own protective enclosure is a very effective way of minimising damage. This serves as a buffer against the environment, as well as offering protection from physical damage and direct handling.

How a collection or individual items from a collection are housed will depend on:

  • the type of items;

  • the number of items;

  • whether they will be heavily used;

  • whether they will be displayed or used for research;

  • how much money you have to spend;

  • how much storage and display space you have; and

  • what skills and time you have to do the work.

Flat paper items can be stored in a variety of ways. They can be:

  • mounted/matted and framed;

  • mounted/matted and placed in Solander boxes;

  • encapsulated and placed in a box;

  • placed in boxes, drawers and folders, with or without interleaving;

  • placed in albums;

  • placed in envelopes; and

  • slipped into transparent archival sleeves and housed in a binder; or hinged into archival scrapbooks.

 

 

spacer

blueline