Putting It Into Practice

Storing Paper Collections

What are the proper storage practices for specific types of paper collections? How do you know whether your current storage is acceptable? In this section, you will review commonly recommended storage practices for paper-based collections and use this knowledge to evaluate your own storage methods.

You will be looking for poor storage practices that are common in the collections (e.g., rubber bands holding covers together, poorly supported books, overstuffed file folders, acidic inserts in books or files). Although this examination may locate individual objects that need repair or other treatment, its primary goal is to identify general needs and areas of the collection in need of remedial actions (e.g., boxing, enclosing photographs, replacing manila folders with archival-quality folders and boxes, and photocopying news clippings).

If important individual objects requiring conservation treatment are identified during this process, a conservator can evaluate whether emergency care is indicated. See Session 6: Treatment and Reformatting for more information on treatment and working with a conservator.

This review of collection storage needs is organized by type of material, since for the purposes of preservation it is usually best to store like materials together. It is sometimes necessary, however, to consider mixed collections as a whole.

  If this approach seems more appropriate for your situation, see the Worksheet for Mixed Collections (PDF, 436k).