Mold

Our Archives of Industrial Society at Pitt took possession of a large
and interesting record group of documents of steelworkers health records
from a shutdown mill.  Most are in fine shape (the records, that is, if
not the steelworkers) but a couple of the boxes retrieved from the mill
had very bad mold damage...  The records are in clean boxes and still
segregated from the remainder, but need to be dealt with.  The documents
are badly stained, but might photocopy or film. We have concern about
health of persons handling the records as well as concerns about the
mold becoming active. The records aren't essential for the remainder of
the collection to be useful, but pitching them (an obvious solution!)
would leave a gap and, of course, certain individual steelworkers
records would be lost.  The archivist would prefer to keep the whole
series intact.  I'd be grateful for any advice on dealing with these
moldy records.  There are, of course, limited resources (material or
human) to be expended here.

Nancy Hallock
Acting Head, Preservation Dept.
University of Pittsburgh

                                  ***
                   Conservation DistList Instance 7:3
                 Distributed: Wednesday, June 16, 1993
                        Message Id: cdl-7-3-004
                                  ***