Transporting photographs

The Special Collections Library is participating in a project which
involves shipping 1000 photographs from Durham, North Carolina, to
Texas.  I am requesting advice about types of materials and methods for
packing photographs.  Suggestions for specific products to utilize are
welcome.  The photographs are a disparate collection that includes
unmounted albumen prints, oversize mounted albumen prints, mounted and
unmounted silver gelatin prints dating from the 1940s to the 1970s,
collotypes, and other identified processes.  No cased images will be
sent.  The range of the photograph sizes is very broad.  One factor to
keep in mind, the climate in Durham is guaranteed to be humid when we
pack and ship the photographs in July.

A second part of the question relates to our current housing materials.
Although we are no longer using neutral glassine to interleave
photographs, many of our older photographs are interleaved with it.  My
suspicion is that, because of the characteristics that make glassine
inappropriate housing (especially its hygroscopic properties), we should
replace the glassine before we ship the photographs.  Some photographs
are also in "archivally correct" plastic sleeves.  Any comments about
the appropriateness of such housing during shipping would be
appreciated.

Donna Longo DiMichele
Special Collections Library
Duke University
Box 90185
Durham, NC 27708-0185

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                   Conservation DistList Instance 7:6
                 Distributed: Wednesday, June 23, 1993
                        Message Id: cdl-7-6-007
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