Hand-painted plates

We have some old (circa 1895) journal reprints with plates of
drawings that were hand painted, probably with watercolor, over the
letterpress printed drawings.  The paper is brittle and yellowed,
especially on the edges. The original covers appear to be very
acidic heavy paper. Some of the reprints have three holes punched,
through which cord has been strung to tie them together.  The cord
has deteriorated and is breaking.  At the moment, some of these
reprints are loosely held together with acid-free linen ribbon tied
around them and are in an acid-free envelope.

Any suggestions for de-acidifying the pages safely and
inexpensively? We want to avoid damaging the colored plates.  We
probably will photograph them to at least have a record of them.
Also, there is one small fragile, brittle piece of paper with colors
painted on them as directions for the artists who painted the
printed drawings. That is in a polyester envelope.

Elaine R.S. Hodges
Scientific Illustrator
MRC 169, Rm. W-622
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC 20560, USA
202-357-2128
Fax: 202-786-2894

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 9:11
                 Distributed: Wednesday, July 19, 1995
                        Message Id: cdl-9-11-016
                                  ***