Lamination equipment

John Grace <jgrace [at] archives__ca> writes

>I am looking for a manufacturer of a laminator to be used for
>heat-set mounting of oversize paper records.  The equipment must
>perform a two-stage process: heating the object between platens (4
>by 5 feet), then passing the object through rollers to exert
>pressure and ensure a bond.

Is John Grace really, really, very sure that he *wants* to do this?
I work at the fonds of the "Barrow method," and my teeth are set on
edge every time I hear the terms "laminator," "heat-set," or
"records" used in the same context. There has been a lot of dancing
around the topic, but I think that the Pennsylvania State Archives'
recent announcement of the Pew Charitable Trust grant to "de-Barrow"
quantities of records is the final recognition of the fact that
lamination was a terrible idea, a disaster of enormous proportion,
and a big mistake. I suppose the reticence has come less from a
desire to shield Barrow's reputation than those of all the archivists
who bought into it.

Henry Grunder

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 9:17
                 Distributed: Thursday, August 17, 1995
                        Message Id: cdl-9-17-005
                                  ***