Folded documents

Ron Lieberman <ronbiblio<-a t->delphi< . >com> writes

>I am working with a large collection of 19th
>Century documents, deeds, and letters (mainly stampless covers),
>several thousand items. These were folded and stored for over 100
>years. The question:  Should these be flattened out and stored flat
>or left

The simple answer is it depends on many variables. We have a rather
large collection of folded material (paper I think if memory
serves), mostly musical scores that we are not eager to unfold due
to storage issues. Unfolding these hundreds (if not thousands) of
pages would necessitate the need for the purchase of many flat file
cases--cost alone makes such a prospect daunting--but even in a
relatively large building like the Ransom Center, space for such
storage units is at a premium. I know we are hardly the only
institution with these concerns.

If the folded items do not open to a large size, then one would
still have to deal with issues of access, housing and damage to the
individual pieces. Certainly in general vellum is more hardy than
paper, and the fact that these pieces date to the 19th century
suggest a fairly likely chance they are on poor quality paper, but
beyond such vagaries, one cannot say much without diligent
assessment.

George Leake
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
UT Austin

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 11:36
                Distributed: Wednesday, October 15, 1997
                       Message Id: cdl-11-36-007
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