Storing and displaying ephemera

Gary Roberts <groberts<-a t->shore< . >net> writes

>I am looking for information or ideas on how to store ephemeral
>material, particularly trade catalogs, so that the items can be
>viewed with ease... no one seemed to have a sense of how to handle
>paper bound material.

Before directly addressing your concern, let me say that displaying
paper bound journals to direct light will accelerate deterioration.

Otherwise, I suggest 4 or 5 mil mylar sleeves. (There are a number
of vendors who sell them; email me directly for a list.) 4 or 5 mil
is fairly hardy stuff. I've also seen folders made of some sort of
see through plastic material in envelope or "page protector" form,
but usually the support just isn't there.

An expensive possibility is fitting your ephemera in pre-fab sink
mats. A few vendors sell them.

One idea that might seem a bit gimmicky is to buy a shrink-wrap
packager. However, if the paper in said ephemera is wood pulp,
complete encapsulation could accelerate deterioration.

George Leake
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
UT Austin

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 11:47
                Distributed: Tuesday, November 25, 1997
                       Message Id: cdl-11-47-006
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