Labelling

We have been asked to advise on a labelling issue.

A large number of Government records are required for a court case
which has the potential to last for several years. The legal agency
involved wants to use barcodes to mark individual records, books and
pages from books. We have suggested copying or scanning as an
alternative but this is not suitable for their purposes. Also, due
to storage space restrictions, placing each document in a sleeve and
labelling the sleeve instead is not an option.

Originally the records office asked for an archival solution that
would allow the easy application of the labels, directly onto the
paper, and their removal once the court case was finished. As any
label, no matter how archival, would inevitably require time, money
and expertise to remove we have suggested instead that we come up
with a relatively permanent archival label that can be applied
directly to the paper with minimum long-term risk.

Obviously, this is not an ideal solution. However, does anyone know
of any products that would meet either of these requirements-i.e.
easily removable or permanent? Have any tests been done on these
products? Does anyone have any alternative suggestions? I have
looked through the Distlist archives and noted many interesting bits
on labelling and barcoding issues. Any further suggestions would be
greatly appreciated.

Alice Cannon
Paper Conservator
Artlab Australia
70 Kintore Avenue
Adelaide SA 5000
+61 8 8207 7520
Fax: +61 8 8207 7529

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 11:76
                 Distributed: Wednesday, March 11, 1998
                       Message Id: cdl-11-76-014
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