Preservation of clippings

First, thank you all for your reasoned and helpful responses to my
query about the preservation of newspaper clippings.  You have all
been most helpful.  To let you know our thinking:  we are in the
process of making preservation photocopies of every clipping in the
collection on alkaline bond paper using a good (it fuses well)
photocopier.  I have the luxury of a talented pool of older
volunteers who want to help so I can afford the time this will take.
For now we are going to segregate the original clippings from the
copies and store everything in acid free folders and boxes.  We will
eventually (determined by my time and by space requirements) weed
the originals and keep clippings which have value to us as
artifacts, not just as carriers of information.  We will later make
digital copies of the clippings to facilitate access but not to
replace the preservation photocopies.  In most cases the photocopy
will be the archival unit and the digital copy will be the item for
reference use.

My question now is on the current state of deacidification
technology and practice on newspaper.  I have read the posts in the
archives and looked at the current literature and product
availability as well as talking with a vendor and I would really
appreciate a discussion from people with hands-on experience dealing
with relatively small quantities of newspaper to deacidify for
preservation purposes.  I can either do it myself in-house if you
recommend it or send a box of clippings out to a vendor if that is
the better way to go.  My ultimate goal is to save originals which
have value as artifacts, especially some special commemorative color
newspaper sections that were published in honor of the opening of
our building.  We will save these originals possibly for display
purposes or just because of their perceived value to my institution.

I will look forward to the continuation of this discussion and thank
you in advance for your continuing participation.

Linda Most
Archivist/Librarian
Kravis Center for the Performing Arts
701 Okeechobee Boulevard
West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
561-655-6664, extension 392

                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 12:51
                Distributed: Tuesday, December 15, 1998
                       Message Id: cdl-12-51-013
                                  ***