Deacidification

Provenance, LLC a start-up company located in Berkeley, California
has been researching new approaches to address paper
deacidification--preservation needs of the archival community for
the past several years.

The company's activities were assisted initially by the award of a
Federal SBIR [Small Business Innovation Research] Grant which has
assisted in the development of mechanized deacidification
technologies for use with manuscripts and books. To date a working
prototype manuscript treater has been developed and the status of
that aspect of the company's research efforts can be reviewed in a
recent SBIR project summary.  This can be downloaded at

    <URL:http://www.paper-preservation.com/
        PDFs/10-5-06-CREES-edited.pdf>

Other deacidification products and approaches are currently being
produced and marketed for in-house use by conservators and
archivists under the trade name PaperSaver.  These include bulk
treating formulations for use with in-house spray equipment as well
as both conventional and pump-spray aerosol products and dispensers
including those which do not utilize hydrocarbon or fluorocarbon
chemical propellants.

Independent lab evaluations of the effectiveness of the PaperSaver
products have been conducted.  These can be reviewed in results of
testing conducted by the Canadian Conservation Institute.  They
considered changes in fold endurance and tear index of acid paper
treated with PaperSaver formulations.  The CCI report can be
downloaded at

    <URL:http://www.paper-preservation.com/
        PDFs/CCI-PaperSaverEval-1206.pdf>

PaperSaver products can be purchased at the company's web site as
well as through various distributors providing materials to
libraries and archives in the US and elsewhere.  These  include the
University Products catalog for conservators, TalasOnline

    <URL:http://apps.webcreate.com/
        ecom/catalog/product_listing.cfm?ClientID=15&
        SearchType=TalasOnline&SearchField=papersaver&x=9&y=14>

and CarrMcLean in Canada

    <URL:http://www.carrmclean.ca/
        CategoryGroupBrowser.aspx?GroupNo=6760>

Additional information on Provenance LLC can be found at
<URL:www.paper-preservation.com> or by contacting
jzicherman [at] paper-preservation__com directly.

    **** Moderator's comments: The above URLs have been wrapped for
    email. There should be no newline.

Joseph B. Zicherman
Provenance, LLC
935 Pardee Street
Berkeley, CA 94710-2623


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 20:40
                Distributed: Thursday, February 22, 2007
                       Message Id: cdl-20-40-001
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