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Nancy: We too acquired a large number of textiles from the same
collection. Wherever possible we have left the labels in place - even if
they were barely attached. As you wrote, the historic tags and
labels are really what makes this collection so special.
Our
decision was not to remove anything, even if it was not securely attached.
Digital record photography was taken at a quality which gives us the
ability to enlarge the label area.
Pins
and acidic labels were left in place. As with other items made of
incompatible materials (something you constantly run into in costume
collections) we looked at what was more important and our curators felt that
leaving the historic evidence outweighed the long-term potential for
damage. We also felt that that damage potential was greatly slowed by
having these objects in a controlled storage environment vs. the damp warehouse
where they had been kept.
Where
labels were completely removed we placed them in zip-loc archivals bags and
pinned them to the stitched in accession label.
Loose
and partially detached labels were left in place as is and every effort was made
to store them in a safe manner.
As for
your some of your specific examples, I thing that well thought out housing
and good warning signs are key. We've found that ethafoam tri-rod works
great to keep things like cloth beaters from rolling, and a custom supports out
of Volara and tri-rod can stabilize the brittle areas like the labels on
the clogs.
We're
in the midst of a grand rehousing and I'd be happy to have you come by and take
a look at some the low cost solutions we've come up with (most of which are
based on examples from other institutions).
Feel
free to e-mail me or give me a call if you'd like to talk
more.
Sara
Reiter
Associate Conservator of Costume and Textiles
Philadelphia Museum of Art
215-684-7577
[Reiter,
Sara] -----Original Message-----
From:
Packer, Nancy [mailto:PackerN@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, November 01,
2004 6:17 PM
To: TEXCONS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject:
Preserving historic tags & labels in situ
I would appreciate the list's
thoughts on a dilemma that we are facing with several new acquisitions. We
have recently acquired a large number of historic textiles, garments, and
related materials (palm fans, wooden textile beaters, etc.) from a defunct
museum collection that was formed in the late 19th and early
20th centuries. Many of the items in this collection, which was
designed to introduce Philadelphia's entrepreneurs to the range of raw and
manufactured materials available around the world, have historic tags or
labels indicating such information as place of origin, cost of production,
manufacturing details, etc.
My question is regarding whether
or not these tags should be preserved IN PLACE, or if it is preferable that
they should be removed and stored in a mylar envelope or similar enclosure
(appropriately numbered) in the accession file for preservation of this
information. In most cases, I should mention, these tags and labels are not
very securely attached to the objects (where the attachment is more or less
permanent, we would not remove them), and the tags themselves are brittle and
discolored. I'll cite a few specific examples to give you an idea of the
situation: 1)a group of Philippine pina cloth samples with paper tags
indicating their town of origin and collection date pinned with straight pins
to the samples (all tags discolored, some creased and brittle); 2) a number of
heavy wooden cloth beaters with paper tags indicating origin on string looped
around the handles of the beaters - again tags are discolored &
embrittled, and the beaters tend to roll, even in a custom-made storage box,
thus threatening to bend and/or break the attached tags; 3) a wooden and woven
coir Chinese clog (pre-1895) with a brittle string & paper tag recording
origin & sale price looped around the also-brittle coir
upper.
The historic value of these
textiles obviously is tied closely to the documentation that these tags and
labels provide, and I hesitate to separate the two. At the same time, this
documentary evidence seems to be put at risk by leaving these tags in place,
where they are not firmly affixed; in addition, the acidic nature of these
tags represents a danger to the long-term preservation of the textiles
themselves. I would appreciate listmembers' thoughts on how best we can
balance these seemingly contradictory preservation demands.
Nancy E.
Packer
Collections
Curator
The Design
Center at
Philadelphia
University
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