Buffered boxes for silk storage

[Irene Karsten <ifkars10@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At the University of Alberta, we are currently planning a new
storage facility for a collection of over 600 East Asian textiles.
This collection includes a large number of smaller flat textiles
primarily made of silk embroidered with silk and metal threads: rank
badges, sleeve bands, textile fragments, etc.  We are considering
housing these artifacts in acid-free cardboard boxes in order to
facilitate moving the objects to the new storage room (in another
building) and to facilitate frequent moving from storage to a
research/study area since the collection will be heavily used for
research and teaching.  Ready-made archival boxes could provide good
protection for these artifacts at a reasonable cost.

My question concerns the effects of alkaline buffers that are
incorporated in most archival boxes.  Non-buffered acid-free
materials (tissues, boards) are usually recommended for textiles--
for protein fibres especially--to prevent potentional degradation to
fibres and dyes.  Although it is true that immersion in alkaline
solutions, particularly strong bases, degrades silk and wool, I have
been unable to find any research on the effects of adjacency to
alkaline buffered materials.  Has anyone experienced problems with
alkaline buffered materials in practice?  Should buffered archival
boxes be avoided for silk materials even if lined with unbuffered
materials?



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