Literature

"Glove Selection." Art Hazards News 11(4) 1988, p. 2-3. The most thorough guide yet, with eight types of glove materials and their adequacy of protection against over nine types of chemicals, plus aspects of physical performance, in one big chart. It is necessary to have several types of gloves in a lab because no single type can offer protection against all types of chemicals. Only polyethylene or nitrile gloves, for instance, give better than "fair" protection against toluene; but they give excellent protection. The eight types of glove material are: natural rubber, neoprene, buna-N, butyl, polyvinyl chloride, polyvinyl alcohol, polyethylene and nitrile.

"Salvage Operations for Water Damaged Collections," by Betty Walsh (Provincial Archives of British Columbia, 655 Belleville St., Victoria, BC V8V 1X4, Canada). WAAC Newsletter 10(2), May 1988, p. 2-4, + a centerspread chart. Mast of the guide and all of the chart tell how to salvage different kinds of wet materials: paper, books, paintings, floppy diskettes, sound & video recordings, photographs. Within each kind of material, there are subtypes, e.g. "Leather and vellum bindings," "Books and periodicals with coated papers." For each subtype a short note in the chart tells its priority, handling precautions, packing method, and drying method. It is a chart intended for use onsite, in the emergency, and it makes clear that there is too much for anyone to carry in their head when it comes to salvage. It would make sense for every institution to have charts like this in every supply kit and in every building where salvage might be performed.

The Editor of the WAAC Newsletter is Chris Stavroudis, 1115 N. Flores St. #8, Los Angeles, CA 90069 (213/654-8748).

Hell and High Water: A Disaster Information Sourcebook. (METRO Miscellaneous Publication No. 35) Compiled by Barbara J. Rhodes. 1988. One copy free to METRO members; $14 New York State order; $20 out-of-state order. Order from the publisher, METRO New York Metropolitan Reference and Research Library Agency, 57 Willoughby St., Brooklyn, NY 11201. There are 15 pages of introductory material on planning preparedness, recovery, freezing and so on by Paul Banks, Carolyn Harris, Lorraine Rutherford and John Baker. Pages 16-58 are devoted to lists and descriptions of supplies and services. (Printed on acidic paper.)

A Guide to Museum Pest Control, a joint publication of FAIC and the Association of Systematics Collections (ASC), will appear in late summer 1988. Editor: Lynda A. Zycherman; Assistant Editor: John Richard Schrock. Major topics: legal aspects of pest control; pest identification; alternative pest control methods; and effects of pesticides on museum objects. A revised and extensively expanded version of the ASC publication, Pest Control in Museums (1980). Price, until Oct. 15: $28 prepaid. After Oct. 15, price is $36 prepaid; add $3.60 if not paid with order. All payments in US dollars. Order from: Association of Systematics Collections, 730 11th St. NW, 2nd floor, Washington, DC 20001.

"Print Collecting and the Problem of Breaking," by Eugene C. Worman, Jr. Antiquarian Bookman 81(16), April 18, 1988, p. 1609-1619. "Breaking" is a name for taking a book apart and selling it by the page--a bookseller's practice, especially with books of prints or maps. The author is a dealer specializing in 19th- and 20th-century historical and fine art prints, born in India of missionary parents, and holder of a Ph.D. in anthropology. Not surprisingly, he is able to give a thorough and fair analysis of this problem. He gives individual books and types of books that are favored targets for breakers and advocates actions to prevent their total disappearance. "It therefore seems the time has come for book and print dealers as well as collectors to cooperate more closely in determining which important illustrated books are endangered and which should be saved. One way to start would be to record and widely publicize the number of copies issued in key editions of famous illustrated works and to take a census of how many copies are still known to exist intact.... Actually storing and conserving the books is almost certainly a library's job...

"Alum and its Use in Paper Marbling, Part II: The Solution," by Don Guyot. Ink & Gall 1(4) [received May 1988], p. 10-

12. Sorts out the different kinds of alum used in different recipes and recommends aluminum sulfate because it is soluble in cold water and the unreacted portion can be rinsed away afterward so as to maximize permanence.

"Studies on the Microbial Degradation of Ancient Leather Bookbindings: Pt. 1," by A. B. Strelczyk, J. Kuroczkin (Poland) and W. E. Krumbein (FRG). International Biodeterioration 23(1) 1987, p. 3-28.

Essays in Paper Analysis, edited by Stephen Spector. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC 1987. 238 pp. $34.50. A book for the bibliographer rather than the paper chemist, but one that may interest the forensic scientist nevertheless because of its relevance to detection of forgeries. Table of contents:

Was the Mains Catholicon printed in 1460? - Curt F. Bühler
Musicology and paper study--A survey and evaluation - Frederick Hudson
Early dated watermarks in English papers: A cautionary note - Hilton Kelliher
The Reina Codex revisited - John Nádas
A checklist of books and articles containing reproductions of watermarks - Phillip Pulsiano
Techniques of reproducing watermarks: A practical introduction - David Schoonover
Beethoven's Leonore sketchbook (Mendelssohn 15): Problems of reconstruction and of chronology - Alan Tyson
Paper as evidence: The utility of the study of paper for seventeenth-century English literary scholarship -William Proctor Williams
The analysis of paper and ink in early maps: Opportunities and realities - David Woodward