Old repairs and the new

Removing old restoration from a document can sometimes be a daunting task. Recently, we encountered one such example.

This single leaf of an old printed book had been previously restored. The previous repairs seem as though they were done quite poorly and hastily. Also, the document was lined on both sides with thin japanese tissue, without being cleaned beforehand.

Our colleagues from the Department of Archeography kindly asked us to remove the old restoration hoping that the visibility of text might improve and, also, it's appearance, since the document is scheduled to be exhibited.

Condition before the treatment

 Detail of the previous restoration work

The document was first washed in warm, clean water so as to soften the adhesive used for restoration and lining. 

After 30 minutes in the bath, the adhesive finally softened enough so we could safely remove the japanese tissue. After this, we washed the document again, now in a 3% aqueous solution of sodium carbonate, and rinsed afterwards, hoping that some of the stains might fade.

After drying and pressing the appearance of the document has somewhat improved, although we couldn't remove all the surface dirt as the adhesive used for lining was quite strong and the impurities remained firmly fixed to the paper. We did not further insist on removing the stains since the document has already endured enough.

We decided to restore the document by leafcasting with paper pulp on the suction table. As the document was still unevenly stained, and even the mid tones weren't similar on it's recto and verso side, we used ivory toned paper pulp for the repairs.

After restoration

We have replaced the old and acidic folder the document has been in, and it is now resting in it's new acid-free envelope and is ready for safekeeping and display.

Light damage

Observe this striking example of how light can permanently damage your collections. 

Light speeds up the oxidation of paper, causing materials to deteriorate faster. It has a bleaching action, causing coloured papers and inks to whiten or fade and, at the same time, light can increase the chemical activity in paper, causing changes in colour particularly on poor quality paper like on the example below.  Light also generates heat and heat can also speed up the process of degradation of library materials. 

Ultraviolet light is the most harmful light, because the particular wavelength of ultraviolet light is very active, generating more radiation. Ultraviolet light is found in sunlight and fluorescent light, so both these types of light should be controlled in order to preserve library collections.

                                   

Watermarks

We stumbled upon two unusual watermarks. 

This wedding invitation looks like it was printed on paper that was cast on a piece of woodblock.

And the mysterious lady on the picture below was found, while spring-cleaning our japanese tissue stash, on an old misplaced piece of hand made paper.

We couldn't discover the manufacturer, unfortunately. If you have any information on this lovely watermark, do let us know.