How to care for paper

The best advice is always to:

• Avoid or minimise risks from conditions such as fire, flood, theft, or pests of from unsuitably hot or damp conditions. In particular, avoid storage in attics or cellars where threats to the survival of papers may go undetected and cannot be easily monitored.

• Stabilise and protect papers in your care by keeping them in suitable archival quality albums and sleeves.

• Always use acid-free materials and never use storage albums such as the self-adhesive type.

• Never attempt to repair damaged documents. The use of self-adhesive tape such as Sellotape is highly damaging as it causes chemical reactions to records on paper. It is better to protect damaged paper material inside archival quality inert Secol sleeves where material is totally protected and can be viewed.

Simple preservation measures you can take include:

• Use archival quality inert Secol sleeves and albums for your collection. These sleeves and albums come in a large variety of sizes. It is possible to buy a ring binder album and then to mix items such as handbills, postcards and tickets in standard-size album pages. Secol sleeves and albums can be purchased from companies such as Preservation Equipment or Conservation Resources.

• Use only brass paper clips (clips made of other metals tend to rust) to hold small numbers of related papers together.

• Carefully remove metal paper clips, staples, pins and rubber bands where this can be done without damage. Unbleached archival tape made of cotton or linen can be used to preserve original bundles of papers or can be used to keep detached bindings together on books. Tape can be purchased from companies such as Preservation Equipment or Conservation Resources.

• Keep all papers flat and unfolded in archival-quality boxes or albums of appropriate size.

• Ensure that direct sunlight or powerful artificial light doesn't fall onto paper material. Material should be suitable protected by blinds and/or boxing.

• Try to keep material in a stable environment which is not too hot or humid: this will promote their long-term preservation. Temperatures rising significantly above 19 degress centrigrade on a regular basis or relative humidity significantly exceeding 60% can be particularly damaging to paper and should be avoided. In a domestic environment, paper material is best kept in a cool damp-free room where the air can circulate.