Storing photographic materials

Joice Himawan <jhimawan [at] masshist__org> writes

>Our Associate Librarian remembers reading a fairly recent
>publication from NEDCC (technical notes type of thing) that says it
>is okay to use *buffered* tissue for interleaving and folders for
>storing photographs.  Since this is *not* the conventional wisdom
>that I'm familiar with, I'd like to know (a) if this is true?  And
>(b) if anybody can give me the reference info for this publication,
>I'd appreciate it.

Conventional wisdom, as you say, dictates avoidance of buffered
materials with photos.

NEDCC's judgement may be derived from James Reilly's work with this,
using the photographic activity test on albumen photos and buffered
papers, in which they were unable to note any significant difference
in deterioration with buffered and non-buffered materials.  Abbey
Newsletter, Oct. '84, has a brief writeup on this, with reference to
a related discussion in the July issue of that year.

I've noted that there seems to be general acceptance of the use of
lightly buffered storage boxes providing they are not in direct
contact with the image material of the object.  It's the
*interleaving* you mention that I wonder about, and my sense of it
would be that, in the slightest shadow of doubt, why do it?

But hopefully somebody else will come up with something more recent
or definitive for you.

C. Stewart
Sr. Photographic Technician
LPS, U.C., Berkeley


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:43
                Distributed: Wednesday, February 9, 2000
                       Message Id: cdl-13-43-003
                                  ***