[Nhcoll-l] Labels for Collection

[Dean Pentcheff]

"Thereafter, however, we switched to some form of synthetic glue that is
much harder to remove, requiring acetone and thus a fume hood. Not
progress, then..."

Unless, of course, you were trying to recover the ledgers from a flood... :)

-Dean
-- 
Dean Pentcheff
pentcheff at gmail.com
pentcheff at nhm.org <dpentche at nhm.org>
https://research.nhm.org/disco



On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 2:48 PM Callomon,Paul <prc44 at drexel.edu> wrote:

> Just a follow-on from the discussion on original labels: it's a axiom of
> conservation work that you should never use a glue if you don't have to. If
> there's a purely mechanical way to fasten two things together (like string
> or an attached Mylar envelope) that should always be used. Even
> "reversible" glues like Paraloid (Acryloid) B-72 will bind fibers and cause
> distortions through differential shrink rates that can't be "reversed".
>
> A glue story: I just spent several weeks detaching all the labels,
> letters, invoices and other bits of paper that had been glued into our
> collection ledgers over the 100-plus years of their use, before sending the
> books off for scanning. From the 1890s up until about 1935, our folks used
> a remarkably "reversible" natural resin of some kind that still dissolves
> in water from a hard, glass-like state to a sticky solution; adding more
> water thins it further, allowing even tissue-thin notes to be safely peeled
> off the underlying page.
> Thereafter, however, we switched to some form of synthetic glue that is
> much harder to remove, requiring acetone and thus a fume hood. Not
> progress, then...
>
> *Paul Callomon*
> *Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates*
> ------------------------------
> *Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia*
> *callomon at ansp.org <callomon at ansp.org> Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170*
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