[Nhcoll-l] Labels for Collection

[Harold Walker]

Going back a few days, I agree with Simon: "I never experienced much acid
release from Resistall back in the 1990s."  These old labels should remain
in the jar, avoiding the tying of plastic packages to the jar, especially
considering an overwhelming source of acidity is from the residue of
formalin in the specimens (even after two or three fluid exchanges).  I'm
speaking from the fish collection world where minimum jar volumes are ~240
ml or 120 ml and contain appropriately sized specimens.



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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-- 
H.J. Walker, Jr.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California, San Diego 0244
La Jolla, CA  92093-0244
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