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Friday, August 20, 2010

Storing Newspapers (again!) from Jane S.

Q. (too many to post) I just answered 12 e-mailed questions from a reader, spread over a week, regarding storing newspapers and newspaper inserts. This is not a customer of The Preservation Station, but a reader who had already purchased her supplies from 2 other companies and could not get help from customer service at either establishment. Was happy to help, but really! I'm posting a portion of my 12th response here to save future time:


A. To better illustrate my recommendations for safe, inexpensive storage of newspapers (and similar media) I will tell you how my own things are stored:

In a Sterilite underbed box; in general with our archival tissue under the bottom-most paper and a sheet or 2 between each item being stored (not each page). Pages with color have a single sheet interleaved.  Very significant (to me) newspapers have every page interleaved to prevent newsprint (which is not very stable) from touching and possibly smudging or blurring the opposite page.  The entire works is then covered with a few layers of tissue. The box is stored on a shelf of a dark closet (on an interior wall) in a room of our home that is lived in and thus has relatively stable temperature and humidity.  I have lavender in a corner of the box to guard against pests and mustiness. I take it down and check on it when I straighten the closet. That's it.

If I had loads of money, the only thing I would change is that I would interleave each and every page and place each paper in an archival sleeve with a sheet of Archival Intercept. The fact that I do not do that, even though I can purchase the products wholesale, gives some indication of the fact that, in my opinion, this would really be over-kill for contemporary newspapers.

Wishing you the best,  Debra