When copying goes bad
Sometimes documents must be repaired not because they are extremely old but because they’ve been mishandled. In St. Louis, Records Center employees have occasionally fed an original document through an auto-feeder on a photocopying machine, with disastrous results.

A preservation technician often can repair such a document so that the vital information can be retrieved. We humidify the mangled document, then smooth out the creases and crimps with a bone folder (which is not always made of bone, despite the name). 

We carefully piece the documents together, using Japanese tissue and wheat starch paste. The process may take several days. For a routine military record, the goal is to repair the document so it can be read; we don’t try to make it look “good as new.” We reserve more labor intensive and costly treatments for more historically valuable documents.

So, let that be a lesson to you, boys and girls—no original documents in the automatic feeder!

58 Notes/ Hide

  1. stabby reblogged this from todaysdocument
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  10. peekadora reblogged this from palegirlinthecity and added:
    It seems that digital scanning would be less damaging to the original documents.
  11. timetoappreciate reblogged this from todaysdocument
  12. palegirlinthecity reblogged this from todaysdocument and added:
    I’ve had that happen with totally non-historical documents and wanted to punch the copier. Can’t imagine that happening...
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  14. todaysdocument reblogged this from preservearchives
  15. annachronism reblogged this from preservearchives and added:
    my library place
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