A customer recently approached us to sort, cull, catalogue and eventually provide document storage for their precious paperwork.
During this process our staff found a number of VERY old documents dating from 1850 onwards. Our dilemma – should we archive them in a standard fashion, or implement some historical document processing protocols to ensure the longevity of the documents?
Luckily, the client agreed to the latter and we went about processing these documents.
The process included using cotton gloves to handle documents (protection from harmful skin oils), sheathing photographs and the like in non-reactive polyethylene plastic, bubble wrapping important paper documents to reduce buffeting and of course providing acid free, PH treated cartons for the storage of these precious documents.
We believe that these measures have substantially increased the life of these documents. While some water damage had already been sustained this process has eliminated further weathering, and their storage in our Smart Stack archiving system means they will now last the test of time.
We’re committed to providing advice and service that helps protect the longevity of your documents, this can include digitisation and preservation.
If you want advice on how to handle and preserve historical documents please feel free to contact us.
