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Guides to Photo and Document Preservation and Sharing for Families and Community Historical Societies

Storing Original Paper Photos and Documents

By R. Anderson - 2/2009

Proper storage of paper based images is important to prolonging their useful life.  This article provides broad suggestions about proper storage,  offers tips for immediate actions, and discusses environmental factors that are important to preservation.

Regardless of whether you have digitized some or all of your collection, you will want to properly store your paper originals.  Paper materials deteriorate over time, and this deterioration is often accelerated by largely controllable external factors.

 

Environmental Factors in Photo & Document Preservation

Natural chemical reactions are the primary focus in efforts to extend the useful life of paper photo and document originals.  The objective is to slow chemical reactions as much as possible, and to avoid introducing any environmental factors or chemicals that might react themselves or accelerate natural reactions.

Ideally, storage for paper photo and document collections should have the following characteristics:

►A stable and moderate temperature and humidity level.
►Reasonable ventilation to eliminate fumes from natural chemical reactions.
►Easy accessibility for periodic inspection to detect problems.
►Controlled exposure to light and pollutants such as acidic materials, dust, pollen, smoke, and chemical fumes.

Intuitively, everyone knows that boxes of family documents and photos stored in the attic, basement, or garage are at risk.  Extreme fluctuations in temperature and humidity can cause visible damage in relatively short periods of time.  Therefore, a good first step is to store important documents and photos in a stable environment, such as normally found in the main living spaces of a home.  Temperature and humidity in a range that is comfortable to humans is commonly used as a rule of thumb as to what is reasonable for photo and document storage.

Tips / Hints:  Below are some quick fix tips to prolong the useful life of you photo and document originals.
●  Eliminate foreign objects from your collections - Tape, glue, paper clips, and rubber bands all introduce unnatural chemical reactions that can rapidly discolor and chemically damage images.  You should seriously consider the pros and cons of disassembling collections that are taped or glued (scrapbooks), since these are two of the worst offenders.  Instead of rubber bands or paper clips, consider storing groupings in acid free envelopes or other archival storage materials.
●  Store like items together as much as possible - Rather than storing transparencies with prints and newspapers, you should store them in categories.  The simple explanation is that they each possess different levels of acidity and are subject to different chemical reactions.  Therefore, they may influence each other in negative ways.
●  Learn about and use archival storage materials - Learning to identify and use archival materials will help you to prolong the life of your originals and help you to keep your collections better organized.

The Major Environmental Storage Factors

The primary factors that impact the useful life of paper based photo and document collections include: temperature, humidity, pollutants, pests, and exposure to light.

►  Temperature - Museums strive to maintain temperatures of 72 degrees Fahrenheit.  Although it may not be possible to control temperature as precisely as a museum, the further outside of a human comfort zone, the greater the risk to your collection.  Extremes, and dramatic swings, in temperature damage the paper and other materials in photos and documents by accelerating chemical reactions and/or by expansion and contraction.
►  Humidity - Museums typically strive to maintain a relative humidity of 50%.  Particularly in combination with temperature extremes, humidity both initiates and accelerates many chemical reactions.  High humidity can also create an environment conducive to mold and mildew, a situation that can cause rapid deterioration and irreversible damage. 
►  Pollutants - Pollutants include a broad range of substances or objects that cause or accelerate chemical reactions, or create an increased risk of abrasion or other surface damage.  These pollutants include dust, smoke, fumes from cleaning materials, chemicals and acids present in improper storage materials, and many glues and tapes used to mount and display images.  Even fumes being created by natural chemical reactions in unventilated storage can accelerate other chemical processes.  Clean storage areas, reasonable ventilation, and proper storage materials reduce the risks associated with most pollutants.
►  Pests - Insects and rodents may choose to take up residence in certain types of paper.  Worse yet, they may perceive the collection to be a food source.  The best way to avoid pest damage is to periodically inspect the collection in order to detect and resolve a pest problem early.
►  Exposure to Light - Museums go to extraordinary lengths to control exposure of collections to certain types of light.  Many types of lighting, particularly direct sunlight, impact chemical reactions of the different materials that may be contained in displayed objects, and fade or discolor images in a meaningful way.  Careful placement of displayed images, rotation of collections, use of special lighting, and day-to-day display of duplicates, are some of the many techniques used to control the level of exposure to harmful light.

Tips for Storing Original Photo Prints and Documents

Photographs are typically composed of three layers of materials.  In addition to paper, chemicals and inks used to represent the image on the surface are adhered to the paper with a binder.  The exact composition depends on the era of the photo and the developing and/or printing process used.  Regardless, each layer can react to a given environment differently and at different rates of deterioration.

 

Tips for Storing Original Photos Include:

□ When you receive photos developed from film, segregate the prints from the negatives.  The materials are different and subject to different chemical reactions.

□ Place the prints in archival acid free envelopes rather than the potentially acidic envelopes that come back from the developer.

□ When storing and organizing prints, always try to manage the acid content of storage materials that come in direct contact with the prints.  If you use envelopes, albums, or boxes for storage, these should be "archival quality".

□ Avoid using common tapes or glue in your projects, as these are a leading cause of damage.  These are inherently reactive and often the cause of rapid deterioration.

□ Take a good look at your existing albums, and seriously consider upgrading to archival quality albums or printed photo books, if appropriate.  Many albums sold in the past were not made of archival materials and have damaged many pictures.  The many albums sold with black paper pages are very acidic, and the laminated look "magnetic" albums are notoriously bad for photos.  If the photos in such non-archival albums have not already been damaged beyond hope, it may be worth the effort to try to scan or remove photos in these albums.

Tips for Storing Original Documents

Common family and historical society documents include letters, journals, legal papers, newspaper clippings, and other items consisting of paper and inks.  Chemical compositions vary widely based on materials available and used at the time of document production.

Paper manufacturing for many uses shifted from high rag content to wood pulp in the late 1800s.  Unfortunately,  common papers made of wood pulp exhibit rapid deterioration due to high acid content.  Therefore, many original documents dating from the late 1800s can be expected to deteriorate more rapidly than many documents from previous periods.

It is also quite easy to see the differences in aging and discoloration between certain types of modern papers.  Newsprint is an obvious example due to its low cost processing and resulting high acid content.

Tips for Storing Paper Documents Include:

□ Attempt to avoid mixing paper qualities in storage.  Newspaper clippings, letters, books, and other types of documents should be segregated as much as possible.  Storing newspaper clippings in a book or among letters will simply allow the high acid content of the newsprint to migrate to the other paper.

□ When possible, documents should be stored flat and unfolded, as folding and unfolding simply causes additional wear.

□ If a particular portion of your collection is showing rapid deterioration, the chemical properties are probably poor, and this portion of your collection should become a priority for duplication on archival paper or digitizing.

□ As with photos, avoid using lamination, glue, and tape.

□ Note that scrapbooks often include a wide range of materials (clippings, photos, announcements, ticket stubs, glue, tape etc.).  Therefore, if you have scrapbooks, you should balance the importance of using original items in the scrapbook and the higher risk of rapid deterioration.  It may be that re-organizing the items or scrapbooking with duplicate images makes better preservation sense.

□  Archival quality storage materials are readily available at a number of sources including Dick Blick Art Materials and   Archival Methods.

Archival Paper Basics

Most paper produced since the late 1800s has been produced using wood pulp, an inherently acidic material.  The quality of paper often equates to how many steps are taken in the manufacturing process to reduce the acidity of the paper and to improve the chemical stability of better quality papers.

This is why we see rapid deterioration of cheaper paper materials such as newsprint, which remains highly acidic.  This rapid deterioration is the result of chemical reactions, which are accelerated by light, heat, and humidity.

There are some labeling terms often used with paper products, which provide clues to the appropriateness of using the paper for archival storage  purposes.

Be cautious as you see these terms, as suppliers' definitions of archival qualities vary.  In any case, if you can become satisfied that paper being used for reproductions and storage are chemically stable, your preservation efforts are improved.

pH Balanced - A chemically neutral paper is typically described as pH balanced.  This paper will have a pH between 7.5 and 10.  A pH of 7.5 is often referred to as "balanced" and a pH of 10 is often associated with "archival".

Buffered - Paper is referred to as buffered when it is manufactured to contain a small amount of Calcium Carbonate to act as a barrier to acid contamination.  The calcium carbonate is typically in the range of 2%.

Acid Free - The term acid free is used to suggest a very low acidic content.  In paper content descriptions, this is often denoted as the % of lignin content.  Lignin is an acidic compound present in wood.  Therefore, a very low lignin content percentage is indicative of a low acid content, and is often described as acid free.

Archival - Materials are best described as archival when the pH approaches 10, and lignin is not present.  However, you may see materials described as archival when pH is  above 7.5, only small percentages of lignin are present, and materials are buffered.

Although many products sold through mass marketers are labeled archival or such, the best way to be certain of labeling is to buy from sources that are experienced with these materials.  Dick Blick Art Materials  has a dedicated archival materials department and Archival Methods only sells archival supplies.