Storage & Conservation

Conservation in private hands is largely a matter of choosing a good room and then leaving things alone. Sophisticated intervention belongs to trained conservators; stable conditions belong to the owner, and they matter more.

Choosing the room

Look for a cool, dark interior space on an upper floor, away from exterior walls, with no plumbing above or beside it and no risk of flooding.

Rule out the loft, which cycles violently between hot and cold; the cellar, which is damp and floods; the garage, which is all three; and any room with a radiator, a fireplace, an air vent or strong daylight.

Keep material off the floor, raised at least a hand's width, and away from windows.

Environment

Stability first. Fluctuation stresses materials as they expand and contract, and does more harm than a steady figure slightly outside the ideal.

Relative humidity in the region of 45 to 55 per cent suits most paper collections. Below about 40 per cent, parchment and leather embrittle; above about 65 per cent, mould becomes likely.

Temperature: cool and steady. Cooler is chemically better, but not at the cost of large swings or of condensation.

Light: dark storage, with lighting switched on only when the room is in use.

Air: gentle circulation. Sealed, unventilated cupboards accumulate moisture and pollutants.

Buy a hygrometer. It costs very little and it converts guesswork into information. If the readings are poor, a dehumidifier or humidifier on a humidistat, running continuously, is usually the practical answer.

Enclosures

Every item should have an enclosure, and the enclosure should be inert.

Use acid-free, lignin-free folders, boxes and interleaving of conservation quality; buffered materials for most paper, unbuffered for parchment, photographs and certain dyed materials. Inert polyester sleeves are excellent for stable, flat items and unsuitable for anything friable. Solander and drop-front boxes for works on paper; custom clamshell boxes for fragile bindings.

Avoid ordinary cardboard, brown envelopes, newsprint, rubber bands, paperclips, adhesive tape, polyvinyl chloride, and unsealed wood.

Do not overfill a box, and do not let items bear the weight of those above them.

Documentation

A collection without records is harder to insure, harder to value and harder to sell.

Keep, for each item: a description, measurements, the date and source of acquisition, the price paid, the invoice, any earlier catalogue entry, condition observations with dates, and photographs of recto, verso and any inscription.

A simple spreadsheet with an item number and a folder of images is entirely sufficient. Keep a copy of the whole record away from the collection.

This record is also the provenance you will one day pass on: see [understanding provenance](/guides/understanding-provenance).

Security and insurance

Discretion is the first protection: the fewer people who know what is where, the better. Beyond that, consider a good safe or locked cabinet for the most valuable items, an intrusion alarm, and a smoke detector in the storage room itself.

Insurance for a collection of consequence generally requires a schedule and a valuation on a replacement basis, which is a different figure from an auction estimate. Review it periodically; values move, and an out-of-date schedule is discovered at the worst moment.

Emergency planning

Water causes most losses. Do not store under plumbing. Raise everything off the floor. Keep a few large sheets of polythene, some blotting paper and a torch in the room.

If material becomes wet, act quickly but do not improvise. Do not apply heat, do not use a hairdryer, and do not force pages apart. Move the material somewhere cool, separate items where they part willingly, support them, and telephone a paper conservator at once. For a substantial quantity, freezing halts the damage and buys the weeks needed to arrange proper drying.

Write the conservator's telephone number down now, and keep it with the collection.