try to fix these problems with tape or adhesive as this will often lead to additional damage and a more costly and difficult treatment later. Damaged items should be treated by a conservator but can be encapsulated or stored in an acid-free folder so that no pieces are lost until conservation treatment is possible.
Stamps
Adhesive backed stamps should be handled with great care. The humidity and oils on fingertips can easily disturb the surface of the adhesive. Always wear gloves and use wide-tipped tweezers to move stamps.
The adhesive on the back of many stamps is susceptible to high humidity that can cause the adhesive to stick to adjacent materials. Do not hinge or mount previously unused stamps with adhesives. This will lower the value of the stamp.
Many stamp collector supply houses offer photocopy protection pages, pages that prevent copying of the stamps, and black mounting pages. Tests have shown that many of these pages are acidic and will cause damage and discolouration of the stamps with long-term exposure.
Stamp storage should be uncoated polyester, acid-free buffered paper, glassine, or parchment paper. Polyester sleeves can be stored in a three ring binder, some of which “zip” open down the side for easy access and to allow viewing of both sides of the stamp. There are mounts for individual stamps that require no adhesive. Once mounted, stamps can be stored in an acid-free box.
Trading cards
There are different grades of trading cards. Common cards that are purchased in packs have a low monetary value. Popular cards that are collected because of the card image or information also are of little monetary value. Premium cards are ones that have a monetary value of over five dollars. The most valuable are sets that have been left in their original factory packaging.
Usually common cards are stored in boxes. Acid-free boxes are recommended since you never know when a common card may become valuable. Sets are also usually stored in boxes. When you buy a set, it is usually sealed in a printed Mylar (Melinex) envelope or sealed in plastic. Sets should be handled infrequently and with care. You should wear gloves because damage to the plastic or the image printed on the Mylar lowers the value of the set.
Popular and premium cards are usually stored in sleeves. There are sleeve pages that hold two to nine cards that fit into binders. There are also sleeves for single cards that would then be stored in an acid-free box. There is a wide range of different materials and quality sleeves available. It is important to insure that you are storing your trading cards in polyester sleeves. Sleeves should be acid-free, and plastic sleeves should not contain PVC. Again, always wear cotton gloves when handling premium cards.
In order to care for a book collection, it is important to understand a bit about the construction and structure of books. The text of a book, the combined printed or written pages of a book, is determined by the orientation of the text on a page, whether the paper is folded to form multiple pages, and, if so, how many times they are folded.
Unfolded paper results in two pages (leaves), front and back, per sheet of paper. These sheets can be put together, or bound, in several ways: glue/adhesive, sewing, staples or posts, oriental binding, or ring or spiral binders.
Diagram 2: Sheets and leaves
A sheet of paper can be printed on both sides and then folded one or more times. The folded form is called a signature or gathering.
• One sheet, folded once = 2 leaves = 4 pages
• One sheet, folded twice = 4 leaves = 8 pages
• One sheet, folded three times = 8 leaves = 16 pages.This is the most common format and it is called an octavo.
Diagram 3: Folds and leaves in an octavo
Folded signatures are bound together either by sewing a continuous thread along the inside of the fold that comes out as a chain stitch on the spine or by a thread coming out of the fold and wrapping around a cord or tape placed perpendicular to the spine. Sewing causes a slightly thicker block at the spine.
Bound pages are called a text block. Once the end sheet or end paper is added the text block becomes a book block. Adhesive is applied to the spine to help with alignment and the block is trimmed to open all the folds in the sheets.
The spine is shaped with a slight curve away from the text to help reduce the bulge at the spine caused by sewing. The spine is then lined with cloth and, sometimes, additional reinforcements.
Diagram 4: Curved shape of a book spine
In early bindings and in some hand bindings today, the boards are laced onto the book block and then covered with leather or fabric. In most bindings today, the cover boards and cloth or leather are put together first then adhered to the book block. This is called case binding.
In a paperback book, the folded edges of the spine are usually not sewn but are ground away, adhesive is applied, and the soft cover is glued on. The glue used for older paperbacks is prone to drying out, leading to loose pages.
Preservation Concerns
Books are sensitive to all the environmental factors already considered: light, temperature,relative humidity, and infestation (mould, insects, or rodents). One important factor in the deterioration of leather bindings is air pollution. The absorption of chemical air pollutants, especially sulphur dioxide from car exhaust, accelerates the breakdown of the natural oils and fats in leather, causing bindings to crack with normal handling. There are many abrasive particles present in the air; these particles land on the books causing deterioration of the exposed edges of the paper and bindings, staining, and abrasion.
It is easy to damage a bound volume through poor handling. Removing a book from the shelf by pulling at the top of the spine (head cap) results in damage and tearing of the binding. Books with damaged spines or failing bindings need adequate support when being handled to prevent separation of the book block from the binding. Additional handling recommendations can be found in Appendix 4: General Rules for Handling and Moving Artifacts and Works of Art.
The information in books may need to be shared among several people, but photocopying a book is discouraged. Most photocopiers require that a book be open to lay flat at 180 degrees. This can fracture the spine of the book, crack older or desiccated (dried out) adhesives, and break the stitching of older bindings, causing pages to loosen or fall out. If you have to make photocopies, it is important to make one copy onto a permanent durable paper using an electrostatic copier with edge platens that allow books to be copied at 90 instead of 180 degrees. Additional copies can be made from this high quality master.
Preventative Conservation of Books
The first step is always to thoroughly examine your book to check for damage, potential problems, and the overall
