How do you preserve old newspapers?

[Burdie]

I have bragged about TNet and this forum to every one I know. The people's experience and knowledge seem unlimited. I have told our historical society that I could find the answer to their problem. So I am ether going to eat my words about this forum or show them I am right about our TNetters.
Here are the problems. I posted about a lead printing plate that was found. The problem we have is the discovery of actual news papers printed in 1880's. They are crumbling and we need to figure out how to preserve them. How or who do we contact to help us? These papers run from 1886 to 1928. Just picking up the papers to fast will make them fall apart. What do we do? Help!!!
Burdie

 

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[LadyDigger]

I have bragged about TNet and this forum to every one I know. The people's experience and knowledge seem unlimited. I have told our historical society that I could find the answer to their problem. So I am ether going to eat my words about this forum or show them I am right about our TNetters.
Here are the problems. I posted about a lead printing plate that was found. The problem we have is the discovery of actual news papers printed in 1880's. They are crumbling and we need to figure out how to preserve them.  How or who do we contact to help us? These papers run from 1886 to 1928. Just picking up the papers to fast will make them fall apart. What do we do? Help!!!
Burdie

Me, personally...I scan in all of the newspapers...well, let me rephrase that...I have been scanning in "certain" articles of our local newspaper (The Virginian Pilot)....from 1994 to 2000...my garage is full of papers from every day of each year....I just have mine wrapped in plastic bags, taped shut and in storage boxes....I have so many left to scan...UGH!! Once completed, I have already told the Genealogy Section of the Va Beach Central Library that I will give them a copy of all the CD's I burn with all this information....for anyone trying to research. I scan in all articles about PEOPLE, things with people's names in it that are going on around town, obits, marriages, births, even legal notices (some, not all)...I also make sure to scan in anything relating to history of the area, or what may in a 100 yrs or so, become history! It's very time consuming, but the reward is knowning you helped perserve some of the history. If my scanner was bigger, I'd scan in the entire page of the paper!!!

Here are some links that may help:

http://loricase.com/faq.html (look at #5)

Here's a PDF file about perserving old newspapers:
http://www.mnhs.org/about/publications/techtalk/TechTalkMarch1997.pdf
There's an address in this PDF file for the Library of Congress..."Preserving Newspapers" was published in 1995 by The Preservation Directorate...which is a office in the Library of Congress. There is a phone number listed also...(hope it's still a good number...if not, think one could be found)

Found another link, also a PDF file (I'm saving these PDF files for me too )...great info. http://www.nps.gov/history/museum/publications/conserveogram/19-24.pdf

Good luck and I hope you are all able to preserve these papers the best you can....please let us know how this project goes....wish you were closer, I'd love to help!!!
Annmarie

 

[lucky1777]

Sorry, Burdie but I just seen this. Being from the 1880s and brittle I assume these are all pulp based papers. You need to store these flat and separate them with an acid free paper. Any folds in pulp paper will become extremely brittle over time. I store mine in the large thin totes, used for under beds. I put 3 or 4 layers of acid free paper on the bottom, then a paper, then acid free paper and so on. As for repairing them, I cant think of any way and if there is, it would be well over the value of these papers. I hope that gives you an idea, good luck.

 

[Siegfried Schlagrule]

Preserving papers is different from restoring papers but for those who are currently storing papers an oldtimey method of preserving them was to coat them in parafin.
I recently got several copies of the National Prospectors Gazette that were treated this way using a set of instructions in the NPG and they looked dark but are pefectly preserved. This person only treated the outside page and did nothing to the inside pages. This was done in the very early seventies so the method has worked for nearly forty years. siegfried schlagrule