Florence Paisey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
An archival project that has been looking for funding has recently
found funds through the City. There are a great many scrapbooks--I
haven't counted yet. What has perplexed me since first seeing the
documents is how one can "dissolve" the rubber cement that was used to adhere documents in the scrapbook. Though wonderful to have the city's historic documents, I'm now faced with how to remove them from the scrapbooks and properly store them. Does anyone know of a good solvant for rubber cement--I haven't tried anything yet.<[log in to unmask]>
<[log in to unmask]>
The most recent summary I could find of methods used to remove rubber cement from paper documents is Niccolo Caldararo's post of 28 January 2000 on Conservation DistList, http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/cdl/2000/0143.html [1].

The gist of Caldararo and his references is that while it is indeed possible to remove rubber cement from paper there is no single "magic" solvent. The procedures followed and solvents used depend upon a number of factors, including the age, chemical makeup, and condition of the cement; the chemistry of the ink used on the documents; the condition of the documents and the scrapbook leaves on which they are mounted; and the amount of cement used to mount the documents (e.g., are they lightly tacked at the upper right and left corners, or was the cement swirled across the entire back of each document?). Regardless of the solvent used, however, all the methods discussed involve the presence of a trained paper conservator. While these methods might therefore be appropriate for a relatively small number of volumes, they would be impractical for a large number of scrapbooks holding the the complete historical records of a municipality. If, therefore, you have a large number of scrapbooks, the rubber cement is not so brittle that documents will fall off the page with a gentle nudge, and the leaves on which the documents are mounted are not highly acidic, you might want to consider not removing the documents from the scrapbooks at all, but, instead, making xerographic, photographic, or digital surrogates for research and reference, and removing the original scrapbooks to a controlled environment that will minimize deterioration.


[1] Some of Caldararo's references are cryptic:

Feller and Encke (1982) = Robert L. Feller and David B. Encke, "Stages in deterioration: the examples of rubbercement and transparent mending tape," in  Norman S. Brommelle and Garry Thomson, ed., Science and technology in the service of conservation: preprints of the contributions to the Washington congress, 3-9 September 1982 (International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 1982), pp. 19-23.

Caldararo's article in Restaurator, 13 (1992), 1-13, appears to = Niccolo Caldararo and R. Ann Sheldon, "The discovery of hidden drawings by backing removal: three examples including a Charles Keene Drawing", Restaurator, 13 (1992), 1-22.

Sue Murphy (Book and Paper Group Annual, 1988, 89-99 = Sue Beauman Murphy, "The Treatment of a Storyboard from the Movie Gone With the Wind", Book and paper Group Annual, 6 (1987), available online at http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/bpg/annual/v06/bp06-10.html

Robert Futernick, "Methods and makeshift," Book and Paper Group Annual, Volume 3 (1984), is also available online at http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/bpg/annual/v03/bp03-07.html





--
Michael Palmer, MLIS
Claremont, California
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