ARCHIVISTS IN THE NEWS

SAVING ORIGINALS REMAINS ARCHIVE'S BACKBONE

Archivists will always be interested in original material.

The high-tech age will never change that, says the City of Lethbridge's head archivist Greg Ellis.

"In all the technology I've seen there's one major thing that hasn't changed -- the file cabinet, a place to store paper," he says. "But, technology now exists so within the next 10 to 20 years file cabinets will start to disappear.

"Paper has only been with us about 500 years, and everything decays. Nothing lasts forever, although some things, like the pyramids or Machu Picchu, do last a long time.

"... For all its dangers and perceived inadequacies, paper is still the most stable medium to store information on, despite all its drawbacks. But that will change with the advent of computer migrating strategies to move software from one storage system to another through the proper software.

"I foresee the day when newspapers and periodicals will be stored on CD ROMs, with a text search available. We can catalogue now, the next step is to call up items through a search program."

In the meantime, and even in the future, when archivists gather in original paper documents and photographs, they'll want to preserve them.

But they are faced with varied damaging elements, such as insects, mould, staples, paper clips, cellophane tape, the relatively short lifespan of paper, fluorescent light [and even] the sun itself.

These are the unseen enemies of the archivists world-wide.

Bugs, such as silverfish and cockroaches, eat paper; materials need fumigation to kill moulds or prevent them from forming; and innocent things like paper clips and staples rust, scarring precious documents. Cellophane tape can stain and yellow, and paper becomes brittle, disintegrating in crumbs over time.

"All these things are dangerous to archival material," says Ellis. "Of all types of articles preserved for heritage, including museum displays, archival materials are the most sensitive.

"We really try to monitor light, it can be extremely dangerous. Fluorescent lights have high ultra-violet readings, as does the sun. UV rays start the chemical reaction in paper, leading to deterioration."

Original materials in the Lethbridge archives are stored in cool, temperature- and humidity-controlled rooms. Light is kept out or used as little as possible. Clean hands and shoes mean clean documents.

Photographs are rare treasures, but they too deteriorate, despite heat and light controls and vacuum wrappings. The idea of transferring thousands and thousands of photographs to a single computer disc for storage is still a dream, maybe decades away. Such a move would substantially lengthen the life of an original photograph. It could remain in its vacuum-packed, cool, humid, dark surroundings, never having to be touched. Only the computer image and duplicates would be necessary.

Some of the enemies of archival materials are not external factors, but characteristics of the materials themselves.

"Newsprint makers include a fair amount of acid in manufacturing, and most of the acid remains in the paper, which itself causes the paper to self-destruct in a relatively short period of time," Ellis says.

He says a daily newspaper, left in direct sun for only three days, starts deteriorating. Newsprint has a very short lifespan.

Before the early [1800s], paper was high in linen rag content, a recycling process which made use of old linen materials mixed with wood pulp and other ingredients. The process yielded less acid than today's woodpulp process.

Ellis has a family dictionary 251 years old, on low quality paper, which is still in reasonably good condition. The same book, printed [on today's paper], wouldn't last near as long.

Newsprint of the past had long fibres, another aid to its longevity. ...With today's acid content and a very short fibre length, the result is a shorter lifespan.

It is little wonder archivists are looking to technology for long-term storage solutions.

But these solutions come with problems of their own.