Preserve / Conserve?

“Preservation keeps archives staying ‘young’, anti-ageing treatment for skincare alike.”

If you have inherited documents, books or photos at home, how do you keep them well and prevent them from damages by pests, mould and harmful substances? You may scratch your head over this vexing question without an answer. No worries, let’s have a look at the following experience sharing of Curator (Preservation Service), Ms Angela Liu Wai-sum on how to preserve and conserve archives of the Government Records Service (GRS).

 

Proper Preservation of Archives – “Anti-ageing Treatment”

Ms Liu said there are two operating principles in archives preservation: prevention and intervention. What are they and their difference? “For prevention, we adopt preventive measures in the hope of slowing down the ageing process of the physical materials contained in archives, just like an ‘anti-ageing’ treatment for skincare. To keep archives staying long, our professional team has to remove harmful materials and to reduce damages posed to archives through controlling the macro-environmental conditions, like maintaining satisfactory humidity and temperature levels for preventing mould growth and pests infestation; reducing pollutants in the air while storing; and preventing any damages to paper records and the ink caused by light and ultraviolet radiation etc. By referring to international standards and best practices, the team has set guidelines and requirements for storage condition basing on our unique geographic climate conditions and work practices. We strictly monitor the humidity and temperature levels for a proper preservation of the archives. To provide a pest-free environment to store archives, incoming archives suspected with pest infestation will undergo nitrogen fumigation treatment before they are put in the repository. The entire fumigation process provides an environment with low oxygen and high nitrogen content to eradicate pests, such as silverfish, booklice, cigarette beetles, termites, and cockroaches and prevent them from affecting other holdings.”

For interventive conservation, Ms Liu and her team tailor-make the most suitable conservation plan, like a “skincare treatment course”, for the archives according to the extents of damages: minor repairing for less-damaged archives, and interventional treatments for those heavily damaged in the hope of stabilising their structures for better access.

Revealing the “Hidden Information” through Conservation

What steps of an interventional treatment are? Ms Liu explained: “Whenever the paper fibre of a record turns grey-black or even purple colour induced by mould, we have to use chemical solution or solvents to clean the paper in order to restore its original state. However, the application of this interventional treatment likes tossing a coin. On the one hand, it can effectively remove stains, or removing acidic substances to resume softness and whiteness of the paper. On the other hand, such aggressive procedure is sometimes harmful to ink or colour materials such as, fading signatures and disappearing handwritings.” Therefore, the conservation team must thoroughly assess the condition and material nature of each record to be conserved and comes up with a practical plan. Experienced conservators are essential to facilitate the devising of an appropriate conservation plan.

Riding on an Amazing “Journey” – Discovering a Lot Plan

One conservation treatment stays in Ms Liu’s mind: “Once, we had conserved a file cover of a document, which had been badly damaged by mould, causing the front and the back covers stuck with each other. The file could not be open. Our team tried to remove the mould and sticky substances with hand tools and moisture, and cut it open with a thin blade. Eventually, we succeeded in opening the file and an aged land lot plan was found inside. It was out of the blue.” Ms Liu recalled that her team was overjoyed. “We found that finishing a conservation task likes undergoing a surgical operation: conservators need to be bold yet careful in every step”.

Conservation Techniques: Ever-updating and Innovating

Records have gone through a lot from creation, being in use, to receiving conservation treatment in GRS. Ms Liu said, “Each in-coming record has a story to tell. Its physical condition speaks for itself, revealing the past usage and storage environment in the creating agency, as well as its access rate in GRS.”

Ms. Liu said that there is a photo album featuring the landscape of the 19th century Hong Kong which is very popular, with a relatively high retrieval rate from the public. Unfortunately, frequent access and handling by public members endangered the emulsion layer of the photos – some photos started to curl up. While conservation treatment has been conducted, the photos were vulnerable by frequent access and suffered from damages under repeated retrieval. In the end, the team decided to produce a digitised copy of the photo album for public viewing. Ms Liu described that it is a “win-win” solution. It helps better preserve the photo album without handling the physical object, and at the same time, it provides a more convenient way for users to access the digitised copies.

She supplemented that digitisation of archival holdings is a global trend with the advantage of providing users the information they needed at their fingertips through online transmission. However, it requires input of considerable amount of resources and expertise, involving complicated and step-by-step processes. So far, her team has produced microfilm copies on top of the digitised copies to serve as a relatively long-term and stable storage medium.

Preserve Treasures for Everyone Together

In the course of conservation treatments for the archives with various extent of problems, the team needs to apply versatile knowledge and different skills set, such as applied Chemistry and traditional techniques to complete the tasks. The team is also required to draw up “rescue plan” for archives by exploring the latest technological development in the sector, and sometimes, referring to wisdom of people from the past. Ms Liu recalled, “Once, we conserved a petition from the villagers of Ma Tau Wai Village dated 1901. This petition is an ancient Chinese memorial bound in an accordion format, some of the pages found torn and loosened along the folded edges because of the insect bite. Since the petition was made of traditional Chinese writing paper, it was the best solution to adopt traditional Chinese mounting and the same material to repair the holding. We glued a layer of Xuan paper, another kind of Chinese paper with similar texture, to support the document with starch paste in the hope of restoring strength of the paper as well as repairing the insect holes. The techniques and the selected materials used were a perfect match with the holding, and the result was fabulous.”

To tackle challenges ahead, Ms Liu and her team will continue to make the best use of their versatile knowledge and professional techniques to device treatment plans and preservation solutions for valuable archives to meet their long-term preservation needs.