Plastic Fantastic in the Archives!
An investigation into the plastic used in 1930s leather-bound enclosures
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26686/arch.10689Keywords:
Archival materials -- Storage, Plastics -- Deterioration, Taonga, Constitutional history, Whare tukunga kōrero, NitrocelluloseAbstract
This article is adapted from a lightning talk presented on 16 December, 2016 at the New Zealand Conservators of Cultural Materials Conference, Wellington 17-19 October, 2016. In preparation for the He Tohu exhibition, information was collected to develop conservation and preservation management plans for the constitutional documents going on display. An investigation into an alarming deterioration of celluloid loose-leaf sleeves used by the National Archives is outlined. The article discusses the discovery of leather-bound boxes showing scorches and deteriorated sleeves, testing of the sleeves with a float test, burn test and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR analysis) spectroscopy, showing that the cellulose nitrate sleeves had degraded, releasing acidic nitrogen oxide gases (nitrous oxide, nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide). Observatins and guidelines from the literature on using plastic in archival storage are also highlighted.
Metadata reused from the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa under a CC BY 4.0 license.
