Materials
Causes of Damage
Family papers and documents are often stored in all sorts of places - in the attic or the cellar, at the backs of drawers and cupboards, even framed and hung on a wall or stood on a bookshelf.
Many of these locations are not really suitable for long-term preservation, as the documents can be susceptible to damage from over-handling, insects, damp and UV rays from sunlight. Moisture can leave stains or pink marks. This is a sign that mould has been eating the cellulose etc. out of the paper and this makes it soft and powdery.
Another major factor of damage is the poor quality of the
original material. Added to this, the manufacturing processes
themselves were very acidic, so some leathers used in bookbinding
lost strength very quickly.
From around the 1850s machines were used to make paper instead of
it being made by hand, and instead of using linen rags, wood pulp
was used. This was a plentiful source of cheap material but the
pulp was very acidic, and contained a substance called lignin which
turns paper brown on any parts subjected to sunlight.
