Document archives are critical... and we don't know what's in them.

[DetlefK]

http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1818-forgeries-happen-6-realities-inside-americas-archives.html

6. Sometimes we don't know what's in an archive.

"The sheer volume of paper out there means that there's simply no way that archivists have been able to go through everything. Some boxes haven't been opened since the 1800s, and we may never have any idea what these things are. See, archivists need permission to go through material like that. To do so, you need to tell the higher-ups specifically where you want to look and what you're looking for. You can't simply start randomly spelunking in piles of government papers -- the files will get messed up even worse than they are now. Somewhere in our records are papers that could change what we know about the history of our country. Every archivist knows this."

----------------------------------

5. Documents get damaged and destroyed very easily.

"But the real reason that files up and disappear has less to do with physical damage and more to do with the buildings in which they're stored. We've got the ability to fix basic water damage, and even some fire damage. It turns out that, much like that 98-pound nerd again, the best place to store paper documents is in a cool, dark underground setting. So when universities or museums store things way above ground, over time, they'll take a lot of damage."

----------------------------------

4. Some preservation-methods are actually bad for paper.

"Not only did archivists nearly cover numerous historical treasures in cellulose nitrate; they were about to practically infuse the parchment with it. If they had, the damage could have been irreversible. Archivists then tried cellulose acetate (safety film), but this hurt papers to the point that we needed to put all of them in cold storage to stop the deterioration."

----------------------------------

3. The most famous historical documents are disintegrating right now.

"Once it is exposed to oxygen, it will become extremely brittle very fast, as it hasn't had time to ease back into the environment. Parchment is strong, which is why things like Gutenberg Bibles have survived. But if you tried to roll the Declaration up like Cage does in the movie, you'd have a bunch of bland, musty confetti. All that jostling around is not good for a 240-year-old document."

-----------------------------------

2. So many forgeries and so many attempts to rewrite history...

"What's scary is that a lot of alterations have been done for the sake of literally rewriting history. In the 1970s, archivists discovered Scientologists rooting around in the Archives, changing everything they saw fit. They didn't get to do much (thank Xenu we're so unorganized) and were promptly arrested. There have also been weird Mormon and anti-Mormon factions going in and ninja-editing history. The most well-known, the Salamander Letters, are purportedly firsthand accounts of the relationship between Joseph Smith and a magical salamander."

"The problem is that very knowledgeable people can make really good forgeries. Some historians have altered documents in order to "prove" that they were right about something, even though they were originally wrong. Across the pond, fake documents slipped into the British archives almost convinced people that MI5 killed Heinrich Himmler. "

------------------------------------

1. Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease don't try to repair a document.

"A surprisingly large number of people think that ammonia is a good paper cleaner (spoiler alert: it's not). Glue. Tape. Wax. Grease. All bad. The best thing to do is leave the document alone or put it in a plastic sleeve and keep it out of sunlight."

[Igel]

1. Archival work is neat.

I've known people who did it, and archives are all over the place.

Lots are just dumping grounds and nobody gives a hoot as to what's in them.

Depending where you are, getting access to them might involve getting permission from "higher ups." Soviet archives were briefly opened. Then they closed again. Nobody's sure what's in most of them--but it's likely whatever is in them has become less than what was in them. Too much material was embarrassing.

A lot of librarians, I suspect, would love to have somebody want access to a lump of uncatalogued materials. It would show interest in them and maybe knock something or somebody loose so they could be catalogued.


Note that most Gutenberg Bibles were printed on paper, but it's wood pulp, esp. wood pulp that's not properly pH balanced, that's the problem. Linen-based paper is typically good for a long, long time. In the early 1980s I read a bunch of stuff from the mid-late 1700s that was just fine, but all linen paper. I've had Soviet stuff where the paper was cracking and crumbling after 15-20 years. A lot of it won't be reprinted--it's typically low quality stuff, not "classic literature" by any means, but it's still useful for some purposes. For example, a lot of Soviet satire is unused now, but amenable to decent analysis. In other cases, you can compare editions to see trends in censorship, or early editions put out while the author was alive that might reflect changes he actually approved of (in an uncoerced--or even coerced--way).

There are documents you can repair. If you have a lot of old family documents that are degrading, there are commercial products for acid reduction, not usually for images, though. They're better than nothing, and few pay for professional preservation. There are also commercially available products to mend tears in books and documents that are safe.