By Jessica Dunkin
In the last post, I introduced readers of the Home Archivist to two institutions committed to the preservation of Canada’s documentary heritage, Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) Preservation Centre and the Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI), and two professionals at work in the field of paper conservation, Doris St-Jacques and Greg Hill. I also provided readers with a list of safety equipment and tools that paper conservators use to process historical documents. In part two, we will explore how conservation professionals put those tools to use when they encounter paper documents affected by dust, mold, soot, adhesives, and other accretions.
Conservator Greg Hill and Author Jessica Dunkin at the Canadian Conservation Institute {Photo Credit: © Government of Canada, Canadian Conservation Institute, CCI 127737-0006}
A quick disclaimer, these posts are not intended as an instruction manual for the home conservator, but rather to increase public awareness of heritage conservation and to demonstrate the technical skill required to perform conservation treatments on paper. LAC and CCI have specialized facilities designed for the conservation and preservation of a wide range of archival materials. No home laboratory, however well equipped, can stand in for these kinds of facilities. Nor can a blog post replace the training and technical expertise of a professional conservator, especially when dealing with potentially hazardous substances like mold and animal accretions or performing delicate work like tear repair. To locate a conservator in Canada, please contact the Canadian Association of Professional Conservators (CAPC).
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Before turning our attention to treatment options for the MacKendrick letters, I want to pause briefly to consider three guiding principles in the field of heritage conservation. Recognizing that historically some treatment practices and materials have been damaging to documents and artifacts, and that current practices may also prove to be harmful, conservators should only perform treatments that are reversible. They should also adhere to the principle of minimal intervention, which, to borrow from the Saskatchewan Heritage Foundation, “means to do as much as necessary and as little as possible.” The objective here is to preserve the document for future users without compromising the integrity of the original. For paper documents, some cleaning, typically surface cleaning, is advisable to improve readability. It may also be necessary to remove substances such as dust, soot, and adhesives that hasten deterioration. Continue reading
There has been a renewed interest in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century story of the female match workers at the former E.B. Eddy Match Factory in Hull, Quebec. For me, this is another good example of recent efforts to regionally situate the big themes of social history in Canada. It also illustrates the challenges of trying to recognize voices of labour history which for the most part do not appear in public commemoration.