Depot facilities

To store cultural assets, it is necessary to make considerations and decisions before documents are forfeited. Optimal storage can ensure long-term conservation for each individual object.

Shelves

The shelves of a storeroom have advantages as well as disadvantages. This also affects the shelf boards and their material. Wooden trays visually give an aesthetic impression,
while metal looks sterile. Ingredients of wood, however, can migrate into the objects. Trays made of metal are usually rounded at delivery. For wooden shelf boards, Gössi points out that edge breakage must be explicitly required when ordering them. Care should be taken during handling to ensure that documents are not damaged during removal and return by, for example, dragging over the edge. This is causing wear on the standing edges of a book [1].

Climate

It is also important to ensure the most constant climate in storeroom for the permanent preservation of books and other written documents. In this regard, these are values between 18 and 22 °C and a relative humidity of about 50 %. If this is not possible, at least strong fluctuations in temperature and humidity should be avoided, as they put a heavy strain on paper, leather and parchment.
Cotton gloves
They are recommended in case of very sensitive objects. By wearing gloves, the restriction of sensibility is a disadvantage while using them, but they are avoiding penetration of sweat into the objects. Also other substances such as hand lotion, dirt, and so on, do not migrate.

Reference

[1] Gössi, Anton: Die Gefährdung des Archivguts durch die Benutzung, Analyse und Prophylaxe.