Paper conservation methods: An international survey

This research aims to determine the degree of implementation at the international level of the various paper conservation methods found in the literature. Participating organizations in the survey mainly include national libraries, archives and museums, practicing paper conservation. The results of the survey indicate that the types of objects treated by the majority of the participating organizations consist mainly of manuscripts, archival material, books, maps, topographical drawings and photographic material. The vast majority of the organizations implement at least one of the methods associated with every distinct category of paper conservation methods. Nevertheless, only a limited number of methods per category/step are popular and are implemented to a noteworthy degree. Organizations tend to avoid the extensive usage of chemicals, and apply simple and well-established methods, such as dry cleaning, washing in water, deacidification with calcium hydroxide and paper mending with Japanese paper and paste, instead of complex conservation methods. The results indicate that several deprecated methods are still in use, especially for bleaching. Finally, the wide implementation of many methods that appear to be in use according to the literature review is not documented by the survey results. The three answers with the highest percentages per paper conservation category/subcategory are presented in table form.