Reviews
Part of The one-minute paper test: saving a purchase before it goes wrong
Stopping curl, acid and light from ruining stored paper
Curl, acidity and light are what ruin stored paper. What each one does, which damage is reversible, and a storage routine that prevents all three.
Paper does not fail suddenly. It curls at one edge, then yellows at the exposed margin, then one day a pen that used to run cleanly starts feathering on a ream you have owned for three years. All three of those are storage problems, and two of them are preventable for nothing.
What to take away
- Curl is mechanical and usually reversible. Acidity and light damage are not.
- Store paper flat, in its wrapper, away from outside walls and out of sunlight.
- Some paper in your drawers was never going to last, whatever you do.
- Buy quantities you will use within a year rather than storing for a decade.
The three failure modes
Three failure modes of stored paper
Curl and cockle
- Cause
- Uneven moisture
- Reversible
- Usually, under weight
- Warning sign
- Sags at bottom edge
Yellowing and brittleness
- Cause
- Acidity plus heat
- Reversible
- No
- Warning sign
- Brittle, yellow sheet
Fading and margin browning
- Cause
- Light, direct sun
- Reversible
- No
- Warning sign
- Faded ink, brown margins
| Failure | Cause | Reversible |
|---|---|---|
| Curl and cockle | Uneven moisture, standing storage | Usually, under weight |
| Yellowing and brittleness | Acidity, accelerated by heat | No |
| Fading and margin browning | Light, especially direct sun | No |
| Feathering that appeared later | Sizing degraded by damp | No |
Acidity is the one you cannot see
Acid-driven chemistry ends a sheet's life. A review of deacidification treatments for paper heritage states plainly that acidity is a primary factor in the deterioration of paper.
Deacidification is a preventive measure that extends that life. Two things follow for a home shelf. Buy neutral or buffered paper if you intend to keep the writing. Keep paper away from heat, since warmth accelerates the reactions rather than starting them.
Some paper cannot be rescued
Not everything in a drawer is worth protecting. The Illinois guide to architectural and engineering reproductions describes the succession of light-sensitive reproduction processes that followed blueprinting from the 1870s onward. Many of the same processes turned up in ordinary office copying.
If you have old copies, faxes or blueprint-type prints among your paper, scan them. No storage regime stops a light-sensitive process from fading on its own schedule.
The routine
Storage routine for paper
- Keep reams wrapped, reseal with tape
- Store flat, never standing
- Avoid outside walls, radiators, windows, lofts
- No airtight boxes unless room is dry
- Write purchase date on wrapper
Five steps, done once per order.
- Leave the ream in the wrapper the mill sealed it in. If the wrapper is torn, put the ream in a glassine sleeve before it goes anywhere else.
- Store the ream flat inside an acid-free box, not upright and not loose on an open shelf. If the paper will sit there for months, line the box with buffered interleaving.
- Keep the box away from outside walls, off a basement floor, and out of direct sun. Those surfaces swing with the weather long before the middle of a room does.
- Hold the room at a typical archival target of 30 to 50 percent relative humidity and 65 to 70 F (about 18 to 21 C). An inexpensive hygrometer tells you where you stand.
- Write the date on the box. Once a year, ask whether you will use that paper within twelve months. If not, the next order stays in the shop.
One box, one date, one yearly look. That is the whole routine.
Buy for a year, not a decade
Owning less paper is the cheapest storage strategy. A discount ream stored eight years in a warm room is no saving: the sheet you open later differs from the one you tested.
Buy what you will use within a year. Keep one small reserve of what you truly depend on. Let the rest stay in the shop, where storage is somebody else's problem.
Fixing curl
Curled sheets usually recover. Lay them flat between glassine sheets, inside two acid-free boards, with an even weight on top. Two to four days is typical, and a tighter curl takes longer. Keep the room at 30 to 50 percent relative humidity while they press.
Even load matters more than heavy load. What determines the weight is the sheet and the size of the curl: enough to hold it flat, spread across the whole sheet, and not so much that it presses marks into the surface.
Do not iron, dampen, or bend the curl backward. That sets a second curl in the other direction. A sheet cockled from getting genuinely wet keeps a texture, and its sizing may already have changed.
The principles here scale to a whole collection, set out in storing a collection. Which paper is worth the good cupboard follows from choosing paper.
