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Home > Using Acid Free Tissue
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The Heritage Archivist - Using Acid Free Tissue
When we want to protect something important, we often wrap a “shield” around it. Arms around a child, plastic wrap around leftover food, a blanket for a shivering person are illustrative of this point. Wrapping or surrounding important treasures is part of our nature. We do it almost instinctively. As part of your layered preservation technique, you should also do the same with your family heirlooms. One way to do this is with acid-free tissue paper.
Neutral pH, unbuffered acid free tissue paper can be used to protect many items in your family heritage collection. Sheets can be purchased in various sizes, with 24” x 36” being a common size. Wrapping an item in acid-free tissue does three things:
- Provides a layer to keep dust off the item. This is especially important for any items that might be in storage, but not in a closed container.
- Can be cushioning between close items to minimize the effects of vibration or dropping (keep in mind, though, that tissue can only do so much with respect to preventing physical damage. Packaging method and containers also play an important role).
- Provides a barrier for acid migration. Acid can cause fading and brittleness. If you have acid-bearing materials, such a newspapers or animal (protein) derived products (e.g., silk or wool), surrounding them with unbuffered acid-free tissue will minimize acid migration to any surrounding items. (Note: you should never use buffered tissue with any animal related products. Only unbuffered is safe to use with silks, wools, leather, fur and the like.)
Here are some examples of using unbuffered, acid-free tissue:
- Any scrapbook that does not have it’s pages inside page protectors is a risk for acid migration from one page to an adjacent page. To reduce the likelihood of this happening, place a sheet of acid-free tissue between the leaves of the scrapbook.
- Interleave folded garments with tissue, especially quilts or rough textiles. This helps maintain the shape and minimizes abrasion between surfaces.
- Similarly, wrap (surround) a garment in tissue.
- Newsprint is very high in acid. So for newspaper clippings, sandwich the clipping between two sheets of tissue.
- Similarly, if you have a large, whole newspaper, interleave each page with tissue. This is to minimize acid migration.
- Surround birthday or holiday gifts in tissue before placing in the gift box. The receiver can then use the tissue to protect the gift or other special treasures.
- Line your linen closet shelves to minimize acid migration from wooden shelves
And of course, always, always store items in acid free, archival boxes or containers.
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Use archival storage boxes and supplies to preserve your heritage:
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