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Re: early letter books (and a new question about "oily papers"!)



Done it again.  Hit reply, thus sending the posting to the sender only.  My
apologies to Yvonne Wilkie for seeing this twice.
----- Forwarded by Joseph Komljenovich/NY/FRS on 07/13/2001 09:50 AM -----

                    Joseph
                    Komljenovich         To:     Yvonne Wilkie <archive@CLEAR.NET.NZ>
                                         cc:
                    07/13/2001           Subject:     Re: early letter books (and a new question about "oily
                    09:43 AM             papers"!)(Document link: Joseph Komljenovich)





It has been a while since I read it, but Joanne Yates' Control Through
Communication: The Rise of System in American Management (Johns Hopkins U.,
1993) looks at how communications technologies impacted the organization
and functions of American corporations from the mid-19th century until ??.
The book does look at the specifics of record production, including copying
processes, if memory serves me well.  You should be able to get the book in
paperback for under $20.  For all those Yates fans out there, I just saw
mention of a new book she co-edited with John van Maanen, entitled
Informational Technology and Organizational Transformation: History,
Rhetoric, and Practice (Sage Publications, 2000).  It does, however, cost
$60.  It contains some humdinger essays like Jonathan Coopersmith's "Texas
Politics and the Fax Revolution" and Brian Pentland's "Big Brother Goes
Portable: Enduser Computing in the Internal Revenue Service."  Personally,
I'll wait for the price to come down.

Now, on to a new question:  I have come across some correspondence, on
onion skin, from the 1950s.  Some of these pages have "oily" spots on them,
generally quite small, no larger than a 1/4-1/2" in diameter.  The paper
has become transparent at those spots and there is a slight residue that
can be felt.  Interestingly, the pages in question, while all at the end of
the same folder, are not filed next to each other.  Thus, the substance
does not appear to have migrated to adjacent pages.  Does anyone have any
ideas as to what this might be - some sort of manual typewriter lubrication
that has not evaporated, the by-product of onion skin breakdown, someone
eating potato chips in the past while using the file?  Do you think I
should be concerned and take any steps to clean the papers - if that is
possible - or somehow segregate them?  Keep in mind that these are not
deemed to be highly important letters - basically copies of outgoing
correspondence thanking various parties for Christmas gifts and New Year's
wishes.  So, if this situation does not pose too much of a danger, I would
rather not spend a lot of time on material that is, in the context of the
record group, of limited value.  Thanks in advance for your responses.

Joseph M. Komljenovich
Assistant Archivist
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Joseph.Komljenovich@ny.frb.org

Any comments or statements made in this transmission reflect the views of
the sender and are not necessarily the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York.



                    Yvonne Wilkie
                    <archive@CLEAR.NET.N        To:     ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
                    Z>                          cc:
                    Sent by: Archives &         Subject:     early letter books
                    Archivists
                    <ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.M
                    UOHIO.EDU>


                    07/12/2001 11:15 PM
                    Please respond to
                    Yvonne Wilkie






Hello all,
        I would be interested to learn from you how/what did the writers
use to
produce copies of their letters pre-carbon-paper days, ie 1900 and earlier.
Is there any historical information around that explains the process? and
what are the issues associated with the preservation of these letter books
in particular.  Does the process fade, or does it contain acidic processes
which cause the paper to fall apart around the written copy and anything
other problem tat arises over time.

Thank you for your interest.
It's almost the week end for us down here, have a good one.

Yvonne Wilkie
Archivist
Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ Archives,
Knox College
Arden Street
Dunedin, New Zealand
ph: (03) 473 0107 ex 7851/7857

visit our web page: http://pcanz.freeyellow.com

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