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Re: Acid Free Copier Paper



Beth--depends on what you want....

It's funny how it's gotten to where folks equate "acid-free" with "archival"

Two different issues altogether.

_Traditionally_, (okay, way back when I was in grad school, really...) for real archival stuff we  wanted "alkaline buffered."  Acid-free simply means without acid, or a minimum pH of 7.0 or higher.  Most archivists find that given the nature of their collections, much of the stuff has an acidic (below 7 pH) quality. Using a material that is merely neutral (7.0) will be less effective than alkaline buffered material is it will come into contact with acidic stuff.

If the whole record group/subgroup/series/whatever is all on acid-free paper, then the need for an alkaline buffer isn't an issue.  Unless you're storing it in acidic folders (which of course you're not, right!)

But for paper about which you have no idea of pH level, alkaline is the way to go.  I should probably mention that most archivists I know want a pH of at least 8.0 preferably 8.2 to be worth calling an adequate alkaline buffer.

The unknown factor is why most archivists will prefer alkaline storage.  Some material off-gas (especially polyvinyl, but probably a whole host of other stuff that I don't know or couldn't even begin to enumerate) and can trigger a "chain reaction" or series of acid migration which can spread.  If you have an alkaline reserve buffered in your material and its storage containers, the buffer can reduce or halt this spread.  Storage materials that are acid free but do not have the alkaline buffer have less capability to stop this spread of acid migration.

Don't worry, everyone I know gets a glazed look over their eyes when I say this stuff, so you're not alone.  There are others on theis list who can do a better job than I can when it comes to explaining this.

Holly Hodges

P.S.  Most folks may say that modern collections don't require the alkaline buffer that older collections do, and that may be; for myself, I can only say I'll never forget my (almost) first archival situation which dealt with two hundred year old stuff written mostly in iron gall ink.  The paper wasn't esp acidic but you could see where the ink had eaten through the paper leaving "lace" and some of the paper next to it, and the acid migration shadows were sometime a couple leaves/sheets away!  Some of the nightmares I was afraid to touch for fear the few lacy remains would crumble to dust.

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