Be My Preserved Valentine

Ah, Valentine's Day. What Valentines cards do you remember from your past? Valentines with Precious Moments figures, Snoopy characters, or your favorite comics? How about those cute (cheesy?) cards with sayings such as "we make a great pair" and a drawing of a pair of socks? Perhaps you remember your first valentine from your first crush.

Old Valentines
You may treasure valentines from your sweetheart and keep them tucked away in a "safe spot," but Katherine Kreider looks at valentines throughout the ages. Not just Valentine's Day cards, but also toys, advertising, and other ephemera. Her three books show photographs and descriptions of Valentine's Day items throughout the ages from the 1800s to the late twentieth century.

Back here in the twenty-first century, many of you are wondering about Valentine's Day 2007. Whether for friends or that special someone, those of you looking for an antique Valentine, Kingsbury Antiques, Krieder's store in Pennsylvania, sells them. For e-cards, you can find vintage valentine clip art on About.com.

Storing Your Valentines
Others may be wondering how best to store their personal collection of old valentines. If you have something of high sentimental value, rare or very old, consult a professional conservator. Otherwise, you can use these general guidelines for some minimal preservation you can do at home.

Treat valentines like you would other paper materials you want to preserve. They are best kept protected - in an envelope or box. They should not be bent, folded unnecessarily (original folds are okay), or rolled to fit a certain space. Lie flat in a box with like sizes together, largest valentines on the bottom, smaller on the top, to prevent bending. Valentines you suspect are made with acidic papers should be separated from the rest. Minimal preservation on these can include interleaving with alkaline paper (most printer paper is alkaline or non-acidic, check the packaging and just put a sheet between each valentine during storage). You may want to change the alkaline paper every few years.

Make sure you label your box or envelope with enough detail so someone knows what it is (and knows not to discard it). Keep it in a cool dry place -- avoid bathrooms, laundry rooms, basements, and attics. Take a look at your valentines. If they were created or signed with an acidic pen, the writing may have faded. If this occurs, it is likely the writing could fade completely. You may wish to take a picture of the valentine before your sweethearts sweet nothings fade to... nothing. Consult a professional for items with mold or other options for acidity.

Valentines can also involve materials other than paper. Cloth or metals may be attached, the item might be a toy or stuffed animal. Consider that cloth and other materials all have different preservation techniques.

Creating Valentines that Last
What if you're creating a special valentine this year for your special someone? What precautions can you take in making the card that will help along the preservation path? Use acid free paper and pens/markers. Make sure your glue or paste is acid free. You can even make your own paste. The Northeast Document Conservation Center has a couple of
easy recipes to follow.

Acid-free materials are important because acidic ink will fade over time and acidic paper will become brittle. Any vibrant colors of acidic papers will fade, and anything touching your card that is acidic can "bleed" its pH level onto your valentine. Even the envelope should be acid-free.

Have a lovely Valentine's Day!

The horrors of... cellophane tape?

It's everywhere. In books from public libraries to academic institutions. It's in your used textbooks. You may have even put some in your own text books or children's books. Cellophane tape -- that clear tape that allows you to stop that rip but see through to the text below.

After all, nothing can be worse than a torn page, except one that evolves into a larger and larger rip. Why not mend it now with that ubiquitous clear adhesive tape? It's in your desk, in your drawer at home, in every grocery, drug and convenience store. It's practically a cure-all for paper.

In a recent preservation class at UIUC, a gasp filled the room as one student admitted to using cellophane tape before being enlightened by the course (of which cellophane tape has its 20 seconds of fame, a mere mention in the vastness of preservation). Come now, fess up, we've all done it -- well meaning, yet ill-advised beginners in book preservation and we can understand why others would tape their pages too.

What's the big deal about cellophane tape? It's not only terrible for the paper (it's acidic and causes pages to break down, it creates a ridge where a new rip can -- and usually does -- form, it yellows and the cellophane falls off leaving a sticky residue, etc.). But it's more than that.

Cellophane tape is the representation of how little is known about preservation in the wider community. Even many libraries use tape to repair tears. It shows how far we need to go in educating others about preservation -- not only in people's individual collections, but in libraries and archives.

I don't want to admonish current and previous cellophane tape users. They've (we've) all meant well, so let's admit we've all done it, but now that we know more, we can move on to other forms of repair.

Please share your tape stories or pictures below.


Additional Reading
NYU Library on Scotch Tape
Stamps & Scotch Tape
Penn State Special Collections Library: Rare Books & Manuscripts: FAQs on Preservation
Cons Dist List Post on "Preservation" Scotch Tape

Images from Getty Images. Image #BU006989