Heard a guy at the print shop say he never wears gloves when handling old paper

I was picking up some cover stock yesterday and overheard a binder telling the clerk he never wears gloves with old books because he 'needs to feel the paper.' He said it was fine as long as his hands were clean. That really got to me because I've seen the oils from even clean hands damage a 1920s pamphlet I was repairing. It took me two hours to properly surface clean those pages. Has anyone else run into this attitude, and how do you handle it when you see it?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_tara25d ago

Ugh that drives me nuts. I just showed a volunteer at my archive the fingerprint stains under UV light. Seeing the damage made him switch to gloves right away.

fox.matthew17d ago

But are those stains actually harming the book? Oils from clean hands might not cause real damage for a very long time. Gloves can make people clumsy and lead to torn pages. Sometimes the rule causes more problems than it solves. The UV light just shows where oils are, not that the book is falling apart. Maybe the risk is overblown for most handling.

piperschmidt25d ago

My local library had a first edition with whole paragraphs faded from skin oils. Seeing the actual damage changes your mind fast. I wish more places had a UV light to show people. It makes the problem real instead of just a rule.