Any ideas on what to do to preserve scrapbooks and still look at them?
 

I have several excellent 1930s scrapbooks that I really like. Being made of low end paper and nearing a 100 years old they tend to leave a pile of paper chips every time you turn a page. If the pages are loose sometimes I’ll display a single page. I recently bought one with great 1932 World Series clippings. The pages are pretty much all loose and there are some neat clippings not glued in. This one is basically 8-1/2 x 11 so I can probably get plastic pages and put the individual pages in there but most of the scrapbooks are oversize. I’ve also thought of just photographing each page and having an electronic copy to look at and storing the originals away. Any ideas or examples?

Most craft stores sell 12x12 scrapbook pages and binders.

The brittle paper can be sort of solved by de-acidifying them, but that would probably be expensive. A paper conservator would be able to tell you more.

Use of backing board allows for a wide range of options.

I have a few items that are crumbly. I bought plastic sleeves of different sizes, bought acid free comic book backing, and placed them within the sleeve. I custom cut the backing boards to fit the plastic sleeves. Then, using double sided tape, I tape the plastic sleeve onto a new scrapbook page that I bought at Joanns / Hobby Lobby / etc. It works great, extends the life of fragile paper products, and you still have the items in scrapbook form.

The only problem is that the new scrapbooks get full quickly. But it's worth it to me.

So the first item is a Reds scored program, assembled with other scrapbook materials.

I did the same thing for my Tris Speaker Sporting News Supplement. A board member sold it to me when he upgraded his example. After putting it with the backing board in the plastic sleeve, I put it in a magazine size hard plastic protector. Now I can display it in my cabinet.

You can purchase deacidification spray from University Products -

https://www.universityproducts.com/b...ion-spray.html

This will work on newspapers as they have a high acid content. They also sell other archival materials so that you can view and display the pages. One option is to encapsulate them in mylar which is not too difficult. University Products has good customer service along with many how to tips and videos. Any type of preservation will get pricey, but learning to do the basics yourself will save time and money. I suspect David C. would attest to that. I would not go to some local craft store like Michael's or Hobby Lobby. Their focus is not preservation but sales. They may have a few items, but not necessarily the knowledge. I would stick with the companies that focus on this - University Products and Archival Methods.

I have used both companies for some items. My photos and negatives are stored archivally. Additionally, I also do some repair on documents, photos and programs using document repair tape which is tissue paper with a neutral PH adhesive.

Any ideas on what to do to preserve scrapbooks and still look at them?
 

I store all my 19th century newspapers in the Itoya presentation books and they’re perfect. They come in multiple sizes and can shop around for best prices. They also work great for viewing them without worrying about causing further damage.

https://itoya.com/products/presentat...-art-profolio/

Great info.

I use Itoya presentation books for everything I have that is flat from 8X10 photos to all my supplements ranging from m114 to Blum's and Police Gazette supplements to m113.

There is no better way to store, while still being able to safely view, larger sized and fragile items items like those that George (Aquarius31) mentions.

Before I sold my Topps collection, I kept it in Itoya folders, too. I kept the cards in the 8 or 9 card pocket pages and put them in the folder. It took multiple folders for each set, depending on the total number of cards, but this avoided the curving of pages (and the cards contained) that can come from storing the card pages in binders.

Doug

I think I will check the itoya folders out. It looks like they are available at local retailers. The scrapbooks I don’t want to take apart I’ll try the deacidification. I have a couple our national game scrapbooks with pages detached, the folders might be nice for those. I bagged and boarded the large group of sporting lifes which will keep them much safer. I can still read the front page without taking them out, which is ok since most of the content is on the front page.

I disagree with bags & boards keeping them safer than the folders. Unless maybe you store them flat.

Merry Christmas from Marietta, Ga!
I have a few magazine ads featuring baseball players, 1930's through 1950's. I enjoy framing them and try to use archival mats and foam core. I'm thinking the portfolios would be helpful for my storage.
Thanks for the link!

I have been placing my different vintage newspaper pieces in a large scrapbook with clear plastic pages and archival black paper. I have a large collection of Big Six and leading hitters pieces from the 30's that I place in a penny holder then tape those on the sheet in the scrapbook. They display nicely and are protected well inside the penny holder and the plastic sheet. For my vintage ads I place them inside of a Life Magazine size Ultra-Pro magazine bag with an archival white backing board. Those are all stored in special boxes in numerical order for easy identification.

I bought several of the atoya folders and they are working well especially for scraps that weren’t pasted in yet. I like to have them displayed on the wall but there is only so much wall space.