To Post-it or Not to Post-it

Even in the preservation laboratory of the Smithsonian Institution Archives, there is no land for acid bookmarks and protective grade adhesives. Plain post-it notes are now created by Art Fry and Silver Spencer around 1960 (the legend has it that they tried to make a strong and durable adhesive, but accidentally made this weak, low-tack adhesive). Now it has become a fixed content of office culture, so easy to use, what do you like about them?

Unfortunately, for librarians and archivists around the world, this bright and useful invention has a darker side. Not long ago, conservation scientists from the National Archives and Records Administration conducted a series of tests on sticky notes and their competitors. The conclusion is that all note papers leave behind harmful residual adhesive, which will absorb dust and stick to other papers or objects, whether you remove it immediately or leave it for many years, some when wet Dye in sticky notes will be lost.

In addition, removing sticky notes from fragile books can easily lift up ink and torn pages, and these notes are usually made of poor-quality acid paper, which can cause damage over time. Although the acrylic adhesive used for the original note paper developed by 3M does not stain the paper, other sticky notes are usually made with a butyrate adhesive, which will discolor the paper over time, so Users should be careful! As a result, most libraries and archives implement strict "no notes" rules.

So, if you want, you can imagine that when an unusual document enters the laboratory for preservation, the unusual document is neatly tied to the seemingly endless roll of paper worth seventeen feet of sticky Memo.

Cordelia Rose, the former clerk of the Cooper Hewitt Museum, created a lengthy blue, pink, green and yellow flow chart. To describe how the clerk process worked from 1986 to 1987 and explain the database system they used at the time. These sticky notes become ill-fated! They have been unraveled and re-applied with deteriorating double-sided tape. They are soiled, attracting dirt, curled at the edges and begin to fall off, leaving a messy sticky mess.

After discussing with colleagues, I decided to re-read these instructions to ensure the safety of digitization and the use of researchers. To do this, carefully remove each banknote with a heated scalpel, while using a crepe eraser and methylcellulose shavings to remove any remaining adhesive. After the surface is cleaned, use a small drop of Lascaux 360HV to re-fix the sticky note in the same position. Lascaux 360HV will still be slightly sticky at room temperature, which makes the sticky note slightly more flexible when rolling and unfolding. Finally, following the instructions of Freer-Sackler’s good friends, a custom scroll box was made. Compared to ours on Archives, these friends deal with scrolling more frequently.