AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition
    Conservation Studies of Heritage Materials Focus Topic Thursday Sessions
       Session CS-ThM

Invited Paper CS-ThM3
Conservation Science at the National Archives: Science in Support of the Preservation of the Records of the Federal Government

Thursday, November 13, 2014, 8:40 am, Room 313

Session: Conservation Studies of Heritage Materials
Presenter: Jennifer Herrmann, National Archives and Records Administration
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The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the repository of the permanently valuable records of the United States Government, including the Charters of Freedom, and a wide range of records that document the working of federal agencies and the rights and privileges of citizens. These materials range from Civil War-era pension files to immigration records and from homestead records to logs of Navy ships. NARA has the mission of preserving all of these records for future generations to access. Conservators and conservation scientists work together at NARA to support this dual mission of preservation and access. The Research and Testing Lab (R&T) works closely with the exhibits program and facilities across NARA to ensure that the products and materials used to display and store records will not contribute to their deterioration. In order to answer these questions as well as help preserve individual NARA holdings, R&T uses many standard analytical techniques. FTIR is the first non-destructive analytical technique we use to identify unknowns in the laboratory, including deteriorating films which could be cellulose nitrate or acetate. If FTIR cannot give us enough information, we often rely on the non-destructive XRF and also SPME-GC-MS, which is useful for monitoring off-gassing of records or materials used around records. For example, XRF has been useful in determining if a forgery of a date on a Lincoln Pardon could be reversed safely. This technique has also been used to study platinum photographs of different known recipes and processing conditions to see if the ghost image phenomenon that often occurs with historic platinum images could be better understood. DART MS, XPS, SEM, and FTIR have all been attempted for this photographic research project, as well as accelerated aging tests, microfading experiments, and fiber and paper analysis. The most visible R&T project that supports the dual mission has been the re-encasement and monitoring of the Charters of Freedom (the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights) and the Rubenstein Magna Carta. Instrumentation to monitor leaks and oxygen content, as well as air tight connections and plumbing are required in order to determine the conditions within these high tech encasements. As can be seen, the field of conservation science has many great tools from analytical chemistry to help preserve our important records and art.