One of the things I love about working in archives is that you always run across puzzles of some form or another.
I’ve been working with two Hartford Public High School students as Part 2 of our Archival Certificate Program. Building on what they learned in Part 1 of the Archive Certificate Program, Elizabeth and Kasiyanna have been processing materials in their school’s archives. They are working on a photo album from the 1960s, created by L. Henry Taylor, the principal at the time. The photos are amazing, it’s lovely to see the school before the recent renovations and see the students, faculty, and staff from the time.
The photo album itself, however, posed a challenge for us. The album pages were covered in adhesive that the photographs stuck to and then each page and photo were covered with a clear sheet of plastic. Those of us of a certain age will likely remember this style of album. However, the adhesive and plastic can damage the photographs over time and so we wanted to remove the photos and keep them in acid-free archival materials. Unfortunately, many of the photos were stuck tight to the adhesive and we risked tearing them trying to remove them. What’s an archivist to do?
Elizabeth had an idea- perhaps heating the adhesive would loosen it up and allow us to remove the photos. We all agreed it was worth trying. We didn’t want to apply too much heat, which could damage the photos, so we couldn’t use a heat gun. We realized a hair dryer on the lowest heat might work. Elizabeth and Kasiyanna removed the photos that would come loose and housed them in archival materials, numbering each one to the corresponding page number, and agreed that I would bring in my hair dryer for us to try the following week.
Kasiyanna loosening the album’s adhesive with a hair dryer
Elizabeth using a board to carefully remove the photo from the page
Wouldn’t you know, it worked! To best protect the photos, we covered each one with a sheet of paper before gently heating it up, being sure to move the hair dryer over the surface of the photo. The girls then took a stiff, thin board and gently worked it under the photo to lift it from the album page. Elizabeth and Kasiyanna were able to remove every photo undamaged. Thanks to the girls’ creative problem solving, another archive puzzle was solved!
