EU project seeks to save endangered historical documents
Libraries, archives and museums worldwide are faced with the immense problem of preserving countless paper documents, endangered by the corrosive properties of certain old ink recipes. In seeking to improve the understanding of ink corrosion, the Commission is funding a project that will establish a set of best conservation practices for these documents. The InkCor project has received 1.41 million euro funding under the energy, environment and sustainable development section of the Fifth Framework Programme (FP5), and involves museums, research institutes and universities from Germany, France, the Netherlands and Slovenia. In an interview with CORDIS News, Jana Kolar from the Slovenian national and university library, and coordinator of the project, highlighted the extent of the damage caused by iron ink corrosion: 'An inventory done by Rotterdam's Boijmans Van Beuningen museum has shown that about 25 per cent of their priceless collection of 17th century Dutch drawings has been affected and of Leonardo da Vinci's works, approximately 60 to 70 per cent show signs of deterioration. Berlin's state library has also estimated at least 500,000 sheets have been damaged by ink corrosion and Bach's hand-written music is virtually falling apart.' Acknowledgment of the problem of iron gall corrosion dates back to 1899, and numerous research projects worldwide have since attempted to address the issue. Yet to date, as Dr Kolar pointed out, no systematic research has been carried out. 'Iron gall ink is created with four basic ingredients - galls, vitriol, gum, and water- but no standard recipe exists as through the ages hundreds of ink recipes were concocted by individuals. So identifying all the corrosive components contained in the ink is not a very straightforward task,' she noted. There is also the difficulty of making sure that all facets of the problem are addressed. 'For a cultural heritage research project, an interdisciplinary approach is needed,' explained Dr Kolar. 'The InkCor project involves curators and art historians, as well as chemists and physicists, so that while art historians survey historical ink recipes, the physicists and chemists analyse the ingredients using high-tech analytical methods [...]. It has been a very exciting exercise because it is like finding the pieces to a very large jigsaw puzzle.' Having reached the halfway point in its work programme, the project has successively pinpointed the metals and acids responsible for the corrosion. Furthermore, as Dr Kolar explained: 'By measuring three key variables - thickness of applied ink, thickness of paper and the acidity of the ink - it is possible to predict the stability of a historical document containing iron gall ink, thus allowing for timely conservation treatment.' The project consortium will now put its method to the test and see how cultural materials respond. 'We are now faced with the most complicated task of making sure that our conservation treatment method successfully stabilises the corrosive properties of the ink on a mass scale or on individual items without causing any alterations to the paper in the long term,' said Dr Kolar. One of the project consortium partners, however, is confident to the point that it has applied for a patent for the treatment methodology.
Countries
Germany, France, Netherlands, Slovenia