Hi there,
I'm looking for some advice on how to remove some unknown adhesive
residue from cardboard. The cardboard serves as a mount for some
oversized photographs. We don't know what kind of adhesive it is, but in
many cases it may be your basic double stick tape. The sticky stuff is
on the backside of the cardboard, not on the photos themselves, but
since it is still very sticky, it's posing a storage problem since the
photos are sticking to each other. The photos are not terribly old; most
are from the 1990s. The photos and the cardboard mounts are both in very
good condition, and are very sturdy, not at all fragile.

Some things we've tried:
We thought about trying to remove the photos from the cardboard mounts
altogether, but quickly determined we probably couldn't do this without
damaging or tearing the photos. Another museum colleague suggested
purchasing a tool at the local hardware store that is intended for
cleaning sandpaper. It's basically a chunk of rubber that gets used like
a giant eraser. We bought one and tried it, and it is working on a few
of the items in question, but with the very, very sticky adhesives it's
barely making a dent. We're now considering covering up the adhesive
using sheets of acid free paper cut to the appropriate size as an
alternative to actually removing it, but we're not sure if this is
really a good idea. 

Has anyone dealt with anything like this, or are there any
comments/suggestions you'd be willing to share? 

Thanks much!
Cristin

Cristin J. Waterbury
Registrar/Collections Manager
Wisconsin Maritime Museum

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