A number of archivists seem to be moving away from gloves, at least for paper anyway. This blog post with a funny chart, if you also read the comments on it as well, sums things up: http://derangementanddescription.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/do-i-need-to-wear-gloves-in-the-archives-a-helpful-flow-chart/ . Here's the British Library on the topic http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2011/08/white-gloves-or-not-white-gloves.html (watch the video linked from this post as well.)

It is very important if people are not wearing gloves in archives and special collections libraries that they wash hands frequently and do not use lotions. Since I have eczema on my hands and sometimes have breakouts and use medicated creams, I will wear nitrile gloves with paper objects (you want them tight fitting) under those circumstances, to protect the paper from my medicine.

For artifacts/objects, generally gloves are used, and powder free nitrile seems to be the trend (and we use them regularly). This National Park Service conservogram lays things out nicely, with a helpful chart at the end: http://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/01-12.pdf