According to Raymond Craig Sanders: > > We recently received a donation of mineral and > rock specimens in which the labels and notes that accompanied > the material are even more problematical than usual. Some of ...........................overgrown with mildew and quite fragile. > The information on the notes varies from the terse and obvious > ("pyrite") to the utterly inscrutable, with a certain amount > of perfectly good, useful documentation along the way. > I am wondering what to do with these badly compromised > bits of paper. Refer to a paper in Collection Forum entitled, "Archival storage of disintegrating labels from fluid-preserved specimens" by Carla H. Kishinami (1989, Vol. 5 No.1 pp.1-4). The principles are similar - the original labels are disintegrating, are dried, then stored in mylar sleeves separately from the specimens. Reprints might be available from the author (Bishop Museum in Honolulu) if Collection Forum is not in your library. ------ Paisley S. Cato, Ph.D. e-mail: [log in to unmask] Curator of Collections phone: 703-666-8634 Virginia Museum of Natural History fax: 703-632-6487 1001 Douglas Ave., Martinsville, VA 24112