Remember when we were all so excited about the new photo albums a number of years ago that had a hard piece of cardboard with plastic sheets covering the pictures? It was great until we found out that it ruined our pictures! That is much the same with some of the documents that we work with.
It is easy to see what happens when animal glue is used because it turns a nasty brown. They also used melted wax on some of our documents. That isn't as bad as the glue because it cracks and eventually falls off but always leaves behind a red stain. Another popular but destructive adhesive is tape. It cracks, turns brown, and damages the documents. I decided to do a little research about animal glues which I thought were made about the time of our documents but apparently they have been around for thousands of years. It is true old horses went to the glue factory (as did other animals). They did use the hooves but they also used other parts of the horse as well to make the glue. When they were through the granules looked like little brown rocks.
The problem we have encountered is that it is almost impossible to separate documents once they are glued together. It also causes the documents to be really thick and very inflexible. Once two pieces of papers are glued together that is the end of our ability to manipulate the document. Because of that we often can't get a clean picture of all the writing. As we progress through the decades it will be interesting to see if some of the problems are solved that using glue has created. Personally I am coming to appreciate the paper clips, brads, and straight pins we find on the documents.
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