On Paper

I wrote this a few months ago as I was finishing up my internship. I emailed it to myself and promptly forgot about it, found it again today when I was cleaning out my email inbox. I had been shifting documents from the late 1950s/early 1960s from their toxic environments into a more archivally sound position.

"Paper is an interesting medium. Everyone uses it and many consider it lasting forever. Maybe not forever because of risk of fire or water, but no one really thinks about what paper does to itself, how it interacts with other substances like metal or plastic or adhesive, or how it discolors over time and the implications of that discoloration. As I am going through these 50-60 year old documents, I have to think about these processes and marvel at the interactions in the physical world."

This is why I want to work in an archive one day. I thought I would share.

-B