#national archives
In St. Louis, the demand for military personnel records is high. Preservation Technicians prepare thousands of record pages annually in preparation for reformatting. In addition, Preservation Technicians review about 50,000 records damaged in the 1973 fire. All records have some level of damage, and our staff cannot fully treat every record. As a result, we have a triage based approach that emphasizes holdings maintenance. One of the simple actions we take is relaxing creases on pages in our records.
Each time paper is creased, fibers break. Likely, you’ve seen this happen on pages in a book that have been “dog-eared” to mark a page. If folded back against the crease, more fibers are damaged, until finally there is an entire break along the crease creating a separated fragment. Since we don’t want to crease in the opposite direction, staff always keep a bone folder handy while reviewing and working with records. This handy tool, which, as its name implies, was actually developed to create strong creases in bookbinding and other crafts. However, the bone folder also works well to relax the paper fibers. Creases are gently opened on a flat surface. With the peak of the crease facing upwards, the bone folder is used to gently rub along the crease to flatten paper fibers, as seen in the pictures here. This is repeated as necessary when a document has multiple creases. This simple treatment allows documents to lie completely flat and secure in their folders and prevents fragmentation and tearing of the documents while in reference use.