Written by Helen Kendall, Conservator, Teesside Archives
Continuing our look at the work needed to prepare our collections for their new temporary home in the months to come, we turn our attention this week to a series of plans in the DC/ES collection. This series of local authority building planning applications for the Eston area have been stored for many years in plan chests. The plans originally came to us in large bound volumes with most plans folded up and suffering from handling problems. The plans are produced on tracing cloth, on blue prints or on paper.
Each plan was removed from the binding and repaired where necessary with creases flattened. Then up to 10 plans were placed in large archival polyester sleeves with their individual references penciled clearly on them. Retrieval of a certain plan then became easier from the plan chest drawers.
With an eye on the future move, we have had to look at changing the storage from the large metal plan chests that take up a lot of floor space to rolling the plans and placing them in protective boxes to make them easier to stack on shelving. An assessment of the plans revealed that they were suitable for rolling up and so work commenced.
The plans were taken out of the drawers, kept in their protective sleeves to give the plans more support and protection, and then rolled and tied with cotton tying tape. They were then placed in acid free cube tubes with the references written on the end of each tube. These tubes fit well on shelving units and make the collection easier to move around. Other collections still in the plan chests will have to be treated in the same way in the future if their condition allows.
Teesside Archives 