11.01.12 Sue Taylor

I had custody of the book over the Christmas holidays, and my first idea was to take the book on holiday with me, as I was going away for New Year.  I was going to take it on a journey, and photograph the book in different locations, as a sort of diary.  The more I thought about this the more reasons for not doing it became apparent.  Basically it seemed quite a boring idea, and also there was the danger that I would lose the book, or leave it in a field somewhere in Staffordshire.  As I looked at the book its increasing fragility was very noticeable, and I began to treat it as a ‘rare’ object, so much so that I felt I ought to be wearing white gloves to turn its pages.  So that is my intervention – to supply a pair of white gloves, which attach to the book with a cord, so that the reader can choose or not to wear them.  I found out later a couple of interesting things about white gloves – there is a website for items of clothing for masons, and white gloves are advertised for this, and white gloves are worn by magicians, which I had forgotten about.  Finally I enclose information from the British Library, which no longer recommends the use of white gloves when handling precious books! The choice is yours.

The use of white cotton gloves for handling collection items

Written by Jane Pimlott, Preservation Coordinator

General practice at the British Library

The British Library takes appropriate use and handling of collection items seriously and

we provide guidance to staff, visitors and readers on how they should handle different

types of material.

Above: Letters of different sizes can be difficult to handle

when wearing gloves

In general we do not use or provide white gloves for use with collection items. Clean dry hands, free from

creams and lotions, are preferable in the majority of circumstances. Wearing cotton gloves when handling

books, manuscripts or fragile paper items reduces manual dexterity and the sense of touch, increasing the

tendency to 'grab' at items. The cotton fibres may lift or dislodge pigments and inks from the surface of pages

and the textile can snag on page edges making them difficult to turn. All these factors increase the risk of damage to collection items.

We have reinforced the importance of having clean dry hands to readers by developing

an icon which is displayed in reading rooms and in leaflets. A series of

the British Library website also demonstrates how various types and format of collection

items are used. Included in this series is a video called ‘Using Gloves with Collection

Items’.

short videos on

When should gloves be worn?

Staff will advise readers if they need to wear gloves when handling a particular collection

item. Gloves are used when handling certain materials, for example, lead seals or when

touching the surface of a globe. In someinstitutions it is common practice to use gloves

when viewing photographs to protect the surface of the image, but in the British Library

these items are generally issued in protective sleeves or mounts making this unnecessary.

Above: The surface of a globe being examined while

wearing white gloves

Research

Research into the use of white gloves by Dr. Cathleen A. Baker and Randy Silverman is

published in the article

of International Preservation News. They discuss that ‘

gloves provide no guarantee of protection from perspiration and dirt. Further, they

increase the likelihood of physical damage occurring to paper-based collection material

by blunting the sense of touch ..…implementing an institutionally monitored, handcleaning

policy is a reasonable and effective alternative to protecting artefacts from

damage while promoting the essential humanistic experience of touch

looks at the history of wearing white gloves; a relatively recent phenomenon.

‘Misperceptions about white gloves’ in the December 2005 issuecontrary to popular opinion,’. The article also

Items on television

When collection items are seen on television, for the same reasons given above, gloves

are not usually worn. Any handling during filming is, however, always closely supervised.

In normal circumstances access to extremely rare and valuable items is highly restricted.

With some rare and valuable items, filming may be one of the few occasions when we

permit access, to allow a wider audience to see and appreciate a restricted item.