Paper conservation

In the digital age of the 21st century, our reliance on paper is rapidly declining. Smartphone or tablet screens and electronic paper displays like those of Amazon's Kindle are becoming the norm for everything from cinema tickets to best-selling books. But our history is written on paper and we face an ever-growing urgency to preserve paper-based artefacts before they are lost forever.

About one third of the paper items in large libraries are too brittle to handle, with another third in need of attention over the coming century. Chemistry is at the heart of paper conservation, but as a science, paper conservation is a relatively new field. As educators we must include paper chemistry and conservation in our curricula to encourage future generations of chemists to take up the challenge.