Edwin M. Shook Archival Collection, Guatemala City, Guatemala

Conservation Issues

One of the most important conservation issues was to properly house the archive. While the archive was lodged in a special room behind the Department of Archeology at UVG, it needed some work to establish the proper environment (Figure 1). Drapes were installed to protect the archive from natural light. All the wooden furniture was checked to assure that it was free of moths, and if not, was replaced with a new piece of furniture (Figure 2).

The paper documents were subjected to proper basic conservation treatment. This involved the cleaning of all paper documents. Each one was superficially cleaned. This consisted of rubbing a soft eraser over the surface, avoiding contact with fragile illustrations. The objective of this cleaning was to erase spots and paper impurities. However, one of the main damages already suffered is that of acid and rust spots (from paper clips used in the past). No further treatment was carried out as it would be extremely expensive. All paper clips were removed and replaced with plastic ones. When the process was finalized, each record was placed inside an acid free cardboard box that was properly labeled. This process has, as per the main objective, prolonged the documents’ lives. The same procedure was followed for all the documents including Shook’s site record forms, field notes, photographs, and correspondence.

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