It seems to be contagious.
It seems to be let loose on a British repository of historical artifacts is just the Best Thing.
I work in a special library (not as special as this one!), and our conservators have said that as long as hands are clean, it’s generally fine; the infamous cotton gloves actually hinder the fine sense of touch needed for handling delicate pages.
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I think this practice was mentioned in some Objectivity videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0DCaw7EDY
(he takes off his trademark gloves when he examines Phil Trans No. 1)
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“Handling paper this delicate, I’m not going to wear the gloves”. Sums it up. And fact, that ancient, thousand year old vellum manuscript in the main article may very well be sturdier than books published in the middle of the twentieth century made from highly acidic paper and crap glue.
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in this video, even Keith (Moore) wears gloves.
but it’s vellum, not paper
at 2:50, Keith points out that the unlucky fellow below Newton is in danger of being erased due to too many fingers touching the page.
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We don’t have any vellum where I work; I wonder if the difference in handling might be due to a difference in say, the reaction of skin oils on paper vs vellum. I’ll have to ask our conservators, the next time I see one.
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I wondered about that very thing. Thanks for sharing that.
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