Salvage and Treatment for the Archives in Beichuan Earthquake
Meifang Zhang, Ying Fu Sun · Restaurator International Journal for the Preservation of Library and Archival Material · 2013
Abstract In 2008, Beichuan Archives were severely damaged by a massive earthquake. Immediate rescue work was followed by elaborate treatment of damaged documents. In the first stage, archival documents were rescued from the immediate earthquake zone. They were classified into two groups roughly according to their degree of damage. Severely damaged archival documents were stored in a cold storage warehouse and those with a less extensive degree of damage could be stored in a temporary repository. The second stage involved three treatment measures for the severely damaged archival documents: vacuum freeze drying, disinfection by means of ethylene oxide and finally conservation measures involving surface cleaning, mechanical stabilization, mounting and binding. Finally, all treated documents were digitalized.