Development of an In Situ Treatment Method for Twentieth Century Moisture Damaged Paper (360G-Wellcome-203321_Z_16_Z)

This project will undertake the conservation and long-term preservation of a moisture-damaged Nominal Roll from a Second World War civilian internment camp at Changi, Singapore. The Nominal Roll is a unique historical document of international significance, recording the personal information of individual internees, who were drawn from over twenty different countries. It is currently being conserved at Cambridge University Library as part of a digitisation project funded by the Wellcome Trust, but preliminary work indicates that further research is essential to determine the best course of conservation treatment. Examination and assessment of a range of treatment methods will be carried out using specialist investigative imaging equipment, which will be acquired for the project. The development of a successful treatment will not only ensure the long term survival of the Nominal Roll, but will also inform the conservation of significant collections of similarly damaged twentieth-century material within the Library’s collections and the wider archival community.