Mending - do NOT use commercial sticky tape. It goes yellow and leaves a permanent stain. There are also some varieties that shrink and tear the paper. There are non acid glues available, talk to your local museum for advice. When I worked in a museum, if it couldn't be mended with original or inert materials, we didn't mend it, but preserved it in the state it was in and tried to prevent it getting worse. If a sheet was only printed on one side, we would gum it to a sheet of acid free paper, to strengthen it. If we couldn't do that, we would take a transcription, put the original into a clear breathable wallet and store it. Sometimes we took scans or photocopies of the the original and displayed those instead.

Storage- Try to get hold of acid free/non reacitve clear breathable wallets and place each sheet in a separate one. Store them flat and preferably in a document box made from acid free card. Breathable clear wallets are porous, thus preventing damp and sweating that some papers are prone to. Store them in a dry, preferably climate controlled room, on metal rust proofed racks (wood absorbs moisture and releases it onto whatever it touches, rust will stain anything), and try to avoid lights.

If you can't get clear porous wallets, then try acid free water colour paper - this is available in most good art shops and comes in various grades. You want something that will stand upright when you hold it along the bottom edge, but will flop if wobbled. Try it with 90gsm copy paper, and then try it with fax roll paper. Something at about 90 - 100gsm (grams per square metre) is good. You can interleave sheets of this with the originals in the box, or else, if you intend to handle them regularly, make envelopes with the acid free paper, and secure them with cotton tape.

Handling, if you do handle them, try to wear cotton gloves or wash your hands with a mild alkaline detergent (ph balance stuff, it's the acid in sweat that does the damage), and avoid taking them out on hot days. Make a catalogue of everything you have, and make sure you put a label on the outside of each box or album so you know exactly what is inside. This will reduce handling and also mean you can find what you want quickly!

On no account should you laminate anything! This preserves it alright, but effectively destroys it as an artifact, which is what you seem to be wanting these things to be? Laminate a copy if you must, but not the originals!

The main priorities are to reduce handling, store in cool, dry and acid free conditions, limit or eliminate strong light and check regularly for mildew, damp, bookworms and other paper eating bugs.

Hope this is useful. If in doubt, talk to your local museum or family records office, they will always be happy to give advice on conservation and preservation.

LTS