[Sca-librarians] cotton gloves

[Suzanne]

Solveig,
You've already received some good responses -- I'll just add that  
when an institution requires visitors to wear gloves, the institution  
usually has a supply of gloves on hand to lend.  If you feel you need  
to own a pair, I suggest looking in an art supply store or the  
classroom supplies section of a university bookstore (check the  
biology dept., as well as art).  Gloves do keep body oils off of  
artifacts but you have to balance that with the slight chance that  
fibers from the gloves could snag loose bits of whatever material  
you're handling.

IIRC, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art just asks researchers to  
wash their hands *and* refrain from wearing hand lotion; the Library  
of Congress allows visitors to handle leather-bound books with bare  
hands, as does the Special Collections department of the university  
library where I work.

HTH,
Susanna

On Dec 3, 2008, at 12:00 PM, sca-librarians- 
request at lists.gallowglass.org wrote:

> Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 02:59:30 -0500
> From: Solveig Throndardottir <nostrand at acm.org>
> Subject: [Sca-librarians] Cotton glvoes?
> To: sca-librarians at lists.gallowglass.org
> Message-ID: <18AE78EB-1223-4893-B4F4-71B40452F7CF at acm.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Noble Librarians!
>
> Greetings from Solveig! I am planning on visiting the rare book
> collection of the NIH. Although the fellow who called me on the phone
> mentioned that East Asian books are sturdier than European books, I
> suspect that cotton gloves might be a good idea. What do you folks
> think? Also, if they are to be used, where do you get them? Thank you
> very much!
>
> Your Humble Servant
> Solveig Throndardottir
> Amateur Scholar

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