Research Summary

The research aims at finding conservation solutions for the Norwegian Sea trade archive from the University of Bergen Library (16th - 20th centuries). Comprised of over 2200 bound manuscripts and more than 30 shelf meters of unbound documents, all mostly written in iron-gall ink, it has been kept for centuries in a cold, humid environment, and many of the documents are now affected by mould. To preserve these manuscripts and make them available for digitalization and for use by researchers, these documents must be disinfected in a way that prevents mould growth if climate conditions should become variable. In the first stage, the full collection was thoroughly surveyed to determine the extent of iron gall ink corrosion and biodeterioration. The ultimate aim is to find an efficient, multipurpose methodology to treat this archive that would act on the fungal biodeterioration and also promote the chemical stabilization of iron gall ink.