spores...
Recently I had the opportunity to attend a short but very interesting talk in Timaru on foxing by Neil Andrews from the Biological Sciences at the Canterbury University, whose specialist area is Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Neil uses the SEM to look at the surface of things, easily including samples as small as 3 microns like the spores he used to illustrate his talk.
Having never looked into foxing before Neil’s interest was piqued when his brother, a local philatelist, brought foxed stamps to his attention. The talk began with a look at the microscopic construction of stamps, views of the differences of rag and wood-pulp fibres. But the fascinating part for me was yet to come. As a result of his initial interest Neil looked more closely at several samples of foxing, including samples from within his own personal library – probably little different from many other library collections including our own. His initial research led him to understand there were two types of foxing – ferric oxide or rusting and fungal growth. Of the samples he viewed he found only fungal growth.
When looking at his foxing sample he discovered dead fungal matter with broken hyphae (the long tubular bits), what appeared to be broken growth nodes and few fruiting bodies (i.e. the bits with the nasty spores). Here comes the fascinating bit – he then checked a control area, a piece of clean page without any evidence of foxing. The surface was covered in strands of live hyphae with active fruiting bodies covering a surface ‘like a forest’ – see the adjacent image for one of the less spectacular examples he displayed. As a result Neil’s instinctive conclusion was that foxing was actually caused by dead fungi, not live growths. He does caution though that it certainly needs more work and that he would like to plate out some of the infected pages, put some names to the fungi and verify the infection viability.
Foxing fungi
Neil also discussed how fungi are everywhere – i.e. don’t kid yourself you’re not surrounded by the stuff. I don’t want to dwell on examples, but he has even found it in aviation fuel – so its almost assured its endemic in all our paper stuff. Just think of that lovely (some heathens say slightly musty) smell that greets us every time we enter our stores or open those old books. After all, we all know storage environments – which theoretically are around 19 degrees and 50% RH in our archives – are not going to stop decay, just slow it down. It won’t be so dry as to kill the fungi, but hopefully is enough to arrest its development. Neil’s talk reminded me though that recently we’ve had issues in our archives store with the humidity dropping lower than desirable – was I risking killing the fungi and causing an outbreak of foxing? Probably not (it didn’t get that low), but Neil’s talk did give me something of a start.
Neil expects to repeat his talk to Christchurch philatelist, but the details are yet to be confirmed.
Images supplied by Neil Andrews, Canterbury University.
Tony Rippin
Curator of Documentary History
South Canterbury Museum
Timaru District Council
GNZMMS 8: Description of the ceremonies observed on the occasion of tattooing a chief
Kia ora koutou.
This message is to tell you that the UNESCO New Zealand Memory of the World Committee / Te Komiti o Aotearoa mo Nga Mahara o te Ao is asking for nominations for Aotearoa/New Zealand documentary heritage to be inscribed on the UNESCO Aotearoa/New Zealand Memory of the World Register. This is a great opportunity to promote the importance of the documentary heritage held by your institution.
Information on the Memory of the World Programme including the nomination form is at unescomow.org.nz
The closing date for nominations to the New Zealand register is Thursday 31 May 2012.
New inscriptions to the register will be decided by the end of June and an announcement made on the successful inscriptions.
A successful nomination will raise the profile of your institution and the work that you do to preserve documentary heritage. If you are unable to meet the May 2012 deadline there will be another round of submissions this year closing at the end of November.
What is Memory of the World?
Memory of the World aims to recognise significant documentary heritage in a similar fashion to the way UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention and World Heritage List recognises significant natural and cultural sites.
Countries may develop their own national registers. The most significant items can also be nominated for inscription on the international or regional Memory of the World Registers.
What is happening in New Zealand?
The New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO supports the Aotearoa/New Zealand Memory of the World Committee / Te Komiti o Aotearoa mo Nga Mahara o te Ao to coordinate nominations for the register of New Zealand documentary heritage. The first inscriptions to the Aotearoa/New Zealand register were announced on 30 June 2011.
There are now six collections of documentary heritage inscribed on the New Zealand register.
The nomination forms for these collections are on the website www.unescomow.org.nz and provide exemplars for submissions.
What can be nominated?
To be selected for registration on the New Zealand Memory of the World Register the documentary heritage should:
- be unique and irreplaceable (in that it has demonstrable historic, aesthetic or cultural significance to a community or the nation)
- be a primary or significant source that documents an historical or cultural event that has had a lasting impact and influenced the course of New Zealand history
- be an outstanding example of a document or an experience
Documentary heritage can be digital or analogue. Examples include but are not limited to textual items such as documents, manuscripts, books, newspapers, posters and non-textual items such as photographs, films, discs, drawings, prints, maps; online media items, social media databases, mobile digital devices etc
Enquiries
For enquiries or more information, please visit unescomow.org.nz , or contact us at enquiries@unescomow.org.nz. If you would like to receive further information about the New Zealand Memory of the World Register, please email enquiries@unescomow.org.nz.with a request to subscribe.
Jill Durney
Macmillan Brown Library Manager
University of Canterbury – Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha
