TIP #6: According to the National Archive of Australia, images on thermal paper can fade in as little as five years.

Just because the scary season is now over, that doesn’t mean we’re done talking about the scariest fiend of all: damage to our collections! The last we left off, we were discussing the threat of acidification to preserving paper. This week we’re discussing another threat: light.

Have you ever left a receipt in your car for too long and suddenly when you go to throw it away all the printed text has disappeared? Then you’ve witnessed fading on thermal paper!

While light is a threat to most materials, it’s particularly the bane of thermal paper. Thermal paper is a specific type of copying paper that uses heat to produce its image (hence the name). It was first used in early fax machines, but you might also see it with mimeographs or like our first example, receipts. When light hits thermal paper, it can cause the ink to fade or the paper to darken (as seen in the second image above).

So what can you do to fight back? Store the paper apart from other documents in a cool, dry, and of course, dark, environment. It’s also recommended to make a photocopy on more stable paper to avoid loss of data.

Want to learn more about preventing damage to your collection? Check out our webinars on YouTube!