Visited the old courthouse in Springfield and the floor plan drawings in the lobby were a mess

I had to drop off some stuff near the county building last week and went inside the old courthouse. In the main lobby, they have these framed original floor plan drawings from 1928 on the wall. I got up close and the line work was incredible, all done by hand obviously, but the notes were a disaster. Someone had used a cheap pen to add updates over the years, and the ink bled all over the vellum. It's a real shame because the base drawing is so clean. It made me think about how we handle as-builts now. We scan everything and keep a digital layer for markups, but seeing that physical damage on a historical doc hit different. Has anyone else run into old drawings that got ruined by bad updates? What's the best way to preserve them if you find one?

3 comments

3 Comments

oliviahenderson10d ago

That 1928 vellum drawing must have been beautiful before the pen bled all over it. How could someone use a cheap pen on something like that? @carr.james has the right idea, getting it scanned and away from daily use is the only safe move. It's crazy to think how many historical records get wrecked by simple office supplies.

the_oscar4d ago

Our county lost a whole box of land deeds to ballpoint pen damage.

carr.james10d ago

We had a set of old site plans in our office that were getting wrecked by people writing on them. The boss finally had them scanned at a high resolution and printed a few copies for daily use. The original went into a flat file with acid free paper between the sheets. It stopped the damage cold. A good archivist can sometimes fix ink bleed with special treatments, but getting it away from daily hands is step one.