White Archival Gloves

 It might seem self-evident that people should wear white gloves in the archives, to protect the documents from the touch of human fingers.  But medievalists do not wear such gloves, and most archives not only don't require them, but actively try to persuade visitors not to wear them.  Why is this? you say.

 Gloves have distinct disadvantages for handling rare and delicate objects.  For one thing, those white gloves probably have more dirt on them than a pair of recently washed hands.  Perhaps even more importantly, wearing gloves reduces the sensitivity of one's fingers.  The scholar is thus more likely to tear a page in a book just trying to turn to the next page, or to have a document slip from her hands and fall to the floor.  These obviously are bad events.

There is in fact an excellent reason to allow human fingers to touch medieval documents, and that is that most medieval documents were written on parchment, which started life as animal skin.  There are oils in parchment that are the same as the oils naturally occurring in human skin.  The oils can dry out, making parchment brittle, but careful handling by clean fingers can help restore the natural oils.

(This is very much not an invitation to smear olive oil or linseed oil on medieval documents.  And of course one should not be handling documents with hands freshly moisturized by lotions "in new lavender - nutmeg scent.")

So where does the idea come from that archivists should be wearing gloves, along with any scholars in the archives?  It may be partly related to the common expression, "He had to handle the situation with kid gloves," meaning he had to choose his response delicately.  Gloves! and delicacy! all in one phrase.  But of course the people who originated this phrase were not talking about archives.  (Kid gloves are thin, made from the skin of baby goats, as opposed to the horsehide or oxhide gloves used for heavy work.)

But the ultimate source of the belief that white gloves must be worn in the archives is doubtless movies and TV shows.  Just as scientists are always shown in a lab with strange whirling machines, and doctors are shown with white coats and stethoscopes, so librarians and archivists are shown with white gloves, as a quick shorthand to the audience of what kind of professional this is.  We do not need to copy scenes from the movies.

© C. Dale Brittain 2023

For more on medieval documents and other aspects of medieval history, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms.  Also available in paperback.