ACK! HELP!

[averygoodun42]

Okay, I know a lot of you are crafters, and some of you deal with paper.

I have the only good copy of an old church directory so that I can scan the front cover to replace some destroyed photos. At some point today, the envelope it was being kept in was dropped on the wet tile floor (entrance) and wasn't noticed until the whole right corner of the book was soaked through. Now it's all wrinkly and horrible and... *sobs*

So far, no photos have bled, inside or out. The only visible damage is the wrinkling and some discoloration of the white inner pages. Although I feel horrible, I am not going to worry about the discoloration, but I do want to fix the wrinkling if at all possible.

Is it possible? I've separated the pages and put plastic wrap in-between each page to keep them from sticking together. I don't know what else to do.

The corner is still damp, btw.

Help. Please?

Comments

[zalena.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, and a second tip about ironing. You might want to put it beneath a thin cloth (like one of those sacking towels) so that the paper doesn't scorch.

The way professionals deal with water damaged paper is to freeze dry it.

[averygoodun.livejournal.com]

How does freeze drying work?

[zalena.livejournal.com]

I don't really know, I just know it was the process that was used for the UNC page replacement project when I worked on it after the flood. From what I can tell, books are flash frozen to prevent damage from ice crystals forming. Then they are dried in a vacuum to sublimate the moisture. It goes directly from a frozen to a gaseous state minimizing the water damage:

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=3246

But really, I don't know how it works. But I do know there are companies that specialize in this.