Labels in alcohol

[Kent Perkins]

At 03:38 PM 8/21/98 -0300, Doug Yanega wrote:
>And yet, sometimes one can find a rough-surfaced acid-free paper to which
>the letters adhere remarkably well. I've got labels in alcohol with insect
>and plant specimens over 10 years old, and they are all quite legible, even
>though it's 4-point lettering. You need to use a microscope to detect any
>deterioration in the lettering. The worst horror stories seem to be with
>folks working with vertebrate material, so maybe dissolved fats are a
>specific and serious problem for such material. Certainly, as a general
>rule, you are VERY unlikely to have the success I did (when we got a new
>paper supplier, our labels all fell apart when they *touched* the alcohol),
>and I'm not recommending it over other techniques like impact printing, but
>to claim that ALL laser labels will fall apart quickly is simply not true.

Interesting.  We have found that the lettering wears off on herbarium
labels printed with HP lasers on certain rough-surfaced acid-free papers.
Friction (sheets rubbing together) apparently rubs off particles of the
paper which takes the ink with it.  This has not been a problem with the
smooth surfaced acid-free paper we currently use, Gilbert Paper 20 lb.
Lancaster Neu-Tech.  This paper is specifically designed for laser
printers.  Many of the run-of-the-mill copy machine papers are now
acid-free  and much less expensive.  We are experimenting with these to see
how they hold up.

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|Kent D. Perkins                  |Ph: 352-392-1767 /SUNCOM 622-1767 |
|Mgr. of the Collections (FLAS)   |FAX: 352-846-2016                 |
|Email: kperkins at flmnh.ufl.edu    |www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/herbarium|
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|University of Florida Herbarium  |A unit in the Florida Museum of   |
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