As one phase of their effort, curators provide a protective, acid free storage environment for the collection. They store documents in folders and boxes constructed of acid free stock. The folders are not boards and offer much less protection than book covers. Though they are scored along the fold to allow thicker contents, the protection they provide decreases after approximately twenty pages. There is also an optimum number of folders per box sufficient folders should be stored in a box to prevent them from bending over while still permitting a person to pull a folder easily out of the box and replace it without forcing it back into the box.
Document boxes have a flip top lids which protect the manuscripts from light and dust.
When collections arrive at a repository, several items often show damage. For example, a curator would likely decide to encapsulate a valuable article on brittle paper. Contrary to lamination which fuses the article between two sheets of plastic with heat, encapsulation consists of storing the item between two sheets of chemically inert plastic held together by strips of tape with an acid free adhesive on both sides. By placing the tape approximately one-eighth of an inch away from the outside edges of the item, the curator protects the item itself from contact with the adhesive. If he wishes to remove the encapsulation, he merely cuts the plastic along the inside edge of the tape.