Throw off those white gloves
I have never been persuaded of the use of white gloves when consulting manuscripts — in my experience, it is not just cumbersome, it can be positively harmful: you grip the page more tightly because of the lessened senstivity of touch and, in the process, are in danger of damaging the leaf. So I could only cheer when I read the advice from the British Library (advice, by the way, that I came across thanks to the twittering of ‘Richard Debury‘ — is that really his name?!).
[…] in the places that were his natural habitat. It extended also to dealing with manuscripts – no white-glove man, this, he would fairly plonk a volume down on its foam-rest. For those of us beginning our […]