It became apparent that there were great gaps in the literature avail-able on paper conservation, and conflicting recommendations within the existing documents. This lack was quite evident in the area of spot and stain removal. It was impossible to unearth a single source listing the relative harmfulness of suggested methods of bleaching and spot removal, or even to combine data from a number of sources into a coherent whole. The experimental work had not been performed. Therefore, a program of experiments was designed in order to fill this void. First, the literature was surveyed. Second, thirty methods for spot and stain removal were selected. Third, the effects of the treatments were