Investigates the use of polyacrylamide gel isoelectric focusing as a tool for the identification of the animal source of parchment. For the method, samples of ca. 10 mg must be pulverized, extracted, and centrifuged. Until now, only recently produced parchments have been studied, and good results have been obtained. Findings indicate that parchment originating from goat, sheep and calf can be distinguished on the basis of characteristic differences in the intensities of the bands in the isoelectric focusing patterns.