Joyce Brite writes in the 05.09.10 MMD:

> There are some out there who believe that rubber bands should not be
> used on rolls at all.  What, then, should you use to secure the roll
> in place?  Should it remain loose?  That's fine if the roll spends
> much of its time sitting on a shelf but when shipping or transporting
> rolls, something is needed to keep the roll in place.  A loose roll
> shifting in the box can become damaged.

I think rubber bands are okay for short-term use in shipping music
rolls, although I always ship my band organ rolls loose in the box and
have never had any reports of damage.  Play-Rite ships its rolls with
rubber bands, but I always remove them immediately and store the rolls
loosely in their boxes.  Rubber bands left on rolls for the long term
invariably leave an undesirable imprint in the first few layers of
paper.

I do use the sticky edge of "Post-it" notes for holding down the mating
edges of roll paper when I am splicing pieces together.  The stick-um
of the Post-it note holds the paper nicely, yet peels off without
leaving a residue or damaging the paper surface.

That led me to consider using the same kind of adhesive paper as a
wrapper to hold music rolls during shipment, should that become
necessary.  Rolls of such paper can be bought at paint and hardware
stores, where it is sold for use by painters in masking off edges that
should not be painted.  (This tape is not to be confused with masking
tape, which adheres too firmly to paper.)

A six-inch length of the tape could be wrapped around a piano roll and
overlapped on itself.  It would hold the roll tightly wound, without
indenting the paper.  The tape could be wrapped either sticky side in
or sticky side out; either way would work.

Matthew Caulfield
Irondequoit, New York