What is the best option for preserving an old photograph? Store it in acid free packaging in an environmentally controlled room? Scan it and store digital copies on CDs, DVDs, Hard Drives, or other digital device? If saved digitally, how should the digital media be stored? The answers to these questions are not always as simple and straight forward as one might think. To help genealogists answer these questions and safely preserve their family’s history, Barbara Sagraves has written A Preservation Guide: Saving the Past & the Present for the Future, an expert guide for everyone, beginners and practiced hands alike.
Barbara Sagraves is a preservation services librarian at Dartmouth College and has taught preservation at the Rosary College Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Her expertise is well blended with an easy to read writing style that makes it simple to follow each of the tips, steps, and suggestions in this book. Chapters are easy to follow with added suggestions in the margins, plus pictures and example in both the main body as well as the margins.
Sagraves covers each of the primary media types in this guide; paper, books, photographs, film and video, sound recordings, computer disks, and textiles. For each, coverage includes cleaning, storage, special needs, and more. The final chapter covers disaster recovery. While the book is small, it is also a critical topic of great importance to every historian and family archivist.
Preservation is a key element of successful genealogy. However, it is not the final step. If we wait until our last record has been found and added to our database, if we keep those photographs and old journals stacked in boxes in our house until we our research is complete then those items will never be properly preserved. Each year, each day even, that some item go unprotected means that much irrevocable aging and potential damage. Preservation should be a constant practice in family history keeping. A Preservation Guide is expert advice to help the reader successfully manage their family history preservation.
Contents
Foreword
General Guidelines for Storing Materials
Paper
- Paper Clips and Staples
- Surface Cleaning
- Testing for Acid and Deacidifying
- Encapsulation
- Photocopying
- Flattening and Storage
Books
- Preparing for Storage
- Deacidifying
- Photocopying
- Storage
- Scrapbooks
Photographs
- Storage
- Photo Albums
- Special Needs
- Storing Negatives
Motion Picture Film
Videotape
Sound Recordings
- Phonograph Records
- Handling
- Storage
- Cleaning
- Audiotapes
- Storage
- Cleaning
- Creating a Backup
Computer Disks
- Handling
Textiles
- Cleaning
- Storage
- Flat Storage
- Rolled Storage
- Hanging Storage
Disaster Recovery
- Recovery From Water Damage
- Freezing Books and Paper
- Audiotape and Videotape Procedures
- Soot and Ozone Treatments
Choosing A Conservator
Appendix: List of Suppliers
Bibliography
Glossary
Start preserving you family’s history with a copy of A Preservation Guide, available from Family Roots Publishing; Item #: TP595, Price: $6.81.