[Part I of McArthur Library’s Family History Month 2015 series.]

Today, caring for your family treasures means more than just keeping those old photos dust-free and wrapping grand-memere’s wedding veil in tissue paper. Not only do we have our analog family treasures, we have digital family treasures as well.

How about all those CD’s of digital photos in the back of your desk drawer? Or have you ever even made back-ups? Do you even have film negatives of your children, or are all of your photos on your computer, tablet or smartphone?

Also, with changing weather patterns and more extreme (read: unexpectedly bad) weather, are you prepared for an emergency or disaster? We know enough to leave the “stuff” and get ourselves to safety, but after the fact, what do you do to try and save what is left?

Read on for tools and techniques to help you keep your family treasures, of whatever kind, safe for the future.

PRESERVATION OF YOUR TANGIBLE KEEPSAKES (Mostly Library of Congress)

• OVERVIEW. Great BRIEF introduction by Northeast Document Conservation Center, Andover, Mass.
• PAPER + NEWSPAPER.
• BOOKS + COMIC BOOKS.
• PHOTOGRAPHS.
•  SCRAPBOOKS + ALBUMS.
• FILM AND SOUND RECORDINGS.
• TEXTILES.
• PRESERVATION LEAFLETS/Sections 2-6 (Northeast Document Conservation Center)
• JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING Part 1 (Smithsonian Institution)
• JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING Part 2 (National Park Service)

PRESERVATION OF YOUR DIGITAL/ELECTRONIC KEEPSAKES

• OVERVIEW to PRESERVING YOUR DIGITAL MEMORIES (Library of Congress)
  • DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS
  • DIGITAL AUDIO + DIGITAL VIDEO
  • EMAIL + DOCUMENTS/RECORDS
  • WEBSITES
• “How to Preserve Old Photos Without Losing Your Mind” by Chris Cummins. This is a great article because it not only thoroughly covers converting photos to digital but includes *preservation techniques for your originals* (something I strongly agree with!!)
• Creating Long-Lasting Inkjet Prints by Monique Fischer (Northeast Document Conservation Center)

DISASTER PREPAREDNESS + RECOVERY

• Resources For Protecting and Saving Family Treasures. Click on the grey “Open All Tabs” button to view the extensive resources compiled at this site.
• Preservation Leaflets/Section 3 – Emergency Management. Overall a great resource, but section 3 in particular gives tips for dealing with disaster recovery and clean up. Aimed at libraries and archives but absolutely useful to individuals. (Northeast Document Conservation Center)