Williston Historical Society

The Vermont Folklife Center Spring 2006 Workshop

On March 11, 2006 I attended a VFC workshop in Middlebury. The day-long archival preservation workshop focused on personal, family and local historical society preservation techniques. Below is a follow-up about what I learned and what we may possibly want to utilize for our collection. Granted, there are many things we cannot do in a small historical society such as ours, but there are a number of suggestions we can use to help us preserve our collection for future generations.


Preservation
● Important that we remove paper clips/staples to prevent the transfer of oxidation to the documents.
● Individual forms of documents, as well as photos should be separated with acid-free paper.
● Don’t ever do anything to an item that cannot be undone (i.e. adhesive labels on artifacts).
● Florescent lights should have UV filters.
● Environmental Control--60°-65° and 40-55 humidity is suggested. But the best measure for environmental control is consistency.
● Separate clippings from photos.
● Clippings can be photocopied for content and originals discarded. Of course, preserve unique documents.
● Also, we should disassemble scrapbooks and photocopy for content. Discard the originals.
● Best to photocopy on archival paper (acid-free, lignin-free and buffered). Permalife is a good brand.

Audio tapes & CDs
● Both tapes and CDs should always be stored upright, never flat.
● Make one copy for use and one copy for storage on site and keep the original in a vault.
● We should not use or listen to original. The copies are what should be used.
● Images on CD—best preservation practice is to save in .tif for long-term (master file). .jpeg is only necessary when transferring image to the Web.
● Sharpie pens should never be used to write on CDs. Only write on clear inside rim using a permanent water-based ink.

Photos
● Good to make sure album enclosures have passed PAT (Photo Activity Task). Should check this before purchasing. Never use PVC.
● In regards to slides, which we do have many, slide enclosures are advised, keeping in mind that access is key. Scanning slides can also increase access to these images.
● If photos are not in albums, they should be separated with acid-free paper.
● We should never display original pictures—display copies.

● A very good guide for maintaining a photograph collection is: The Caring & Handling of 19th Century Photographs, which is available through The Image Permanence Institute
http://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org


Storage
● CDs containing images and documents should be stored in different places.
● There is no such things as an archival CD, but one brand is favored in the archival community—MAMA brand CDs.
● DVDs are not adequate for storage. CD-ROM is easily stored.

Technology Issues
● Plan to shift media before current one becomes obsolete.

Disaster Preparedness
● Have a plan—
● Who does what and when?
● Who to contact for repair?
● What do we need to be adequately prepared for any event?
● Always important to keep a good number of empty boxes/crates, as well as plastic tarps in case of roof and basement leaks.
● Also of considerable value is to have numbers on hand of who to contact.
● The NEH provides a Disaster Preparedness Wheel, which provides information about what measures need to be taken for a given storage crisis, such as broken water pipes, fire, etc. This Wheel can be ordered, but I am not sure about the cost.

Additional info.
~There are ways to convert audio cassette to CD. Software to convert starts at about $80 (Sound Forge) to a medium range and effective software (Cake Walk). The more expensive software is available for about $1500. However, for a small historical society Sound Forge could be adequate.
VFC archivist Andy Kolovos suggested that a good way to get young people involved in their community’s historical society is to engage them in the task of converting cassette tapes to CD. The technological awareness of this generation easily sparks interest in projects such as these and is a way to involve them in the activities of the historical society.

~It was advised that the trunk in the East Closet go to the basement until we can address the particular mold evident there. There is a possibility that the mold could transfer to other artifacts and documents located in the closet.

I would sincerely appreciate your input on what has been detailed here. I believe many of the suggestions Mr. Kolovos covered can be easily and relatively inexpensively applied to our collection and should be considered.
Thanks.

~Steve Robinson April 1, 2006

posted by Williston Historical Society @ 1:07 PM