Public Library Of Youngstown & Mahoning County: Preservation Week 2021

Press release from the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County:

Tim Seman

April 28th, 2021

It’s Preservation Week, and no better time to augment your spring-cleaning skills with knowledge of the techniques and processes employed when caring for family history collections.  

If you’re like me, keeping information organized is a real challenge.  At no time is this more apparent, and important, than when dealing with the enormous amount of physical and digital bytes-and-pieces of our genealogical records.  You know, all of those photographs, letters, family bibles, home movies, CDs, DVDs, flash drives, etc.  Even artifacts, like uniforms, wedding dresses and great-great grandpa’s musket, require specialized care. 

Why is this important?  Obviously, we want to enjoy our collections.  To ensure our ability to do this, we need to keep them safe.  Many items, especially photographs and some digital media, are fragile and can degrade even under the best circumstances. 

Further, we want to make sure that the past is preserved.  Genealogy is for the future, too, so we want to ensure that our descendants can, like us, take notice of the continuity and change that these family history collections reveal.   

Oh, did I mention the obvious fringe benefit?  It is finding something you need when you need it!  Organizing and preserving family history collections helps you know exactly what lives on in your family history treasure chest. 

What to do…. 

Generally, the process begins by taking an inventory of your collections.  During this activity you can start to stabilize the materials. This means physically evaluating all of the problems that threaten each item.  This may include: making sure the environment, i.e., temperature and humidity, is stable; removing paper clips and rubber bands from photos and papers; unfolding and flattening letters; and storing items in appropriate, archival quality enclosures and containers.  Then you can proceed to apply specific treatments and organizing principles. 

The following resources will discuss these and other steps, and provide overall guidance for how to think about your family heirlooms.  I am including other resources that will help to facilitate the do-it-yourself treatments, and get you in touch with bindery services and suppliers of preservation materials. 

Tim Seman

Tim Seman has worked in archives and libraries from Washington, D.C. to Youngstown, spanning more than thirty years.  A staunch abolitionist vegan, Tim shares life with a multispecies family, reads broadly, writes occasionally, and enjoys cooking and marksmanship.  Contact him at tseman@libraryvisit.org

This press release was produced by the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County. The views expressed here are the author’s own.