May 1^st is MayDay

This is the annual day for professional archivists to review the condition of their facilities and collections and also to review their policies and their disaster plans. You can take on this spirit and reflect on the future of your own family history collection. Here are a few things you can do to make sure your stuff lasts.

Important things you can accomplish today:

While there are many things you can do to help preserve your personal memory collections, a few are easy and can be done right now without too much effort!

• Check to see if all your albums are safely on their shelves and all loose photos are safely stored in envelopes or boxes.
• Check your photos on display, and if they have started to fade, consider putting up a new image.
• Make sure that your photos are stored in a cool, dry place.
• Download all the photos you’ve been neglecting on your camera’s memory card.
• Back up the files on your computer – and not just the image files!

Fun things to start today:

In addition to the things you can do right now to help ensure that your memorabilia will last, here are a few other projects that are fun and can improve the odds that your history will be passed on to your descendents.

• Make CDs of your favorite photos and give them to family and friends.
• Make a photo book from image files and add text including identifiers such as who, what, when, and where. Also include stories that your descendents will enjoy reading.
• Make a photo album from loose prints and label them so your children and grandchildren will always know who is in those pictures.
• Remember, the more copies there are of your pictures, the more likely it will be that at least one set will get passed down from generation to generation.

More tips can be found by clicking here.

Term of the Month

Archival – A term often used to imply that a material will be stable over time. The term has neither a recognized standard definition nor a quantifiable method for verification.

The term “archival” is commonly included in the labeling of photo storage products (such as photo albums), but it doesn’t really tell you much. Products stating that they meet established standards such as ISO 18902 are more likely to last and protect your photos for the long term.

Link of the Month

The Society of California Archivists page has a handy guide to caring for your family papers. Take a look!

Click here for the guide in PDF format.