Guides
Part of How to organize a family collection: select first, then label, copy and record what exists
A beginner project: free family archive reading
A beginner project in family archive care: free institutional guides, journals, blogs and library resources for organizing and preserving family history.
What to take away
A beginner project in family archive care does not need a paid course. Start with free reading from libraries and conservation bodies.
- Almost everything you need is published free by libraries, archives and conservation institutes.
- Read by material type, not by course. Advice organized around objects is the kind you can apply.
- Process advice ages well. Technical numbers and format recommendations do not.
- Ask your own library what it holds before buying anything.
Start with guides written by institutions for the public
Start with the free guides that libraries and conservation bodies write for the public. The Library of Congress's Preservation Directorate publishes guides on caring for paper, photographs and digital files. The National Archives offers preservation and family archives resources. The Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) publishes its free Preservation Leaflets, and the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) has Caring for Your Treasures guides. These pages are organized by object, name the specific failure modes, and tell you when to stop and hand something over.
Reading order for institutional guides
- Largest material group first
- Whatever is showing damage
- Emergency preparedness before you need it
- Digital, once copying has started
Read it with a box open in front of you, not as background. Guidance about objects makes little impression in the abstract. It becomes obvious the moment you hold the thing it describes.
An hour on the right leaflet with the material in hand teaches more than a weekend of general reading. It also stops you applying advice meant for a different material.
Then read what the field reads
To go further, read what practitioners read. Michigan State University Libraries' page of journals, blogs and further reading for media preservation gathers the professional literature in one place.
It lists journals from named associations: the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) and its IASA Journal, the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) and The Moving Image, and the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) and its ARSC Journal. It also links to Canadian Conservation Institute publications, practitioner blogs such as the Library of Congress's The Signal, and bibliographies.
Two things make this worth the detour even for a household. Journals show you which problems are unsolved, which stops you searching for an answer that does not exist. And blogs written by working practitioners show the improvised, low-budget solutions that formal guidance leaves out.
Use your own library
The University of Michigan Library's general resources for digital archiving page is a good model. It shows what a library can do beyond publishing a web page.
It names a digital preservation unit you can email with questions. It points to a blog covering the library's own digital preservation projects.
It lists handouts from its digitization unit covering scanning, working with vendors, and audio and video practice.
It also lists books held in the library on personal digital archiving, including the essay collection Personal Archiving: Preserving Our Digital Heritage, edited by Donald T. Hawkins, and The Complete Guide to Personal Digital Archiving, edited by Brianna H. Marshall. Both are written for information professionals but described as accessible to anyone interested in preserving their own material.
Your library may not have a digital preservation unit. It will have an interlibrary loan system, and the books on this subject are short.
Telling current advice from dated advice
| Signal | What it means |
|---|---|
| Names a specific product or brand | Check the date; product lines change fast |
| Gives dpi, file formats or media types | Technical detail ages within a decade |
| Describes handling, sequence or decisions | Ages slowly; usually still correct |
| Cites a standard by number | Check whether that standard was revised |
| No date on the page | Treat every number in it as unverified |
Process outlives specification. When an old guide tells you to survey before handling, believe it. When it tells you which tape to buy, do not.
Our guide to organizing a family collection sets the sequence this reading supports, and the notes on learning photograph care cover the same question for photographic material.
