Your child’s first birthday,a once in a lifetime vacation, these are just a couple very special memories we capture in our lives.
Tending to memories is something many of us have good intentions about. We save mementos of special occasions and of our children as they grow hoping to one day sit down and relive some of the wonderful moments that came our way during our very busy lives. But because life became so busy our photos are in shoe boxes hoping to get into albums, more photos sit on our hard drive’s waiting to be printed and shared, children’s masterpieces boxed but unprotected. Think of all the photos of others you have taken along the way with the words I will get you a copy. Those people would still love to see those photo’s (now a blast from the past) and especially in an album as a keepsake of their own.
The market is filled with creative ways to share and save all those wonderful photographs and mementos. The question is, are the products used to share your memories protecting them or actually doing more harm than good? Just because a photo is in an album doesn’t make it safe, it can easily fall prey to off gassing from certain papers and adhesive’s. Also some plastics that shield photos from finger prints can be the culprits causing color fading and image degradation of your photos.
So what is a person to do? Some home work! And think archival quality materials. There are many beautiful photo albums that are high quality and archivally safe. To be archivally safe means to be stored in a manner that the materials used in that storage do not contribute themselves to the degrading of any materials being stored. The paper must be acid free and also (and this is less known) lignin free. The plastic has to be polypropylene. Then there is the storage itself. To much heat and to much moisture can also help to ruin stored materials . One should think of themselves as the curator of their own “memory museum”. Curators of museums must use techniques that support housing works of art for centuries, and if they did not we would be far less culturally rich as a society. Caring for your memories is important to you now, but be thinking about that video of your daughter’s or granddaughter’s first birthday when it’s her great granddaughter watching it a hundred years from now with a wow on her face. This long term care of your memories and keepsakes should be your goal. Yes good materials are worth every penny. Check out (“conservation/preservation.com” : http://palimpest.stanford.edu/bytopic/genpub/) for more information and education.
We at Archival Owl invite you to take a moment and look at all our archival quality product options to see if there is one to suit your needs. Stop back anytime to get more ideas and information as we continue to update our offerings and share more ways to protect all life’s precious moments.