All-digital restoration and preservation of your memories

Library of Congress

PROTECTING YOUR TREASURES

In accordance with our sincere belief that protecting your personal treasures is a critically important project whether done by you, by us or by someone else, the following links and information are being provided to you from the most qualified and unbiased authority we know: The Library of Congress. They are without a doubt some of the best in the world at preserving an important history, and we encourage you to read the descriptions and follow the links that are most relevant to your personal situation. There are no "counters" on these links and no one is compensated in any way; it is simply our way of offering you the very best information on helping you to preserve your personal history items.

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Library of Congress - Preservation Directorate

Ensuring long-term access to the Library's collections.

Collections Care

Basic information and simple steps to take for the good care, handling, and storage of various materials and formats found in library and home collections; Guidelines for reducing risks to library materials posed by display/exhibition, reformatting, water, and airborne pollutants and for using ABLE™ 7.0 software for the preparation of materials for library binding.

Care, Handling and Storage of Photographs

Identifying, care and handling, storage, and other issues for photographs.

Care, Handling, and Storage of Works on Paper

Works on paper generally refer to flat (as opposed to bound) paper materials, including documents, manuscripts, drawings, prints, posters, and maps. Taking care when handling any collection item is one of the more effective, cost-efficient, and easily achieved preservation measures.

Care, Handling, and Storage of Books

Taking care when handling any collection item, especially functional items like books with flexing parts, is one of the more effective, cost-efficient, and easily achieved preservation measures.

Preservation Measures for Scrapbooks and Albums

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Preservation Measures for Newspapers

Taking care when handling any collection item, especially large format, poor-quality paper items like newspapers, is one of the more effective, cost-efficient, and easily achieved preservation measures.

Newspapers from the mid-19th century onwards are printed on inexpensive, machine-made, wood pulp paper that is not manufactured for longevity. Due to the inherent chemical instabilities of such low-quality wood pulp papers, these newspapers are inherently acidic. Good storage is especially critical to the preservation of acidic papers.

Care, Handling, and Storage of Comic Books

Taking care when handling any collection item, especially functional items like comic books and magazines with flexing parts, is one of the more effective, cost-efficient, and easily achieved preservation measures.

Comic books are modern publications, the earliest of which are from the 19th century industrial era when machine-made, wood pulp paper had already become the dominant paper product. Due to the inherent chemical instabilities of wood pulp papers and the late development of U.S. paper standards (in the 1980s), many comic book collections contain acidic books. Good storage is especially critical to the preservation of acidic paper materials.

Care, Handling, and Storage of Audio Visual Materials

Taking care when handling any collection item is one of the more effective, cost-efficient, and easily achieved preservation measures.

Grooved discs and cylinders, optical discs, and magnetic tape are made of modern materials that may have inherent chemical instabilities. Good storage is especially critical to the preservation of these materials.

Care, Handling, and Storage of Motion Picture Film

Motion picture film can be made of various materials and by different processes and both material and process inform storage, handling, and duplication recommendations.

Motion picture films and especially the silver particles or color dyes that constitute the image are highly sensitive to inappropriate environmental conditions; good storage is arguably the best preservation measure one can take.

Care, Handling and Storage of Asian Style Bindings

Specific handling considerations are based on the style of book. There are two basic types of Asian style bindings for paper based books, the accordion style and the side-sewn style. Each format requires a handling approach specific to its needs.

How to Preserve Your Own Digital Materials

Our photo albums, letters, home movies and paper documents are a vital link to the past. Personal information we create today has the same value. The only difference is that much of it is now digital.

Digital Preservation

Digital preservation is the active management of digital content over time to ensure ongoing access.

The goal of the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program was to implement a national strategy to collect, preserve and make available significant digital content, especially information that is created in digital form only, for current and future generations. Congress directed the Library to undertake NDIIPP in 2000.

Sustainability of Digital Formats: Planning for Library of Congress Collections

The Sustainability of Digital Formats Web site provides information about digital content formats. The analyses and resources presented here will increase and be updated over time. The compilers, Caroline R. Arms, Carl Fleischhauer, and Kate Murray invite feedback on the content.

Recommended Formats Statement

Recommended Formats Statement identifies hierarchies of the physical and technical characteristics of creative formats, both analog and digital, which will best meet the needs of all concerned, maximizing the chances for survival and continued accessibility of creative content well into the future.

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