Archival Advice
Tips for Preserving Your Family Heirlooms, Photographs and Documents
We all save what is precious to us -- photos, marriage certificates, maps, a baseball uniform or glove, a quilt. We save them because they preserve memories and document events in our lives or our children's lives. They also record a community's history and researchers can study the past from these objects.
Museums are well-informed about professional methods of preserving objects, but you can easily adopt many of the same practices at home. Some basic information is provided here, or you can attend a monthly Conservation Advice session at the Research Annex of the Center for History. Call 630/871-6601 to get specific conservation recommendations from the museum curator.
A wide variety of archival materials for safely storing your family heirlooms is available at the Center's Museum Shop. Products include storage boxes, albums, photo pages, photo corners, plastic sleeves for photos or documents of any size, scrapbooks, and boxes for wedding dresses and other large textiles. (Archival supply prices)
Whether you are concerned with preserving today's mementos or yesterday's family heirlooms, there are some basic guidelines to follow.
Two Basic Principles:
- Don't do anything irreversible
- Make sure you use "safe" materials
"Safe" materials mean the proper papers, plastics, writing implements and other storage materials. Most papers are acidic because they are made from wood pulp. Acid accelerates the natural aging process of paper causing fading, discoloration and brittleness. Using acid-free paper will preserve your treasures. Unsafe plastics such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or those made from petroleum products are very damaging. One significant problem is that photos in sleeves made of PVC can become stuck to the plastic, which damages the front of the picture.
DON'T USE THESE ITEMS
- metal paper clips or staples, rubber bands
- adhesives: rubber cement, white school glue, tapes, labels, Post-it notes
- laminating or clear contact paper
- photo albums with "magnetic" pages
- markers or highlighters
- construction paper
- cardboard boxes
SAFE MATERIALS
- paper clips made of plastic
- polyvinyl adhesive or paste made from rice starch or wheat starch
- photo corners made of polypropylene or polyester
- photo pages made of polyethylene, polypropylene, or polyester (only use products which identify the material)
- acid-free paper for mounting scrapbook items or photos, interleaving between pages; acid-free tissue for wrapping textiles
- use pencils wherever possible
- storage boxes made of acid-free unbuffered cardboard
Newspaper clippings should be copied onto acid-free paper to preserve them. Otherwise, the extremely acidic paper will deteriorate over time, leaving you with faded text and crumbled paper.
Environmental and storage conditions are important, too.
- Avoid extreme heat, moisture and fluctuations in temperature throughout the year. The attic and basement are the worst places to store valued items.
- Avoid direct light, fluorescent light and sunlight which can fade items.
- Wash your hands before handling the objects or wear cotton gloves so that oils from your hands are not transferred to them.
