The presentation for our special Preservation Week ETBB, Out of the Attic: Preserving Your Treasures. This is an introduction to preserving your physical objects and the process of digitizing photos, audio, documents, and film.

1. Out of the Attic: Preserving Your Treasures Briscoe Library 27 April 2011

4. Insect found by rare books

5. Termite damaged books

6. Mold damage to records

9. Don't store books or photos in attics or basements Mold in an attic, near pictures

10. Book warped by humidity, possible water damage

11. Disasters such as fires and flooding cause mold, water damage, and total destruction

12. Book damaged by roof leak, then freeze dried to remove water. Readable but stained. Mold prevented.

14. Damage to Declaration of Independence from exposure to light. (No document is immune.)

15. 1847 document with damage from light, heat and mishandling. Yellowing & fading of text, brittleness, tears

16. Fading of print and yellow due to light damage

17. Light damaged vs. protected documents

18. Picture yellowed and faded from being on display Note the gradual fading of the nurses

19. Yellowing of label after one year due to unfiltered fluorescent light

21. Acidity in paper - 1914 document with brittleness and browning due to acid content resulting from natural aging

22. Newsprint is the worst as it is so highly acidic naturally. Preserve by photocopying on acid free, lignin free paper or interleave scrapbooks.

23. Rust damage from metal fasteners (foxing)

24. The rust on this old film reel endangers the contents

25. Highly acidic iron gall ink bleeds through and eats holes in paper over time.

26. Book binding damaged by aging and heavy use, resulting in broken stitching. Box to give protection to book bindings

27. "Red rot" on leather binding due to aging

28. Mirroring - A chemical reaction that causes loss of pigment

30. Broken bookcap in 1842 book

31. Warping can be caused by poor horizontal and vertical shelving Avoid warping: Don't shelve/lay taller/larger books on shorter/smaller volumes.

32. Don’t lean book on shelves, this can break spines or warp books. Use book ends and don’t crowd.

33. Dog earing weakens paper fibers

34. Will this clip damage the photo?

35. Yes! (Ouch.)

36. Staple piercing photo and negative in enclosure

37. Picture damage due to poor frame and matting

38. Don't use non-archival adhesives The acid they contain eventually migrates to the paper's fibers, causing stains and deterioration.

39. Use of sticky tape and label on back of photgraph

40. -Physical damage from other photos or objects. -Don’t mix photos of different sizes in boxes. -Protect photos with stable plastic or acid free photo enclosures.

41. Digitization From Physical to Digital

57. Film