Preserving the Memories

As I wrote awhile back I am in the process of trying to preserve organize photos.  I am starting with plain ordinary photographs, and then onto plain ordinary 8mm where I will look into preservation of such since projectors are going the way of the dinosaur and finally onto VHS tapes.  I organized the slides long ago and they are in neat little labeled boxes because they were created mostly BC (before children).  My move to preserving will begin with digitizing the movies once an index has been created.  I will probably never digitize the photos...except for my poor wedding album.

Below is one of the early photos that I came across in my husband's family collection box and I thought it was charming.  The photo was scanned in the sealed frame and I did not want to disturb it, so the clarity is a bit rough.  It was taken in the 1920's when his mother (the girl in the photo) was about 14 by her father, my husband's grandfather, who was a professional photographer in the city. 

On the back of the photo is written "Miss Folly---age 14-16?  Masonic Lodge"

As I progress on my research I will share what I learn in terms of preservation if you like.  It can get very technical and down in the weeds so I have to skim the surface in terms of information or both you and I will throw in the towel.  It also can be expensive, but maybe better than doing it yourself.  I once worked for USDA on a preservation project for printed materials, which was cutting edge at the time and a lot of work and more detail than I expected.

My first stop during this project--preservation and digitization-- has been the Library of Congress web site which researches this field professionally for all the libraries in the country and therefore, takes it pretty seriously and pretty comprehensively.  Wish me luck!