Scrapbooking Experts / Archiving & Storing Printed Material

[annedonnelly]

Is it worth talking to a local museum or library about how they store things professionally? They might be able to advise or even help with the bulk purchase thing.

In my experience professional archivists/curators love explaining the technicalities of stuff like this. And I imagine that Cambridge is full of organisations storing old stuff.

 

[Alex H]

Scan it all. then you'll never have to handle the paper again and it'll all fit in a big box (and be easier to locate , read, reproduce)

 

[Moon bunny]

At my old workplace we used boxes-as they placed less strain on staples etc.-with acid free tissue and tyvek freely used as necessary.
https://www.preservationequipment.com/Catalogue/Archival-Storage/Boxes

 

[Reynard]

There's a museum here in Ely @annedonnelly - guess it's worth asking. Likewise the library, as the library handles a lot of the archive material for the cathedral. Worst they can do is say "take a hike".

Digitising it is also on the agenda at some point @Alex H - although I've learnt that cats and boxes are not the best combination.

What I'm trying to do is bind it in chronological order with a binder for each year, as I have this "thing" about loose sheets of paper. All the bits I have are already in proper archive sleeves, photos mounted on acid free card etc.

It's an archive tracking the career of my favourite racing driver. That's his helmet in my avatar btw...

 

[Reynard]

At my old workplace we used boxes-as they placed less strain on staples etc.-with acid free tissue and tyvek freely used as necessary.
https://www.preservationequipment.com/Catalogue/Archival-Storage/Boxes

Thanks for that. I'd actually been eyeing up the 24 litre "Really Useful Box" to keep the binders in - the one that takes the drop files. Was planning to put each binder in a drop file.

Plus there's some things that will be useful for conserving / storing a whole load of wartime newspapers and propaganda pamphlets.

 

[Reynard]

Just to update...

The binder-and-box idea has gone right out of the window. I've realised it's so totally unworkable, especially since I wildly underestimated the amount of stuff I still had knocking around that wanted filing. So arch levers it is. Bought one additional foolscap file just before Christmas. It is already overfull, and I still have enough material to fill at least one more...

And that was before I acquired a collection of never-published photos as a Christmas present to myself thanks to a random comment...

Though I now do have a supply of expandable punch pockets to take the press packs, magazines, posters etc.

 

[Rezillo]

As mentioned earlier, you need acid-free storage boxes - just google acid-free archive storage. When I retired, I had a volunteer job for 18 months re-archiving the contents of a local museum's archive store, which was in a terrible state. Newspapers and magazines in the wrong boxes were in an advanced state of decay after about 15 years. Some paper will do this anyway but it pays not to encourage the process.

I would not place anything in plastic wallets unless they're approved for archiving as in a few year's time you'll try to take something out only to find it irretrievably stuck to the inner surface! Old photo albums do this as well.

My archiving experience ended when I found a box of WW1 dug up shells which had no id or decommissioning certificate other than a note that seemed some years old with a phone number on it for someone to ring who would know if they were live or not. I thought this went rather beyond my volunteer role.

 

[Reynard]

Blimey, at least I haven't got anything quite like that squirreled away... Although I do have about half a late model stock car bodyshell sitting in my garage.

No fear, I'm using pukka archival wallets and mounting card, and have been since I started putting this together back in '87.