Tag Archives: preservation

Photo preservation with the Society for Commercial Archeology

Source: Society for Commercial Archeology records, Alexander Architectural Archives, University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin

Introduction

This post is part of a series on personal collection management. The series provides tips and tricks to Society for Commercial Archeology (SCA) members for preserving and organizing their personal collections of photographs and print materials, and digitizing these items.

Personal collections management borrows best practices from collecting institutions like archives, libraries, and museums, scaled down for an individual’s needs. Following a few simple personal archiving guidelines can help preserve your memories into the future, keeping them accessible to the next generation.

In the Spring of 2019, I produced a Records Management plan for the SCA’s administrative records, which are housed at the Alexander Architectural Archives, University of Texas Libraries. These articles on personal collection management supplement the institutional Records Management tool, so that the personal materials of SCA members can be cared for at home, even outside of a formal archive.

Source: Society for Commercial Archeology records, Alexander Architectural Archives, University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin

Let’s Get Started!

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but only if it’s preserved. For many of us, our photographs, film, and slides contain our most cherished memories and familial ties. But, all too often these photographs sit neglected in damp basements, stuffy attics, and crumbling shoeboxes. The tips below will help your photos live their best life.

Handling

  • Do not touch the image side of the print directly, to avoid leaving fingerprints and oils from the skin
  • For best practice, wear thin cotton or nitrile gloves

Storing

Storage is the foundation of photo preservation. The right storage can be the difference between a photo that lasts a lifetime, and one damaged beyond repair.

  • Store your photos in acid free boxes or envelopes
  • For extra protection, photos can be layered between sheets of acid free paper, or slipped into clear archival envelopes
  • Store negatives in acid free envelopes
  • Avoid storing photos in spaces with wide fluctuations in temperature or humidity, such as attics, basements, or garages. As one blogger puts it: “A good rule of thumb is storing photos where you are also comfortable: not too hot, cold, wet or dry.”
  • Store photos in a well-ventilated area
  • Avoid storing photos or photo boxes in direct sunlight
  • Avoid using paper clips or rubber bands to bundle photographs
  • When storing photos in boxes, avoid “dead space” which will cause your photos to tip and lean. This can bend your prints, and mix them up out of order. Fill the dead space with folded pieces of stiff acid-free paper.
  • Similarly, avoid packing prints or slides too tightly into a box. Give them a little breathing room so that the materials are not stressed or damaged by constantly pushing against one another.

Labeling and Organizing

Labeling your photos may feel tedious in the moment, but it can save you from pain and confusion down the line. Have you ever looked back on an old photograph that you took or one taken of you, and had no recollection of the moment? Or what about inheriting a box of old family photographs, without any idea of who the photos depict or when they were taken? Our memories aren’t perfect, but thankfully, labeling can step in for us.

  • Types of information you may wish to include in the label:
    • Full names of people in the photo
    • Date
    • Location
    • Occasion
    • Photographer
  • Use gentle pressure to label the backs of photographs at the lower border. Avoid pens which require a forceful hand, as the pressure can damage your photo.
  • If labeling each individual photo is too time-consuming, label boxes or envelopes which contain photos that are part of a set. (Best practice is to label the envelopes before placing the material in them).
  • There is no single “correct” way to organize your photos. Chronologically, by person, by occasion? Choose a method that makes sense to you, and will make it easy to find the photo you’re looking for in the future.

Displaying and Sharing Photos

Storing photos for the future is great, but what if you want to enjoy your photos in the moment?

  • If you want to frame a photo for display, consider making a copy, rather than displaying the original. This way you can enjoy your photo everyday, while the original is protected from light damage.
  • Storing photos in an album is generally not recommended. Album materials like glue, cardboard, and plastic, can damage your photos. Instead, scan the photos and produce an album with the digital scans (through services like Shutterfly, Mixbook, or Amazon photos), or make photocopies for an album. The originals can then be left in protected storage.
  • Look for acid-free frames, mats, and albums.
Source: Society for Commercial Archeology records, Alexander Architectural Archives, University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin

Further Resources

Looking for more? This section links to lots of helpful outside resources.

General Advice for Photographic Care

Caring for Photographic Slides

While most of the advice on caring for photo prints also applies to slides, the following resources are specific to slides.

Purchasing Archival Supplies

Where to find acid-free boxes, photo sleeves and more.

Troubleshooting

Wondering how to take care of a collection of photos that’s already experienced damage? Below are resources for addressing common types of damage or degradation.

Mold
Removing tape, removing photos from an album

Hiring a Professional

Have a project too big to tackle alone? Try The American Institute for Conservation’s Find a Conservator feature.

Up Next!

Stay tuned for upcoming articles on digitization and tips on caring for paper materials like postcards, fliers, and clippings.

APL Spotlight Interview: Tony Tomasello

Tony in the Battle Hall Reading Room

Back in 2014, Stephanie Phillips interviewed APL’s interim Architecture and Planning Librarian, Katie Pierce Meyer, who has since accepted the permanent position at APL as the Humanities Librarian for Architecture and Planning. We have not shone the spotlight on anyone else since, and we decided it was time to recognize the amazing work Tony Tomasello does by caring for APL’s physical collection!

Tony is our local book preservation technician, working in conjunction with Wendy Martin’s team at PCL in Preservation and Digital Curation Services. As a preservation technician, he works 19 hours for UTL. He explains rather modestly the nature of his job:

Ah well,  [my role is] the same as everyone’s at the libraries I suppose. Just to see to it that the collection material here is made available to anyone who needs it now and into the future. So more particular just make sure the books are in good shape and can be read without risking its availability for future patrons.

He continues discussing the day to day of his job:

I pretty much just do it – the ones that need the most repair, I give my fullest attention so I pretty much just fix them as they come in. I do the most severe ones first or if someone just really needs the book, you know, if it’s in rough shape I’ll do that one really quickly. Special Collections materials, I can say are my highest priority. They’re the most fragile. They’re the ones that are most at risk for long term use, and they’re probably our most valuable materials as well.*

His interest in preservation stems from his love of the relics and experiences of the past – the connections made through the experience of the books themselves.  Tony explains:

I guess it starts from my character. I have always had a fondness for old things – old music, old furniture, old books, old ways of doing things, riding bicycles instead of driving cars, looking nostalgically back on trains.

While Tony had worked for the library for several years prior to assuming his current role, he jumped at the chance to become our local preservation technician when the position opened. He was initially trained by his predecessor, Lorrie Dong – a Ph.D. graduate from School of Information at UT. When asked how he developed his expertise, Tony notes:

I had excellent teachers. First Lorrie who trained me before she left. She just taught me all the basics, the procedures I still do the most often which are rebacks, end paper replacements, and tip-ins for pages that have come loose or need to be replaced, and doing minor repairs on tears and things like that. Then I got help from the larger preservation department, and they taught me even more procedures like how to make custom housing for books that we’re really not allowed to repair without ruining their value in someway.

Tony also taught himself other skills that he needs to tend to the collection –

Then there are things I picked up on my own – I watched YouTube videos to learn how to sew. The rest of it is doing it, doing as many repairs as I can everyday I’m here.

When asked about his favorite aspect of the work, Tony explains:

Apart from getting my hands on some really old, rare books from time to time, there are certain satisfactions from the job…like being able to work slowly, take my time in a world that mostly rewards speed. I get to take my time and really care for what’s in front of me. And then there’s a certain satisfaction in the math, just measuring things, drawing straight lines. I think there must be something but not really close to the satisfaction that Kepler must have had when he looked up at the sky and saw that the celestial bodies were moving in a way that his math predicted. I get the same satisfaction when I measure out a new case and find that it fits the books.

In his final thoughts, it was evident that conservation and preservation are less a job and more a calling. He concludes:

I have some vague philosophical ideas about the importance of my work – just about maintaining enduring objects that are the basis of our culture that are ignored by the larger part of the populous. I think it’s important to have little monuments – like little physical reminders of the past. I’m glad that I get to have some part in maintaining those objects. He continues: It would be horrible to loose the paper, the board, and the glue, and the sewing, and the little mementos of past people’s work.

 *I asked Dan Orozco to comment upon all the work Tony does for APL, knowing that his contributions are wide ranging. Dan writes of Tony’s work:

It has truly been awe inspiring to see the growth of Tony’s knowledge and abilities at doing book repair.  I was very alarmed at the demise of the Kilgarlin Program at the iSchool. We had an impressive run of conservators come through to practice their craft in this position.  My fear abated when I saw the skill with which Tony takes care of our Special Collections materials. He also does our pest monitoring and dehumidifiers in Special Collections – very important in a 105 year old building.

If this wasn’t enough, Tony can also provide back up for every position at Architecture. He can create reserve lists, undertake ILS scanning, and he knows our collection as well if not better than most.  Recently, Tony created lists in Sierra to oversee a massive weeding project to free up about 300 linear feet in the stacks of the circulating collection.  He has also been here to help with extra events in our reading room, from symposiums to filming chancellor McRaven’s interview to hosting first lady Laura Bush. This young man can truly do it all.

Happy Birthday, Blake Alexander

Blake Alexander in his UT office
Blake Alexander in his UT office

Blake Alexander, namesake of the Alexander Architectural Archive, was born on February 4, 1924 in Paris, Texas. He was a longtime architectural educator at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture as well as a dedicated force in the education, documentation and preservation of Texas heritage.

Professor Alexander first started the collection that today is known as the Alexander Architectural Archive in 1958 when he adapted an assignment for his architectural history course at UT to follow the Historic American Building Survey (HABS) format. This required students to measure and document historic Texas structures. The documentation collection quickly outgrew his office and began to collect in a small storage room, dubbed “Alexander’s Closet”.

Blake Alexander with Ty Cox at Winedale's Lewis Place (Stagecoach Inn)
Blake Alexander with Ty Cox at Winedale’s Lewis Place (Stagecoach Inn)

During the 1960’s, a student brought Professor Alexander large paper sacks full of water-damaged drawings that had survived the 1900 Galveston hurricane. The drawings were from prominent local architect Nicholas Clayton, and sparked the idea to welcome the donation of original drawings by Texas architects that deserved to be preserved. In 1979, The University of Texas Libraries began to collect these drawings in “The Architectural Drawings Collection”.

The “Architectural Drawings Collection” was renamed the “Alexander Architectural Archive” in 1998 after the Texas Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians launched a campaign to honor the archives founder and recognize Professor Alexander’s pioneering contribution to the preservation of our architectural history. Today, the archive contains over 200,000 drawings and over 61 linear feet of papers, photographic materials, models and ephemera representing projects from Texas and beyond. The archive and Professor Alexander’s efforts have been an invaluable resource for restoring some of Texas’ most important and beloved buildings.

Happy Birthday, Blake Alexander!