Hailstorm and broken windows

          Recently Abilene was hit by a major hailstorm – golf ball to baseball sized hail.  Over 200 cars were severely damaged.  The hail even went straight through some roofs.  One of the universities had the windows damaged on one side of virtually every building. Plywood was brought in by the truckload.  You get the picture.  The Special Collections area of the library has large windows on the damaged side of the building although only the study tables are directly behind those windows. Fortunately the archives are in a separate room without windows on the damaged side.  That brings up the need for both organizations and individual to have a disaster plan.  Prevention should be at the top of your to do list.  That means proper storage for your valuable papers.  Some people have fireproof safes or rent safety deposit boxes in banks.  Universities and other organizations have duplicate copies of the most valuable material in off-site storage.  Now, of course, computers offer another mechanism for storage.  Backing up in lots of places, as you know is important and really essential - the cloud, external hard drives, thumb drives, CDs.  For organizations microfilm is an excellent option. 

             For material that is important to you, like photographs, store them in a dark room or closet without windows.  Keep the material off the floor.  Don’t store anything that shouldn’t get wet in the basement.  If you must use a basement, keep items off the floor six to twelve inches to protect from flood damage.  For different reasons, an attic is a bad place to store valuable papers, photographs, and so forth.  The heat will cause rapid deterioration.  Do remember where you put things so you can access them quickly.  Make a list of what’s where if you have to.  My cousin lost some old family photos to a fire because she forgot what drawer she put them in and couldn’t find them in the rush of evacuation.  Make copies and store them elsewhere if you can.  Keep up with the changes in technology and update your records accordingly.  The internet is a great place to store your material, but it isn’t foolproof.  What is accessible today may not be tomorrow.  Just think Betamax.

               Off to New York tomorrow. More on disaster planning later.

Apps for Archives (and Everybody Else Too)

             At the Social Media training that I attended last week the most valuable information was an introduction to the various apps available to assist in the dissemination of information. The ones that interested me most deal with the addition of graphics to a Facebook page or a website.  I have been a committed Adobe Photoshop user up until they went to the monthly fee approach so I’ve been looking for alternatives.  One that was suggested in the training was picmonkey.com.  I haven’t worked with it yet, but from the demonstration it looks like it provides all the options that were available in the early versions of photoshop before it got so complicated.  Photoshop is great for graphic artists and professional photographers, but for me Picmonkey sounds like it provides everything I need for free. Two other options that help with graphics for social media page designs are listed below. These apps provide the correct sizing of images.  The sizing is in pixels and the program sizes the image without distorting it.  Either of the following work well according to the trainer:

 http://socialmediatoday.com/tara-urso/2393561/social-media-dimensions-blueprint

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-image-dimensions_b44957

More after I try to design a business page on Facebook and go get a smartphone.  

Social Media Training

           Went to an all day training last week.  The topic was social media - in particular Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.  The workshop was aimed at non-profits and was sponsored by the Texas Forts Trail, a state funded program promoting tourism in West Texas.  (Note: In the early days of settlement, a line of forts to protect settlers was established from Ft Worth to what is now the Mexican border.  These forts were moved westward from Ft. Worth as settlement expanded.  The fort in Abilene, which was only used briefly, was founded in the 1850s) But I digress.  I figure I’m the last person in the world to join the 21^st century and learn about the value of these social media applications for organizations like archives.  I don’t even have a smart phone but will have to have one if I start using Instagram. 

One of the most appealing aspects of social media is that usage is free, but as the trainer pointed out "nothing is really ever free".  You can sign up for free, but to expand your audience you have a choice of different levels of paid ads.  They are reasonable and they do offer stats to measure their effectiveness, but you have to have a budget that includes outreach expenses and many non-profits don’t.  Of course the biggest expense for all social media apps is time.  To be of any value content must be ever changing.  For an organization that means staff time both in meetings to decide what should be added or by an individual assigned to constantly add more information. According to the trainer, the first step if you are an organization is to establish guidelines of what will be uploaded to social media.  Next for all of the apps except Twitter the information must contain graphics.  Sometimes all of the effort may be worthwhile and sometimes it may not be.  It certainly is something to consider before you commit your organization or yourself.

            Facebook is a good example of an app that needs frequent attention. As you probably know, you have to start with a personal page in order to launch a business page.  I think the most valuable benefit of these apps is to provide links to your website.  As the trainer suggested these apps can help promote special events, new exhibits, the availability of new collections, and get you known. Still you really have to consider if it is cost effective.  If you have enough staff and an advertising budget go for it, if not you really need to consider what your goals are and what you hope to achieve.  Maybe local newspaper and radio coverage reaches your audience more effectively. I’m going to see for myself with facebook.  Don’t think the others would work well for me, but they sound fun - all except Twitter which has no appeal to me.  I guess you either love it or hate it or so I'm told.

Losing Our History One Page at a Time

           One of the opportunities that I have had while working with archives is to do research at local small town courthouses here in West Texas.  Courthouse documents are treasure troves of information about the development of a town, the buying and selling of land, and other legal matters. Unfortunately the court records in the counties I visited are slowly deteriorating.  Some are stored in cellars, which could flood if it ever were to rain.  All are used on a daily basis some quite extensively because of the current oil boom.  As far as I know the counties do not have back ups although recently title companies are copying the land records.  Texas is late adopting title insurance.  Historically land records, known as abstracts, were and still are kept by the individual property owners rather than a title company.  Abstracts provide a copy of every legal transaction that has occurred to the property if it was recorded in the courthouse.

            Courthouse records need to be put on microfilm so that the information is preserved.  Microfilm is the one of the few backup material that will last when the paper is gone.  If that can’t happen due to financial constraints then the material should be scanned and stored in the cloud.   Someone will have to be assigned to insure that the material is upgraded when the technology changes, which you may have noticed is frequent.   The West Texas Digital Archives will be scanning records from Abilene City Hall (mostly City Council meetings).  Hopefully we will be able to expand this to courthouse records in surrounding towns. What a great project that would be!  You should look into the preservation steps that your local government agency is taking to preserve their records. If you are a genealogist or a historian these records are invaluable

Making Sense of Archival Supplies – Photographic Sleeves

         Now that we have various sized boxes and file folders, what is left to purchase?  Well, if you have photographs or slides and negatives, you will need some type of sleeve or envelope.  Your first decision is whether you want to be able to see the photograph without taking it out of the envelope.  If you do then you will want to purchase inert plastic sleeves.  If you don’t you will want to get sleeves made of acid free and lignin free card stock (same material as file folders).  My recommendation is plastic sleeves so that you can see the photograph without having to touch it possibly causing damage.

        Like everything else in the archival catalog world there are choices.  Gaylord has the most variety.  Hollinger-Metal Edge has only polyester sleeves (used to be known as Mylar D, which have been the cadillacs of sleeves). Hollinger-Metal Edge also offers the most choice in sizes.  Gaylord has the widest variety of plastic types.  In addition to polyester, they offer polypropylene or polyethylene.  Polyethylene is the cheapest, but it is not a clear plastic as the others are.  If I had all the money in the world I’d go with polyester sleeves. Unfortunately I don’t have all the money in the world so I settle for the polyethylene where you can get 100 per package.  Be careful when you order sleeves.  Check the number of sleeves per package.  For the more expensive you only get 10 sleeves to a package and they can cost over a dollar per sleeve depending on the size.

        The next choice is the sleeve thickness, which is described in terms of mils.  A mil determines the sturdiness and stiffness of the material.  Types vary from 2 mil to 4 mil, which is the thickest.  The thicker the material, the more expensive the product is.  The cheaper polyethylene sleeves only come in 2 mil, but that has been just fine given my limited budget. One other choice is the position and type of opening on the sleeve.  Some are top (short side open) and some are long side.  Some have only that one opening and others are open on three sides.  Some fold over and lock along the long side while the short ends remain open.  I’ve used all types, but again I mostly go with the cheapest.

            As I noted in a previous blog you need to be careful ordering sizes.  Sometimes you will need slightly larger sleeves.  I’ve found this to be especially true for 8x10 photos.  You don’t want to cause bowing or curling by storing in sleeves that are too tight. I usually order the 8 ¼ by 10 ¼ so I don’t have a problem. 

            There are sleeves for negatives of varying sizes and for slides also of varying sizes.  If you choose the no sleeve route I’d recommend storing the photographs flat with interweaving tissue or archival bond paper between them. (This approach works well for matted photographs.) We’ve talked about scrapbooks before.  There are archival three ring binders with sleeves.  Again the choice comes down to money first and then the amount of use the photographs will have.  Just remember for preservation all photographs need to be stored out of the sun, in boxes of some type, and protected from tearing, finger prints and other damage.  By the way it’s best to handle photographs using clean cotton gloves. 

Good luck.

Making Sense of Archival Supplies - File Folders

                     File folders are an important resource for the protection of paper because they provide support to prevent folding, wrinkling, and curling.  In addition they provide the means to organize a collection into manageable amounts of related material.  Ordering file folders is reasonably straightforward.  You have to decide whether you want legal or letter size (We talked about that last time) with the tab reinforced or not, and placement of the tab.  (I like reinforced tabs myself, but that is a subjective choice.) You can have a choice of color between cream, white, or tan.  Make sure that the folders are acid and lignin free and buffered with calcium carbonate.  You can find this in the specifications.  File folders also are scored around the fold so that they are expandable.  You have your choice of how wide you need the folder to expand.  I think the widest has 5 scores.  In order to keep papers from bowing, you need to make sure you haven’t stuffed too much in one folder.  It’s okay to have “a” and “b” folders or 1 of 2, 2 of 2 if you need to in order to keep the file a reasonable size.  File folders also come in different weights – 10pt or the heavier 20pt.  I have only used the 10pt.  It has been sturdy enough for my collections.

                        What else will you need?  Well if you have very acidic paper you should consider interweaving it with either acid free interweaving paper or archival bond paper. (Paper made from a percentage of cotton rag and buffered with calcium carbonate.)   That will help retard the migration of acid from one paper to another.  I think I’ve mentioned that before.  Also the supply houses sell archival labels that use acid free glue.  Otherwise you should label the file folders in pencil.  Don’t use labels from places like Office Depot.  They are not archival and will eventually cause acid damage.

                        What about odd sized papers?  The archival houses offer boxes in various sizes.  Your goal  with that type of material is to eliminate any folds.  Folds weaken the paper and will eventually tear.  Besides flat boxes another option is to roll large material like maps or posters and store them in archival canisters.  That also eliminates folds and will not damage the material.  You will have to flatten the rolled material to use it, but that’s a discussion for another day.  Sometimes simply putting weights on the corners and leaving it for a time will provide all the straightening that is necessary.

Next time – Photograph sleeves

Making Sense of Archival Supplies – File Boxes

           When talking about ordering archival supplies, everyone has a different opinion of what they like.  The best advice I can give is do your homework.  Read what’s available on line (and there is a lot) and read the specifications and information provided by the archival supply houses.  If you are still unsure, call them.  Their operators are very helpful.  Of yes, be prepared to spend some money.  Archival supplies are not inexpensive.

            File folders and file boxes are the next items needed for a collection once you have determined what if any storage boxes you need.  A variety of sizes and colors are available.  Some archivists recommend ordering the file folders and boxes made for legal size papers even if your paper is 8 ½ x 11.  The reason for this is to prevent the papers from becoming dog-eared on the edges.  Makes sense, except what do you do when you have legal size papers? I haven’t figured that out yet.  I do generally order the legal size.  Again boxes come in a variety of colors – blue grey, tan, light grey, black. (Blue grey is generally the cheapest.) I always buy the kind with metal along the edges.  The reinforcement makes the barrier board stronger.  Some supply houses offer file boxes made from E-flute with no metal edge.  It’s cheaper, but it won’t last as long.  Also it shows the dirt and finger prints more readily.  Most boxes now come buffered as recommended for paper storage. 

              Also like storage boxes file boxes come in a variety of types and coatings.  The coatings have different names such as “DuraCoat” or "SafeCoat” depending on the company.  These coatings are acrylic (an inert plastic coating), which provides a moisture barrier and can help reduce the marks left by oil on fingers.  Each of the archival supply companies has slightly different offerings and the prices do differ so you need to shop around.  Since it is not very moist here in West Texas I just buy the regular barrier board file boxes.  So far they have done well for my institutions.  File boxes also come with lid attached (cheaper) or a separate lid, which is more expensive.  I like the separate lid, but there never seems to be enough money to justify the expense.

              So to summarize look at storage boxes that are reinforced on the sides or have a high number of flutes making them rigid.   Order file boxes large enough to avoid the rumpling of the edges of your papers.  Don’t fill the file boxes to overflowing, but if they are not full make sure you provide supports to keep the papers upright.  The supply houses sell support material already made or you can purchase flat fluted boards and construct your own.

Next time – file folders