In this series, we are going to cover the basics of cultural heritage preservation at home, or that is, taking care of your family papers, collections, and heirlooms, so they last as long as possible. We’ll begin by defining a few terms that will be helpful for you to know.
What is cultural heritage?
Wikipedia has a great entry about cultural heritage!
“Cultural heritage is the legacy of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. The deliberate action of keeping cultural heritage from the present for the future is known as preservation”
Wikipedia
Family heirlooms and papers, and more generally, family or personal collections, we mostly mean the tangible sorts of assets we have inherited or collected. However, we also want to consider the materials you might have that are not quite tangible in a physical sense – like digital photographs and recordings – that can make up part of your personal collections.
Cultural heritage materials and collections at home might include:
- Papers & documents
- Scrapbooks & journals
- Photographs
- Home movies
- Arts & crafts
- Heirlooms
- Digital collections
… and what is preservation?
Preservation minimizes damage and deterioration in our collections. When we put preservation into practice, we address and mitigate damage and deterioration by correcting or minimizing destructive forces in the environment, protecting materials through safe storage and handling, and prioritizing materials that need a higher level of care.
It is important to preserve our collections because we can increase their potential for future use. For the collectors out there who might wish to turn a profit, preservation also increases your return on investment by keeping your collections in the best possible condition.
At home, these practices look like:
- Managing your home environment
- Providing protections (e.g., putting items in sleeves, folders, boxes, etc.)
- Handling and storing items safely
- Identifying what you have
- Determining priority items
- Making digital copies
- Securing collections (basic security and emergency preparation)
- Seeking professional advice and services
We’ll explain each of these in more detail throughout this series. The next post will cover the one of the most important aspects of preservation, which is managing the environment where your collections are stored – the temperature, the humidity level, light, and so on. Stay tuned!
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