Restoring Family Photos Seminar

The Restoring Your Photos seminar by Dennis Allen and Cris Nagla focused on the use of the Paint program to touch up photos. Suggestions included copying areas of the same color to overlay missing parts and using the  pencil tool to fill in defects.  Always work with a copy of your scan and save frequently.  That way you can return to an earlier point if you don't like some of what you have changed.  They had examples of what they have done with pictures and showed the steps used for some of them.

They also had some additional useful suggestions for dealing with photos.  You can scan slides on a scanner not equipped for slides by leaving the scanner lid up and providing plenty of overhead light.  They demonstrated how to deal with rolled pictures that are too brittle to unroll.  Using a spacesaver bag and a vaporizor to add moisture, the photo gradually becomes more flexible.  They recommend adding vapor, zipping the bag shut for four hours, and repeating every four hours for about three days to get the picture where it can be put ounder a book to hold it flat.

Preserving Your History Workshop - From March 2009

The French Icarian Colony Foundation sponsored a workshop by Tanya Zanish-Belcher, the head of the ISU Library Special Collections Department. The topic, Preserving Your History, was originally for preservation of family papers; but, was of interest to historical societies and other groups. It covered proper storage for long-term preservation, deciding what to save, and some of the mechanics of indexing and storage for use. It was a well attended, interesting, and very useful session.

Reference materials included copies of two technical leaflets from the ISU Library Special Collections Department:

• Saving Our History Through Photographs
• Preserving Your Family's Papers

and some of the forms they use. Books recommended included Starting an Archives by Elizabeth Yakel and Describing archives: a content standard by Steven L. Hensen

Sources of archival materials mentioned included:

• Gaylord Brothers
  
• Light Impressions
• Conservation Resources
• Hollinger Metal Edge
• University Products

Also, Tanya has an earlier review of the topic highlighting online sources at Archives and Special Collections: A Guide to Resources on the Web, C&RL News, March, 2003, Vol. 64, No. 3.