Scanning the letters was the easiest of the three. Still, time and patients had to go into this. Because of the age and condition of the paper, extreme care had to be taken even in just handling the letters. As we are learning from archrival experts, the most important thing in preserving any type of paper that has been folded is NOT to unfold by hand without the proper preparation. This means don't unfold the pages by folding the paper backwards on the fold line to get it to open or lay flat. The older the paper the more brittle it becomes. Worst of all, which happens most frequently because people just don't know, the paper tears and 99% of the time is non repairable.

PBS had an article online which explained a preservation process. This is what we will be doing to preserve the letters. Click Here to see it. It is a very time consuming process but it seems that short of sending the letters to a professional to have it done, this is the proper way. As I said above, we are not starting this until we are sure this is what we want to do.

When they are complete, they will be available to anybody that would like to see and look at the originals. You get a different feeling reading and holding the original paper than from the book we created or off the CD that we make.

This part of the project most likely won't be done for some time. Mainly because we want to be absolutely sure of what to do. Right now, the letters are sealed from moisture and light in a fireproof safe.

This is also the expensive part of the project. For the equipment, supplies and albums a rough figure is coming in around $500. We are not telling you this because we want money. We don't. This is just some info for you. One thing to remember about archiving, it's not cheap. The supplies are expensive but this is because the manufacturers are almost guaranteeing their products to last hundreds of years. The other major cost is the album to hold the letters. We just don't want to throw them in a cheap album. We want something appropriate.

If you have any ideas on albums, let us know. We are looking at a European leather album from Light Impressions.