Protection from Pollutants

In today's preservation tip, our curator discusses storage options to protect your items from everyday pollutants. 

Preservation Tips for Photographs

Today's preservation tip is for photographs. You can display treasured family photos while still keeping them safe from the damaging effects of sunlight.

Curator tips for Preservation Week

It's Preservation Week! This designation for the last week of April raises awareness and provides expertise about collecting and preserving historic documents and objects. The effort recognizes collections held in libraries, archives and museums but is especially directed at collections held in homes or local entities like churches and small businesses. These treasured collections document personal, family and community history and the goal of Preservation Week is to help ensure that they are available for posterity.

Our curator, Randall, is giving some preservation tips for saving your family heirlooms. This quick video addresses recommended temperature and humidity settings.

Preservation Pointers

To celebrate Preservation Week, we'll be listing some quick steps you can take to protect your collection.

Many people have old photo albums and scrapbooks in their collection. The vast majority of these are not photo-friendly and will permanently damage your family photos. Scrapbooks were frequently made with an acidic black paper that deteriorates quickly. You'll notice that the edges of this black paper start to break and flake away, often leaving fragments behind on shelving and in boxes. Glue and tape were commonly used to adhere photos and other items to scrapbook pages. These adhesives can cause yellowing and may also embrittle the photos. Generally, you will want to keep a scrapbook intact, especially if the creator has handwritten labels on the pages. It can be helpful to place acid-free tissue paper between the pages. This will prevent items from pressing directly against one another and causing discoloration.

Magnetic photo albums have pages lined with thin strips of glue and covered with a clear plastic covering. The glue will discolor photos - sometimes after only a decade of storage. If you are able, slowly and cautiously peel your photos away from the glue backing for proper storage. Unfortunately, this glue can be very sticky and you need to be sure that your photos will not tear. If you can't remove them from the pages without rips, then it is better to leave them in the album. Scan the photos while they are in the album so you can make copies. Keep these copies in polyethylene photo sleeves.

Acid-free tissue paper and polyethylene photo sleeves can be found at most archival suppliers. Check with local craft stores, too. Always read the product specifications, as some products may be called "archival" when they really are not preservation-quality.

Kirklin family wheelchair

In April of 2006, a wheelchair more than a century old was donated to the Historical Center. In keeping with our mission of collecting Bossier Parish historical material, staff learned that the wheelchair had been used by several members of the Kirklin Family of Bossier Parish. The donor included a note saying, “The wheelchair was for James Albert Kirklin (b. 18 Oct 1903 d. 2 Nov 1915). I don’t know if anyone used it before him or not. He suffered from a high fever (age 3 or 6) and [was] thought to have inflammatory rheumatism — maybe polio? Never walked again. In 1936 James Robert Kirklin - father of James Albert was feeding the stallion he had and the stallion kicked him and broke his leg. He used the wheelchair until he died of thrombosis — a clot went from his leg to his heart."

The wheelchair had been stored in the attic of a house that was being used by hunters. When the hunters discovered it, they pulled it from the attic onto the second floor of the house where it remained until April of 2006 when the donor learned of its whereabouts and brought it to the Historical Center. The wheelchair was in bad condition, with the cane backing and seating badly cracked, the third wheel (a small wheel behind the chair) broken and with numerous other preservation issues. The donor and two other family members paid for the wheelchair's restoration, which was completed by a local company.

To see the wheelchair in its newly restored state, visit the Bossier Parish Library Historical Center.


The wheelchair as it appeared in 2006, having been stored in an attic for decades.


The wheelchair as it appears now, after restoration.