Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with preservation

Stinky turtle bits

txmon — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:47:29 -0800

How do I preserve this stinky turtle carapace? My wonderful Great Dane, Scooby Dude has presented me with a really cool turtle carapace this morning. It is about 16 inches long with most (but not all) the flesh and skin stripped away. The skeleton is nearly intact and I think all the bones are still there. Unfortunately it is still stinky and wettish. I would love to preserve this thing but I'm unsure the best way to do it. Should I just put it somewhere protected outside and let it dry out before picking out the remaining soft tissue? Are there other curing methods that are not too complicated or expensive to implement? If I can save it, it will be a wonderful addition to our odd little collection of lake side finds. Thanks in advance!

Putting Names to Faces for Future Generations

entropicamericana — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:36:32 -0800

Suggestions for identifying people in home movies for future generations? I'm sort of the family archivist, and I've been struggling with an approach to home movies. The approach I've settled on is two pronged: once the movies have been digitized, saving one set as just as basic digital copy-- no changes or additions made.

I'd also like to make a sort of "special edition" with edits, photo inserts, and such. I think it's important to identify these people so that future family members can put a name to a face, and the first thing that came to mind was a "pop-up video" effect where a name pops up with a little pointer down to the face,. (Most of the shots are mid-shots of groups of people.) This doesn't seem to be possible with iMovie or FCX (correct me if I'm wrong?). Does anyone have any other ideas for identifying people? There's usually too many people in frame to just throw captions at the bottom.

salsatime!

sararah — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 14:26:00 -0800

I need your best salsa recipes suitable for canning. We love making and canning our own salsa at home. I'm looking for a few new recipes from reputable canning resources to add some zip to those long winter months. I'm particularly interested in a roasted tomato/roasted pepper salsa. I'm not sure if anything like this is suitable for canning ....I've done a lot of Googling recently and haven't come up with much.

I've made several recipes from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I've also got a copy of Food in Jars (and read her blog), and a copy of Putting Food By. I've also made one or two things from the National Home Food Preservation page.

(Botulism womp womp -> I'm an experienced canner and I've been making salsa without issue for a few summers now. It's high acid enough that I trust its safety in a boiling water canner. I generally trust recipes from cookbooks and canning-specific resources rather than your great-grandmother's sister's dog's sketchy wax sealing techniques. /womp womp)

Turning thousands of loose-leaf papers into dozens of PDFs

subject_verb_remainder — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:27:04 -0800

I have a few thousand pages of documentation I'd like to digitize and organize, eventually making a series of PDFs out of them. Can you help me make this task less painful? My company has tons and tons of game documentation in binders that doesn't exist anywhere else. I've brought up the issue of game preservation (see related topics on the blue) and somehow ended up with a gigantic pile on my desk that spans the last 15 years. I'd like to archive all of it, and then organize parts into smaller PDFs (i.e. a PDF of level designs for game X, another for concept art in game Y).

Here's some specifics:
* All the docs are looseleaf 8.5x11" or less
* Our office scanners don't have document feeders, so I need to purchase one myself - any recommendations? (It's from my own funds so I can't go too expensive)
* I have access to lots of common design and art software at work (such as Adobe Creative Suite)
* Lots of the documents are out of order, so they'll need to be organized and categorized after scanning but before being put into PDFs. Is there any software that can help me with this part?
* There's lots of duplicates that I probably won't catch until they're scanned. Again, any software that might help me automate this?
* Some pages are one-sided, and others are double sided, all mixed together
* Some pages have highly detailed, colorful drawings or diagrams, while others are just printed Word documents. Is there a good way to balance the scanning quality to suit both without file sizes becoming totally unreasonable?

Does anyone have any ideas on how to make this easier on me?

How to learn historic rehabilitation?

scottschulthess — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:51:16 -0800

How to learn historic rehabilitation? I'm interested in the historic home curatorship program in Massachusetts. Essentially, you take over a home owned by the state and rehabilitate it without having to pay rent. However, to be successful, you really need to have lots of skills related to construction and historic curatorship. I'd like to acquire this skills, any tips on how to do it?

What can I do with all ths basil?

watercarrier — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 02:39:38 -0800

A LOT of fresh basil - now what? Received a lot of fresh basil. Want to keep it for a long time - what should I do with it. Previous experience showed me it goes black fast. Help with your magical solutions. Thank you/

How to preserve a leaf?

three blind mice — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 04:59:30 -0800

In about two weeks time, Stockholm city will cut down one of the oldest oak trees in the city. How to preserve a leaf? The "TV Oak" in front of Oxenstiensgatan 23 is estimated to be over 1000 years old. It is rotten, infected with fungus and pretty clearly a hazard to traffic and the buildings close by to it. After many years of trying to save it, the city announced last week that they will have to cut it down.

My question: how to save/preserve a leaf? My kids have climbed on this tree and I'd like to put a leaf in their journals as a keepsake.

How do I open a TwinLock Crown binder?

Devoidoid — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 08:07:42 -0800

I have a TwinLock Crown binder made in the UK dating from 1950. I would very much like to open it, remove the pages, scan them, and replace them. However, although it looks like it can be opened, the binding mechanism is entirely obscured by the binding itself. There is a metal tab at the top near the front, but it doesn't seem to move, and I'm hesitant to put pressure on it since I don't know in what direction that pressure should be applied, and I'd rather leave it closed than break it. How can I do this; is it even possible? My Google-fu only reveals endless ads for today's version of the product, describing a "lifting bar for easy removal of pages," but I don't know what that means, how it's supposed to work, or if it even applies to my older model. Oh, and there was one other person on another website asking the same question who was told to try a hacksaw.

Any advice, even if it's to just give it up, will be greatly appreciated.

Can a book survive surgery like this?

jfuller — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:06:46 -0800

I bought this book when it was first published, because I was and still am knocked out by the beauty of the (very many, very well reproduced) watercolor illustrations. Now at long last I see that the pages have begun to go brown at the edges. The discoloration hasn't reached any of the illustrations yet but it will, it will, and I dread it. I am tempted to remove the pages from the cover boards (even though that would involve razoring the endpapers at the hinges) and cut the threads binding the signatures together so that I can get the pages absolutely flat on my scanner and scan them into a form that won't go brown ever. How big a deal would it be to get a bindery to put the book back together correctly after I desecrate it? What might it cost? Gentle Reader, What Would You Do?

Help me save history from Shelob

eleanna — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 19:02:38 -0800

How to preserve photos from scrapbook that was kept in very suboptimal conditions? While helping to clean out my grandmother's house, we found a beautiful 1930s/40s scrapbook full of neatly labelled military and wedding photos. The photos are in good shape, but the scrapbook is deteriorating and previous books in the house have had spider eggs and silverfish. We just want to preserve/deinfest the pictures for the future. What are our best options?

Preserving/Documenting Lantern Slides: How do I not ruin them?

amusebuche — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 08:27:28 -0800

My family has a collection of 35 lantern slides dating from the 1880-90's. They are black & white photographic images, with some handcolored. They are in reasonably good condition and I would like to somehow transfer them into a digital format. Is it OK to lay these on a scanner, or will strong light exposure risk damaging the slide images? Is there a better way to photograph or reproduce the images? Also, the slides are fairly clean, but some have a faint patina of what looks like mold on the surface of the glass. Is it safe to clean them? I haven't taken any of the slides apart, but they seem to be constructed by fitting two pieces of glass together. I assume the image is fixed on the internal side and therefore it would be OK to wipe the outside with a damp cloth. Note, I have found some references on the internets indicating that this is OK, but I've also observed that lantern slides were an evolving technology from 1850 to 1950, and so the same recommendations might not apply to all slides.

The slide images were taken/assembled in India by my great grandparents, who were German missionaries there. Apparently my great grandfather used the slides to accompany lectures he did later in Germany and US about Indian culture and religion. I have an accompanying list of notes that he used for his presentation. Example, example.

Bonus: If I can somehow manage to transfer the images into a digital format, I would not mind donating the slides to a museum or research institution. Any ideas on who might be interested in such an acquisition?

Preserving a valuable book?

Lovecraft In Brooklyn — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:10:33 -0800

A large hardcover collection of Little Nemo comic strips I bought cheaply turned out to be very valuable. What's the best way to preserve it so, if I decide to sell it, its still worth its full value? I live in a small apartment full of dust and bugs. I currently have it on a top bookshelf sitting in a plastic bag.

Odd after-death arrangement: how to?

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 09:08:04 -0800

Two questions. How do I write a last will and testament when it involves those I know across the internet? And, how do I ensure that certain...eccentric requests involving my funeral and/or body be carried out? Following my death, I wish to keep funeral costs to a minimum. Being shoved under the ground sans embalming, being cremated--what would be the best choice?

More importantly--and I mean it when I say "more importantly"--I've got certain arrangements I want carried out before my body is disposed of. I would like to stress before I start that I'm being absolutely serious, and the outlandishness of my request makes sense in a context which I would rather not talk about here.

Alright. Here it goes.

I know three people, A, B, and C, albeit only over the internet. I suppose I could get A's real name and address out of him if I explained the circumstances, but I haven't, at least not yet. Anyway, I would like all of my possessions to be distributed among A, B, and C as they see fit, with two exceptions: My laptop, with everything on it, should go to A...and my preserved brain should go to C.

I would like to stress, again, that I'm being absolutely serious and that it makes sense in context. There's a sort of joke between me and C...

But that's not important. What's important is this: how do I ensure this goes off without a hitch? I would like to surprise C with my preserved brain, but I can't even begin to guess who to speak to about that--I know nothing, not about brains or law or last wills.

I'm hoping you can help me out and not dismiss me as some kind of crank. If it helps, I live on the American west coast.

Thanks.

How to preserve travel memorabilia?

reductiondesign — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 15:50:17 -0800

Looking for cool and unique ideas about what to do with tickets, boarding passes, photos, etc. from a trip. I just got back from Europe and have a huge pile of rail tickets, foreign coins and bills, maps—all sorts of things like that, along with a bunch of digital pictures I can print. I want to do something with all of this that's more exciting than sticking it all in a box, but I'm not sure what.

I want this to be more about "this was a really cool trip" than "OMG EUROPE"—something that friends could look at or that I could show off would be nice.

Ideally, this would be something that I could do with trips in the future as well.

How to best preserve a whiteboard illustration long term?

djacobs — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:13:47 -0800

A friend of mine drew an illustration of my son on our office whiteboard. We are moving offices shortly, and I'd like this illustration preserved. I will be able to cut out the relevant section of whiteboard (it's part of a 4'x8' whiteboard panel). What is the best way to ensure the illustration is preserved, both during the process of removal, and for the long term?

How do I work with history?

billypilgrim — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 18:45:38 -0800

What's the best way to find a career in historical preservation/art restoration from where I am now? Basic info first:

I'm a recent graduate (2008) of a small art school in eastern Massachusetts. I have a BFA in illustration, and while I have a good deal of experience in digital art-making/vector graphics programs I'm mostly a traditional painter (acrylics, oils, gouache, etc). I've taken standard undergrad art history classes from prehistoric to modern, but nothing particularly focused. My artistic skill is very much in painting.

Illustration was a great field to major in, but even before graduating I realized that my level of self discipline just isn't enough for a sustainable freelance artist career, and during the course of going to school and in the period of time afterward I've definitely decided my heart lies in a field that's historically oriented. Until I was eighteen my family and I lived in the caretakers cottage of a historic home in Gloucester, MA (Beauport Museum) so the idea of working with a piece of history and contributing to the growth and understanding of that history is incredibly attractive to me.

Right out of school I got an internship at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass in the graphic design department, which lasted for six months, and I now have two jobs, working at a small local gallery and working at a paint and decorating shop. Working at the museum and working at my current job at the paint shop are definitely responsible for rekindling of my love of decorative arts and history, and now more than anything else I want to find a way to get a job in some kind of preservation/restoration capacity, whether it be with paintings or architecture. The paint shop I work in is pretty high end, and I work primarily as a stain and color matcher and faux-finisher. My job requires me to replicate a lot of complex decorative arts processes and I have a very good eye when it comes to creating and matching color and texture with pigment. A lot of our clients are historical associations or design firms, and a good deal of the decorative finishes I make are historically oriented.

Current skills:
-BFA in illustration from a small but respected art school
-traditional and digital media knowledge, with a major focus on acrylic and oil painting
-museum experience (both personal history-wise and professionally)
-hands on experience in decorative and architectural finishes
-basic art history knowledge (though no particular expertise)
-extensive American and European historical knowledge, as well as respectable world history
-interests in film and cinema, architecture, literature
-I'm a fast learner and I have spunk (also, pep)
-And as relevant knowledge, I live in Northern Massachusetts, my traveling options are reasonably open, and I'm a 24 year-old male.

So I guess my overall questions are, what is the best way to narrow down what I want to do in this relatively expansive field? How specific do I need to be in my focus? What are the areas most likely to net me a livable income? What kind of experience do I need beyond an art history/museum studies/etc. degree? What books should I read and what places and people should I study? What kinds of jobs are available and what kind of jobs should I consider? Any and all information is welcome, I know this might be broad but I'm just looking for a lot of good ideas!

How can I best preserve several boxes of family photos, letters, and documents?

scottso17 — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 07:29:49 -0800

I have a large amount of family letters, photos, and documents dating from the late 1800s to the 2000s, with most ranging from the 1930s to the 1960s. Some are in fair condition, and I'd like preserve them for future generations. Most are in English, but there's a smattering of Hebrew and French, neither of which I can read. My questions inside. 1. Is there a good service I can use that will digitize these fragile items?

2. Once digitized, where can I store the images so that others can see them, browse through them in an organized way, and ensure they remain digitally available for a long time to come?

3. How can I ensure that images of envelopes and letters remain together if scanned separately?

4. Is it worth transcribing the text of letters and, if so, what's the best service to use?

5. What's a good service for translating documents in Hebrew or French?

6. Outside of family, would these be of interest to anyone, such as a museum or university? In particular, is there an organization that studies Jewish immigrants that might be interested?

7. Where are some other places I can ask questions like these?

8. What other advice would you have for this project?

DIY archivist!

liketitanic — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:45:45 -0800

How can I develop a plan to help a small community organization organize its archival materials (something like a self-accessioning plan, I guess)? What should I read? Who should I talk to? I'm not an archivist and have no information science training. There, I said it. But I have a pretty great opportunity to help a small community org self-accession and organize some records that could prove quite valuable to researchers. I don't yet know how big the collection is, nor whether they want physical or digital storage.

How do I go about learning what I might need to know to do this? Or how do I self-educate in archives work? Book recommendations? OpenCourseware recommendations? Software I should learn? Any suggestions?

Help me preserve Grandma's travel scrapbook

rtha — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:02:03 -0800

I'm looking for tips and best practices for scanning the contents of my grandmother's scrapbook. I have my grandmother's excellent scrapbook. It's filled with souvenirs of her life and travels in the US in the 1920s and 30s: snapshots (mostly black-and-white, some sepia - either by design or due to fading); train tickets; menus; postcards; newspaper clippings. And so on. These are mementos of trips to Banff, and San Francisco (before the Golden Gate Bridge was built), and Los Angeles, and DC, and other places.

The pages are held together with a cord looped through two grommets; the photos and other items are held in with either glue or those little photo corners; many items are captioned in white ink.

I have access to a large flatbed scanner. I'd like to be able to scan the entire page when possible, at a large enough resolution that I can go back and crop individual photos and captions if I want to.

I don't know enough about this process to even know quite what questions to ask. What resolution? With photos or other items that are easily detachable from the page, should I just scan them separately (but that would lose some context - most of these are grouped together by event or time period). If you've done a project like this yourself, what do you wish you'd known before you started?

Interviews, Research & Archiving, oh my!

ikahime — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:06:04 -0800

I'm preparing for a massive personal archiving/interviewing trip with my grandparents and need advice regarding many aspects of the project. My grandparents came to America from Lithuania during WWII and have an amazing story that my cousin and I started documenting several years ago. Life being what it is, we really only got a rough outline and are now going for another week long visit with them (now 97 and 90 years old, but still witty and spry). Not only do they have some great/astounding anecdotes that we haven't documented, they also have an amazing collection of photos (some taken by Life Magazine photographers) which are in not such good order (to say nothing of being stored or digitally preserved).

Here are some of my concerns that perhaps y'all could help me with:

History: I'm not a historian, and so have been trying to bone up on the Soviet-Nazi conflict that took place in the Baltic States. Books and online resource recommendations are appreciated.

Preservation: I need to construct a good workflow for organizing/digitizing old photos. How best to store? Should I be uploading to the cloud, or bring an external hard drive with me?

Interview: Getting these stories out of them is not usually too hard, but I'm wondering about tried and true methods of biographical interview. Should we march thru the historical timeline? Jump around and organize later? Are there some good prompts I shouldn't forget to ask them?

Documentation: I would like to either film or audio record or both. I will probably have access to a decent microphone + laptop and a so-so digital video camera. Should I have both roll at the same time, or just favor one vs. the other? This is my weakest link. Is Audacity a good enough program, or should I be throwing down for something else?

In addition to doing this for my own (and my family's) edification, I'm gathering this info now for some sort of creative project in the future (still yet to work out - could be something as mundane as a book, or more outlandish like an interactive sculpture, or hyperlinked map). I've started making things like timelines and maps of their trip from Lith to Germany to Britain to the US; got any other ideas of rich add-ons?

Lastly, I'm looking for other media to bring with me that may enhance their reminiscing, especially music of the era/region (they were in Germany for quite a few years in the late 40s. Got some faves?

Thanks to all in advance!

The portable tofu conundrum

zadcat — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:51:46 -0800

Another "safe to eat" question, this one about tofu. Supposing tonight I make a stir-fry with tofu, using sesame oil, some veg (mushrooms, onions, zucchini), soy sauce and spices. I eat it with rice, mix the leftovers together (tofu, veg and rice) and put it in the fridge overnight.

If I put this mixture in a container around 9 tomorrow and bring it to work, will it be OK to eat around 1 o'clock, without being refrigerated meantime? I don't plan to put any dairy or egg in there. (Although if I were to stir-fry an egg into it, which can be good too, would that make it much more dangerous to eat after 3-4 hours at room temp?)

(I will be walking to work and the weather tomorrow is not expected to get above 16°C.)

Help us eat for the winter!

puckish — Sun, 31 May 2009 05:36:24 -0800

We want to freeze vegetables for the winter. Here's the trick: we don't want to use a refrigerator. So, after a summer of vegetable gardening, we're going to have a ton of produce that we'd like to put up. Not much space in the kitchen, so we're trying to think of "off the grid" ways of freezing vegetables until the winter. Specifically, ways that don't use electricity... Maybe this is a little bit crazy? Here are some of the things we've come up with so far....

- Bury the ice-box -- basically, digging a small hole in the ground, lining it with wood spacers, and creating a mini-icebox that we can access through a trap door. In the summer we'd have to keep it stocked with ice; in the winter it should keep on its own. Downside: Drainage? If we're OK with ice melting, is this going to be a huge mud problem, or will it drain effectively on its own? What are good ways to line / seal something like this?

- Freezing with liquid nitrogen - this gets around the initial "no-fridge" policy, but space is still an issue. (one of my roommates is REALLY excited about this idea). Plus side: no need to buy ice! But is this going to be a logistical nightmare? Downside: Storage is still an issue, obviously.

- Chest freezer in the backyard and just turning it off in December (when stuff gets cold enough to keep on its own). We could also do this in the basement (though it's not technically our space). Upside: No problems with insulation. Downside: It's a refrigerator.

I'm excited about number 1 (buried home icebox), and potentially number 2 (in conjunction with number 1). We're also going to be doing a lot of canning / preservation, but we'd like to have fresh veggies on hand too. Ideally, we want an outdoor setup, so things will just keep naturally once it gets cold.

Ideas?

Where should I go to grad school?

hapticactionnetwork — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:19:08 -0800

What kind of grad program should I go to if I'm interested in the preservation of digital media archives? Museum studies? Information science? Something else entirely? Lately, I have been considering going to grad school. I have a bachelor's in theater, and I've been working at a theater for the past 5ish years.

I've been looking at the University of Texas' School of Information Master of Science in Information Studies, but would that degree prepare me to work with digital media later? (And, I guess, analog electronic media like VHS tapes.).

Are there programs out there that specifically prepare people to work with archives that focus on electronic/digital media?

Should I just get a master's in Art History and find another way to get the preservation experience?

Is this a terrible idea in general?

Jeeze, life is full of difficult decisions. Thanks for helping with this one.

How do I preserve velvety photo album covers?

sapphirebbw — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:08:28 -0800

How do I preserve velvety photo album covers? My mother has a of photo album that my father gave her at least forty years ago that is now in bad condition. I know the best thing to do would be to put the photos in a new archival quality album and discard or discontinue using the old album, but because of sentimental reasons, she wants to preserve the album as it is now. I'm scanning the photos and will try to preserve the originals as best as I can while leaving them in the old albums. I'm not asking how to preserve the photos.

What I'm concerned with is the actual album itself. The whole thing is covered with some sort of velvety coating that is now rubbing off. If I had to describe the velvety texture, I'd say is like those velvety posters that you can buy and color or some velvety wallpapers. Someone has suggested spraying hair spray on the velvety covers but that sounds ify to me. How can I stop or slow down this process?

Preserving a lot of WWI-era papers?

Nomiconic — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:23:48 -0800

I have a big box of very old papers (and other things) I'd like to preserve in a way that facilitates viewing. What's a good way to go about this? I have a quite large box (I'd say it weighs in around 20 lbs.) full of letters, binders, photographs, and various small paraphernalia belonging to a private in the US Army in France in World War I. Most of the letters are dated around 1918, so this stuff is verging on a century old. Right now it's all pretty much unprotected, and I hate the thought of all of it disintegrating and being more or less forgotten. I'd like to preserve it as best I can (though I'd also like to be able to look at it from time to time) and maybe digitize it in the long term. Is this feasible? If so, how should I do it?