 Welcome to the National Archives and Records Administration's 2023 genealogy series. My name is Andrea Matney, the program's coordinator, and we are so happy you've joined us. In recognition of public service, we are offering a themed program that will provide family history research tools focused on both military and civilian records. We will also learn how to preserve your own family collections. Presenters are topic experts broadcasting from across the United States and offering sessions intended for beginners to experienced family historians. All are welcome. In addition, we invite you to join the conversation. Participate with the presenters and other family historians during each session's premier time. Here's how to engage in live chat. You can ask questions via chat by first logging into YouTube. Continue to watch chat because the speaker will answer your questions there in the chat. Type your questions about today's topic at any time. In addition, please select Show More to find links to handouts and the event's evaluation form. We are offering six genealogy sessions on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. eastern time, starting in May and ending in mid-June. If you missed the premier broadcast, know that the videos and handouts will remain available after the event and at your convenience. Our presentation today is entitled Planning, Techniques, and Strategies for Preserving Family Collections and Stories by Sarah Holmes. This home started working at the National Archives and Preservation Programs at St. Louis in 2007. She is currently a conservator. Before coming to the National Archives, she was a conservator at Texas Tech University and the Missouri State Archives. Ms. Holmes has a master's in library and information science with a certificate of advanced study in conservation of library and archival materials from the University of Texas and a master's in history from the University of New Orleans. She's also a certified archivist and was selected as a member of the first cohort of the Archives Leadership Institute in 2008. I'm so pleased to have Sarah join us today. Sarah? Hello and welcome. I am Sarah Holmes and I'm delighted to be spending this time with you today as part of the 2023 genealogy series focusing on both military and civilian service records. I am a conservator with the National Archives here in St. Louis. And my specialties are in book and paper treatment, but I also perform work in planning preservation activities for collections, and that's very much the area of focus I hope to share some strategies with you today. Now all institutions deal with constraints of time, labor, and space. I must find ways to strategically plan to preserve the most at-risk collections first. These strategies can also help you determine how to best approach your own collections. The National Archives and Records Administration has over 40 facilities all around the country. We hold over 13 billion pages, plus microfilm and microfiche, photographs, film, video, and audio. There is always a need to improve the housing and storage to meet standards for preservation. We establish priorities, identify vulnerable holdings and collections with special needs, and monitor condition over time. All these things mean that conservation of our collections requires a lot of administrative work. First and foremost, our best tool and your best tool at home is to ensure a stable environment to monitor temperature in relative humidity. We prioritize identifying formats that are obsolete and need recovery and reformatting like magnetic audio to real audio orally digital formats. We use random sample surveys to check on the condition of records and boxes they are housed. We work with colleagues who know what records are most requested and used to help prepare plans for digitization and conservation needs so that they can be more easily accessed by the public. And we proactively plan for potential incidents of damage, whether it's a single roof leak or a large scale emergency. There are a number of principles you can draw from our work at preservation programs to use even informally in your family collections to prioritize where to spend your time and money most effectively. I will be focusing on how to assess risks and establish priorities for family collections, and we will provide some details on paper-based collections, including books and photographs. But first, let's go over some basic terminology and concepts. The significance of a collection depends on two things, provenance and context. Provenance refers to the individual or group, such as a family that created and collected the items. And it dictates that records of different origins be kept separate to preserve their context. For instance, you don't want to mix papers and photos of your paternal grandparents with your maternal grandparents as there are two separate families, both usually. It's important to maintain original order of collections. That is how their creator organized the records themselves. That may be how they kept their letters, how they created their photo albums, or how they maintain their personal recipe collection. And the risk management is important in determining how to create your own preservation plan. This is the process of assessing what vulnerabilities you may have in your collections and what might be lost if you do not act in time. For family collections, factors that should be considered include the physical environment that the collections are stored. If it's hot and humid, most materials deteriorate faster, and there can be a threat of mold growth. Also, what media it is stored on is important. How accessible is it? Is it a letter you can pull out and read, or is it a CD and you need a computer with a CD drive? Finally, is the condition stable or is it fragile? Has damage already occurred? Does it have obvious inherent vice, meaning that components of the item itself naturally deteriorate impossibly quickly? Think of a yellowed newspaper clipping that can't be picked up without tearing and cracking because the paper used to make it was of such poor quality. Priorities are going to be established by a mix of significance and risk. So how does this work? Let's do a few case studies. Here we have Aunt Mabel's teapot. This was specifically given to my father from his Aunt Mabel. As it was marked with his name on the bottom, she wanted it to go to him when she passed away. But what did the teapot mean to Aunt Mabel? Why did she want dad to have it? We don't even know. This is truly of low significance. But it is cute. I love having it. But it doesn't really tell us anything about the family other than Aunt Mabel wanted dad to have the teapot. The teapot itself is in great condition, but it's fragile. It could be destroyed in seconds if it's not safely stored. It could be stored in a padded box and the box marked as fragile, or it can be displayed where it won't be easily knocked down, like in my China cabinet. Our next case study. Here we have two toy trucks. They are similarly made in one is marked U.S. Army transport. They were given to my dad from his cousin Wendell on the last Christmas they spent together. Wendell left college to join the 86th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division, popularly known as ski patrols. They specially trained to fight in the frigid mountains. Wendell was killed in Italy. These toys are highly significant because of their provenance in their context. They were held on in memory of Wendell and from my dad's close connection to his lost cousin. They're also very stable and durable. There is some paint loss. The wood has developed a patina, but they can easily be displayed or stored. And our next case study. This is a leather pouch. It also contains several safe driver awards inside of it. Even with the cards inside, it could be hard to know for sure what this pouch actually was used for and if someone explained it to you. This could easily have been discarded over the years because it's plain and utilitarian. But my grandfather held on to this because it was his mail pouch that he used during his career as a rural mail carrier. That's grandpa Sam with his first car. I believe it's 1926 Ford Model T. This was taken before he began delivering mail. So we rate the mail pouch as being highly significant. It's worn, but the leather's quite stable. The main concern for preservation is that you really don't want to be storing paper with leather. That's because leather is naturally acidic. And acid exposure can cause the paper or ward cards to deteriorate faster. There's also a concern about the plastic covers that are on some of the cards. Now plastics can really vary in their composition and how they might deteriorate. Some get brittle. Some might actually contract in size and some plastics will even get gooey over time. So it's best that we remove the plastic and we also store the paper separately. But we want to document that these were all found together with the pouch. Possibly we will still house everything in the same box, just allowing for the paper to be in their own folder as a buffer against the acidic leather. Now significance does come from context, but of course you can always find new sources that add new layers and nuances to your understanding of how the items you have connect to your family and their stories. This very much happened to me in the case of considering Grape the Sames Mail Pouch. With the help of my colleagues here in St. Louis, I came to realize that one of the bays I regularly cross for years, there is a box with a record in the post office personnel files on my own grandfather. And inside are a number of new details. We learned he was using a 1940s Chevy as his main personal car when he first started delivering mail. He also still owned a 1931 Ford Model A. These are fun facts for somebody who always enjoyed his cars. One page is a special treasure that increases our understanding of family life in World War II home front. This is a letter from 1943 addressed to a supervisor, the postmaster of Maynard, Iowa. He had an interest in taking on a second job and wanted to demonstrate that this would not impact the time that he needed to complete his mail route. Because of the wartime labor shortage, well, some produce company will accommodate him in providing flexible hours so that he would not be expected to work until his mail route was finished. He also knew that his second job was important because they prepare poultry products that are consumed by the armed forces. Now for Wendell, unfortunately, National Personnel Records Center does not hold his military personnel file. It was lost 50 years ago in the Great Fire here in St. Louis. Now, if you also have someone whose record was lost in that fire, I do highly recommend that you take a look at the presentation that is part of this current series by Eric Gilgore on alternative sources for genealogy research for records that were lost in the fire. The National Archives does hold a number of other record collections that can fill out some of the information that was lost. Unfortunately for myself, I did have another disappointment, but this time it's temporary. Wendell's IDPF, his individual deceased personnel file, is actually still held by the Army. It hasn't been transferred yet to the National Archives, but it is expected at some point to come. You will hopefully have better luck if you're looking for records now than I did, but there are all very many other IDPFs and other records that are available. We did find something new to us in the records that are held currently and available from the National Archives. Our family has actually been mistaken over the years in believing that Wendell was lost in the famous Battle of Anjum. We realize he is actually lost in the Battle of Riva Ridge as the 10th Mountain moved to secure the northern avalanche in Italy. And reaching out to a cousin, Wendell's niece, we find copies of letters and you see part of one here that can not only confirm the circumstances of his death, but we learned that the day before that fatal attack, Wendell actually received a care package from one of his aunts. We were all crazy about that fudge, his friend wrote the family. So many more layers here add to the significance and reasons to preserve those toy trucks. But there is even more to this family story. While informally chatting with Ariana, she's the little girl in that center photo with Wendell and my dad, her twin brother. My sister commented that she understood that rural mail carriers had delivered telegrams for Western Union. My sister said yes, she knew her father delivered telegrams. In fact, she knew that he delivered at least two during the war, notifying the family that their son had been killed. For one, she knew that her dad went to the minister of the church, the family attended to go with him to be with the family when the telegram was delivered. The other telegram he delivered was for Wendell's parents, and I want to remember that day very clearly. Her father had left to do his meal route, and she had not yet gone to school. He suddenly came back home and told her mother that she needed to get ready and go to her sisters right away. So, suddenly, the plain old mail pouch takes on even more profound significance. It connects not only to members of my family to the toy trucks even, but it's something that can resonate with many other American families and how they experienced life on the home front during World War II. You can only imagine how many other mail carriers dealt with delivering telegrams in similar ways that my grandfather did. Now, hopefully these case studies have been something more than my bragging on my family. But the first thing to do in preserving your family collections is simply to determine what is meaningful, what supports the story of your family. And that is what you need to seek to preserve and make the priority. This doesn't mean that you need to toss out things that are low significance or perhaps unknown significance, like Aunt Magable's teapot. But you do want to focus on what is known to be significant and potentially even expand on that significance with new sources. After all, that's what makes researching family history so fun. Make sure you connect the things you want to preserve to sources, whether it's oral history, other items in your collections, or sources held in archives like the National Archives. Documentation will give your collections a reason to be kept and passed on to someone else. And do consider the possibility of contacting an archive to discuss donation of family collections. Many universities, state and local archives welcome collections of ordinary families. Collecting policies can differ, but do look at the handout for this presentation for a link that will explain more about this idea. Now, priorities for housing collections and potentially getting conservation treatment are going to be established by a mix of significance and risk. You could have something of high significance but low risk that you determine is a lower priority than something of low significance but fragile and at high risk. So how would this work? Let's take a look at how to survey. First, let's consider the stability of the item that you want to assess. Stability is the quality of resisting change and deterioration. Is it durable? Does it show signs of a potential inherent vice? And remember that that's meant to be the tendency material to deteriorate due to the instability or interaction of components. So you may have poorly made paper. You may have something with multiple components and the adhesive fails so that parts literally fall off. You have to consider items in terms of what is low risk, something that has no obvious signs of instability or fragility. Moderate risk will be items that have some wear, some deterioration, but seem quite stable, fairly stable at least. Or are they high risk? They may have significant deterioration already. Or it may simply be extremely vulnerable, especially if not protected, like glass or, of course, eight mables teapot. Next, we want to assess condition. What is the current state of your item? It may have no damage or minor damage but can easily be handled without needing a special support or housing. Now by housing, I mean like a box folder or slave, something that encloses the item being preserved to protect it and helps manage its storage. Now minor damage would be something that can do well when handled even without a housing. Moderate damage may need someone with really good hand skills if they're going to handle it as it is without some kind of support. So this would be something that would benefit from a housing. Severe damage will be items that simply can't be handled without having a high risk of causing more damage. These are things that really need protective housing. For a lot of paper items, this can simply be a sleeve. And using a matrix will help you determine your priorities based on risk and identify your order of priorities. Many of you can likely use these concepts informally and simply go through these ideas in your head and start lists of what you have under each priority of high, medium, and low and what their needs are. Perhaps there are some of you who prefer to record on a spreadsheet and possibly even score damage and stability on a scale like one to 10 and create a point system. However you decide, the goal is simply to help you determine where your time and money are best spent first. Okay, now where did significance go? You can potentially take the results of the risk assessment and do another matrix with significance if you choose. But primarily I suggest that you consider significance as the justification of keeping things as part of a family collection. It doesn't mean you have to discard an identified photographs or any of those teapots, but you may need to recognize that those things may have a lower priority in getting them treated and housed, regardless of how much affection you have for them. Now let's take a look at some specific examples and how we would rate them. Tears can make handling paper riskier, but this tear here is in the interior of the page. Tears on the edges of paper are much more likely to be accidentally caught while the page is being handled. So this I rate as low risk. It would benefit from a polyester sleeve or it can simply be unfolded and kept in a folder. Now here's damage that is far more severe. This has low stability. You definitely have to be very good in handling it without causing more damage. We definitely want to sleeve this for support and it could easily be traded by a conservator. Now here's a tip. The polyester sleeves can have a static charge and that can cause damage if there is resistance and you push a fragile page into the sleeve. But you can use a sheet of paper preferably acid free paper, but you can use a blank sheet of copy paper as long as you remove that paper from the sleeve once your fragile page is inside and placed inside the sleeve. Let's go to a video so you can see this in action. In order to place a page inside an L sleeve, which is sealed on two sides, you simply need to use one hand to open the sleeve widely enough to minimize static charge. Once in just gently smooth out the sleeve to remove air from it. Make sure all edges of the document are inside the sleeve. For especially fragile pages, like the one in the previous slide, using a sheet of paper such as an acid free perma life paper as an extra support will help safely move the page into the sleeve. By all means ask for a second person to help hold the sleeve open if handling the fragile sheet and opening the sleeve at the same time is too much for yourself alone. You can potentially use a support sheet on the front and back to sandwich or fragile page and slide it in as well. Once your page is inside, you can remove that support sheet from the sleeve. If you are using acid free paper and there is no text on the back of the document you are protecting, you can certainly leave the acid free sheet inside. It will act as a buffer and help draw out acids from the paper as well as stored inside the sleeve. Otherwise, you can remove that support sheet by carefully sliding it out while securing your fragile page inside the sleeve. You've probably noticed that it's the crease line on paper where tears and losses are most likely to occur. These occur at crease lines because deterioration can be worsened from acidity, humidity, temperature or light. These trigger chemical processes that can damage and weaken the fibers. And of course, this handling itself can lead to accidental tears at any part of the paper. Now paper is a three dimensional object. It's so flat we tend not to consider that. But in this micro photograph, we can see the hundreds of thousands of fibers that bond and interconnect to form a sheet of paper. So what happens when paper is creased and folded? The individual fibers are damaged as you see in that second micro photograph. When someone tries to flatten the crease by folding it in the opposite direction, more damage occurs on the opposite side of the fiber. Now some paper can tolerate being folded many times. Other papers will simply fail at the fold and tear. You will find that simply gently unfolding pages and placing them in folders will allow the creases to relax over time. Do be aware that it's common professional practice to leave some folds in place if the page is larger than a regular sized folder or sleeve. This avoids needing more oversized folders and boxes that can make storage extremely difficult. Never introduce a new fold to fit a page inside a folder or sleeve. Use existing folds only. You can interleave if you are concerned about the migration of transfer of assets. This example is from the mid 1800s and has shown no problems of the paper being acidic. It's cotton rag. It's not as bad as the later paper manufacturers in the 1900s. There is a stain of unknown origin that was introduced while the letter was folded and it's now tripled across the middle, but it's stable now. The folder will also keep multiple pages and the envelope it was sending all together. While the most fragile paper can be placed in polyester sleeves to protect it, don't feel that you need to sleeve all of your paper. In fact, not only can that get expensive, but it will increase the bulk of your collection so that you will actually need more boxes and your boxes will be getting very heavy. Now, if you want to smooth out your creases, I recommend investing in either a bone folder or a Teflon folder. As the name of the tool indicates, these were originally used to make nice crisp creases, but we use them here in the opposite direction to gently relax the creases. As seen here, you use the tool to gently relax the crease by running it over the crease with a very light pressure. The key here is to relax it, not force it. Using too much pressure will leave marks on your paper. This probably won't get the page utterly flat, but it helps relax the folds and any crumpling that's occurred to the paper. Immunification is something we commonly do in conservation labs, but we don't recommend this doing at home for anyone who has not had training in conservation treatment. The problem here is that some inks or other media can bleed. They might even sink. Some can literally disappear if they're that highly soluble. Some types of paper can block and fuse together, and photographs, especially their emotions, can be damaged if humidified. Mending as well can potentially become very complex depending on the paper and media involved. We do not recommend using any kind of tape with any kind of adhesive at all. We recommend simply stabilizing paper and polyester sleeves instead of attempting to treat anything yourself. Now let's take a look at some books. Now this is a book that started life as an account ledger for a family who farmed and raised livestock, but later it took on a new life as a recipe book. Lots of clippings were added and handwritten recipes on loose paper possess ephemera here and there. Now the spine covering of the book itself has been lost, but the binding is still intact and good. With all the inserted items, there is a mix of papers and some have yellowed and are likely acidic. However, nothing is really fragile or brittle. There are a few places where acid has migrated from a more acidic inserted paper onto a page in the book. And we class this as ranging from minor to moderate damage and a moderate stability. It really just needs some help with the rehousing of all the inserted material and perhaps a fitted box for the book itself. But first, remember we want to know the original order. We don't have to keep the inserts exactly where they were found and overstuffed in the book, but we do want to document where they came from. And in fact, in going through this book, there are recipes grouped by the person who passed on the recipe. That means that the neighbor named Daisy was in a different section of the recipes that came from me and Daisy. So keeping track of location can make a difference in identifying the inserted pages from the two different daisies. In the case of inserts and books like Family Bibles, it might connect an inserted item to a section or quote connected to what was inserted between the pages. Now there at the left bottom side photo is a paper file folder insert. These can be very handy in certain cases. I had mentioned earlier that if you sleeve everything in polyester, you get a lot more bulk and a lot heavier boxes. Similarly, if you use folders for every single point and something that's ever stuffed as this particular book is, you'd have a lot of bulk and a lot more expense. This alternative here is to use paper file inserts like you see here and group things inside the file inserts that came from specific pages. I can put five to six paper enter files inside a regular folder. You don't want to use these enter file inserts on their own. They will need the support of a regular folder. But for this book and it's many, many added recipes and ephemera, using the the inner file folders really cuts down on the bulk of housing the items and folders. Now here is another book and you can see that entire sections are falling out. This indicates that some of the binding sewing has failed. Like the other book, there are some inserted items that can be documented and housed in folders or perhaps even inner files certainly isn't as over stuffed as the first book. The simplest way to stabilize this book is to purchase a custom fit box that will help provide the support to keep the binding together. You can also consult a conservator if you wish to have the loose sections secured or even resumed, but a good box will always help keep things together. Now let's move on to look at some examples of photographs. This is an amber type, both daguerreotypes and amber types are case photographs. This one clearly has a lot of dirt and dust inside the case. Very important not to attempt to clean a case photograph like this. The image is extremely fragile and this requires special treatment. Now, no one not even a conservator can expect to have a stock of archival quality supplies on hand for every possible potential use. This amber type needed better protection when it was found. Making do with what you have available can be inevitable. But do choose wisely. Be sure the materials you use for boxes and padding are stable as you can find and are clean. Take care that any padding you use is not abrasive. This is a Civil War era photograph that is on a canvas. It has a lot of image loss and what remains is extremely fragile. This is definitely an example of something that you would never want to wrap in a fibrous cloth like a cotton cloth, which would actually potentially snag on the surface and pull away entire flakes easily. So extending our consideration of what kind of make do housings you may create do pay strict attention to the surface that you're trying to protect. If you were to wrap this, it needs a smooth tissue or paper. This too would definitely need a conservators consultation and treatment. But at the very least you can carefully box this to protect it until you can handle getting it to a conservator. Now, silver photographs are also referred to as silver mirroring are really fairly common for black and white photography of various processes. This is a chemical deterioration that is typically the result of poor storage, especially if the photo has been held in high humidity areas, or the photo has been in contact with wood pulp paper. The silvering is usually more striking and raking light than in head on view. It is damaged that can't be undone. You will want to be sure that you're storing all of your photos in a cool dry environment using sleeves can help store photos together without allowing photo emotions to come into contact with the civic paper or backings that can react with the photo emotion. For materials that you use to store photographs, you can find sleeves and envelopes that have passed the special photo activity test, the PAT at a number of archival suppliers. Now, it can be difficult in any cases to determine if you have mold or if you just simply have dirt or dust. While there can be some indications and looking at images do know that a conservator really can't verify that it is or isn't mold growth and from a picture of an item. There are just are simply a lot of assessments that we can't do without examination of the item in person. Now, this page is an example of a record that is held by the National Archives and has treated for mold. Now here in St. Louis where I work, we continue to do a lot of mold remediation as many of the records from the 1973 fire at the National Personal Records Center still need treatment. It's very important to take the possibility of mold seriously. It can be a health hazard. Sensitivity to mold can vary from person to person, but with more exposure you have to mold the more likely you are to become sensitized to it. If mold is actively growing, it will be moist and wet. If it is dormant, it will be powdery, but it can also be much more easily inhaled and that's where it becomes very problematic. I suspect that you have mold growing. You want to isolate the items from anything else that you have, especially anything in your family collection. You can bag it in a polyethylene bag like your freezer zip bag sold at groceries or at the very least box and store it away from clean items in your collection and in a dry and cool area. Because of the potential health hazards, I would strongly recommend making anything suspected to have mold growth a high priority for assessment by a conservator. Do err on the side of caution. If you are absolutely certain and have confirmed that you have dirt or dust and not mold, you can use a soft brush to gently clean the surface of papers and photographs. These are a few examples of brushes that can be used. There are a variety of animal hairs and a few synthetic hairs that can be used. Always be gentle and use the lightest of pressure. This particular photograph, by the way, is firmly attached to the mat and was cleaned without attempting to forcibly separate it. It may be possible that there you will be decleaning something that can easily be separated if it's in the mat like this, but do take care because once you've damaged something, it's not going to go back. Now, once you have assessed your collection items, you'll be ready to move on to implementing your plan. Again, environment and storage are the most important considerations. Never store your collections and addicts, basements, garages, sheds, any area where you can't control the temperature and humidity. Even when it's inside your house in a nice dry cool area, be sure that you're checking periodically to make sure that there are no leaks, no pests. Work to stabilize your most at risk items by finding the best possible housings. At the least, use clean boxes with no signs of damage, deterioration, or odor. You can work over time to improve the housings as best as you can. While having archival boxes and acid-free folders are ideal, know that keeping your collections in a stable dry and cool environment alone makes a tremendous difference in preserving them. A few things to keep in mind as you work on improving your housings and progressively going from good to better to best. As in any archive, you only have so much space. A big tip from those of us in the archives profession who have ordered the wrong size of boxes before, make sure that what boxes you order fit on the shelves you plan to use. You may also be considering boxing smaller boxes and larger boxes. You'll also potentially have things that need padding. You may have textiles or break-a-block objects, and these add to the bulk in space that you'll be using. It can be very tempting to mix things from different sides of the family in the same box because you're trying to minimize the use of space, but do consider the wrong term. If you expect that your collection would be split among relatives, you may want to be sure they are boxed separately, well-labeled and well-documented. I from one expect that there are things that will go to different cousins on different sides of my family. Now, what to look for when you're shopping for your housings, your boxes and enclosures. Again, be aware that archival and acid-free are not something that is a certification or a definite standard that's been tested for the particular product you're looking at. The things you do want to look for are the products that are being described as pH neutral. Lignin-free is important. Lignin is a natural component in the cells of plants and trees, but it can raise the acid level of paper if it's not removed during its manufacture. Boxes that are made with a buffer and that's typically calcium carbonate are good to use with most materials. There is a test for materials used to store photographs and that's the PAT, the photoactivity test. That's the only thing where there's going to be a certified standard and tests to look for for products. If you are interleaving with tissue, do be aware that there are some items that are recommended to use unbuffered tissue, meaning that they have no alkaline reserve and that some things are recommended to be used with buffered tissue. The ones that do have an alkaline reserve like that calcium carbonate. So you'd be looking to use buffered tissue with black and white photographs, most of your papers, but unbuffered for color photographs. Blueprints need to have acidity or else you lose the image and there are some types of fabrics, silk wools and leathers. These are things that actually need some acidity. Be aware that there are affordable machine-made boxes that can be customized. There is information in the handout that's part of this presentation. These can be wonderful for certain bound materials that need support, books that may have vulnerable bindings, albums or scrapbooks, things that need support. Boxes are truly wonderful things. They provide an extra layer of safety. If there's any kind of leak, they often take the brunt of the water and they will provide what we call microclimate to. For instance, if you keep your house dry and cool, but a storm knocks out power during the height of the summer, it will actually act as a buffer against that and stay a little bit cooler and drier inside. Now, if you've liked the ideas that have been posed in this presentation but are a little concerned about moving forward on your own, I have some recommendations for you to take a look at. The PSAP is a wonderful tool. This is the preservation self-assessment program. It's available online freely and it can help guide you in identifying what format you have and what kind of storage materials you need to use for that. So when you're trying to determine what to do with color photographs versus black and white, this is a wonderful source. It also includes things like audio and video formats and even objects. This comes to us from the University of Illinois. Now, if you want to understand risk assessment better, the Canadian Conservation Institute has a wonderful and accessible guide that's available freely online. There's also a book on creating family archives by Margot Newt that is published by the Society of American Archivists. You can find information on these and more in the handout for the presentation. Here are just a few general sources for preservation information as well, and you are perfectly welcome to reach out to me and preservation programs at the National Archives by email. I hope you have found the ideas and tips here useful and can use them to help preserve your own family story. And a final note, if the personnel records mentioned in my case studies are of interest to your own research, you may want to take a look at the website for the National Archives at St. Louis. Thank you for joining me today, and I hope you are able to use this information. Thank you again for watching. This ends the lecture portion of the broadcast, but we will continue to take your questions about today's topic in the chat. If you do not get to your question, please send us an email. Note that the presentation's video recording and handout will remain available on this YouTube page and our website. We plan future programs based on your feedback. Would you please take a minute to complete our short online evaluation form? At this time, I'd like to thank the genealogy series team who contributed to the success of this program. We are grateful for your work. And if you enjoyed this video, check out the Know Your Records program. We have over 100 educational videos on how to do research with us, including playlists for civilian service and U.S. veterans. In the autumn of 2023, the Know Your Records program is offering this schedule of sessions. We invite you to participate with the National Archives presenters and other audience members. Although this concludes the video portion of the broadcast, we will continue to take your questions in chat for another 10 minutes. Please stay if you have questions. Thank you for joining us for today's presentation. Hello, I'm Chris Neller, Executive for Research Services, and I want to thank you for joining this year's National Archives genealogy series. All session recordings and handouts are now available on our genealogy series webpage. I, too, am a genealogy buff, dating back to my first job at the National Archives more than 20 years ago. I loved seeing researchers' anticipation and thrill when they discovered something new in the records about their families. And I had a similar response when I learned that my great-great-great-grandfather was listed in the 1870 census as a huckster, working at the center market at the exact location where the National Archives building in Washington, D.C., now stands. We welcome your feedback. Please fill out this quick evaluation to let us know what you liked, what worked, and what didn't, and suggest topics for future sessions. We hope that you continue your journeys of discovery with us by visiting us online or in person at one of our research facilities nationwide. I also want to thank everyone who made this genealogy series possible, those who led sessions and those behind the scenes. Thank you for your participation in the 2023 National Archives genealogy series and your continued interest in the records maintained by the National Archives. We look forward to seeing you next time.