It’s so easy to forget the build-up of paperwork that we all seem to collect over the years. Photo albums, birth certificates, baptismal and other school certificates that you may have gained as a child are all tucked away and left there. They end up collecting dust over time, becoming slightly yellowed with exposure to air and sometimes, in adverse conditions, become damp and mouldy. Documents that have value – whether monetary or sentimental – should never be left to just rot in the attic, especially as without the correct storage and preservation, this is precisely what happens.
It’s so important to organise your documents correctly and get them scanned in online, but it’s also essential to ensure that those documents are still as intact as possible as primary resources for your history. One day, you may want to pass these documents to your children or other family members, and you can’t do that if they are destroyed. It’s essential to preserve your paperwork – they’re a paper trail of your history. With the right storage unit UK, you can ensure that your documents are never exposed to anything that could damage it. There are plenty of storage and preservation options out there, and if you carry on reading, you’ll discover just how you can safely store and preserve old paperwork.
Document Safes
You can double up on your security with a document safe and a storage unit here. Document safes can provide you with extra protection that you didn’t even know that you needed. They’re excellent for preventing liquid and other moisture from coming into the documents, and they also protect your paperwork from direct sunlight damage. Use a safe like this in your storage unit, and you offer your paperwork double the protection.
Acid-Free Paper
The number of photos you may have printed over the years could be huge, but if you haven’t used acid-free paper, you could find your photos fading over time. Where you can, print your pictures onto archival paper and group several items on the same sheet. The idea is to keep the copies on pages that are free from acid and lignin.
The Perfect Environment
Basements and attics are musty, full of critter and often a terrible place to store documents. Damage from damp and dust can ruin your paperwork for good. Instead, buy a plastic storage box with a lid that will keep the documents air-tight. In the Vatican, for example, they keep a lot of the oldest documents on papyrus stored in cold environments that are basically in a vacuum. You may not be able to mimic the Vatican, but you can do your best to keep those documents preserved!
As well as these options, you need to consider storing your documents in a controlled environment. So, make sure that it’s a cool, dark place that you can access in an emergency. A small investment into your document preservation now can make a big difference to your things later.