Did you know you could be putting your treasured memories at risk when you store them in a hot and humid attic, in damp garages and sheds, or even in a house that is susceptible to flooding, fire, and other man-made and natural disasters? Many people believe when they store their memorabilia in boxes and out of the way they are safe. However, this is very rarely the case. Most do not know their materials are inherintly unstable; paper such as newspaper print is acidic and doomed to degrade over time, tape, glue and similar adhesives will fail, discolor the paper they are meant to bind and ooze, and of course, many of these materials will attract insects and other little critters for shelter and/or food. The Baton Rouge Room is here to help! Take a look at the presentation called "Preservation in the Home" to guide you towards a safe and secure environment for your materials. If you feel your materials might be important to the history of East Baton Rouge Parish or the city of Baton Rouge check out the "Donating Materials to the Baton Rouge Room," to see our guidelines for donations and to see how collections are preserved in the archive.
This short video describes what happens in the Preservation and Conservation Department of the Library of Congress. The video goes into detail about the types of tools used to preserve materials as well as steps that can be taken once disaster strikes.
Upon inserting the floppy disk and attempting to open an image file an error message appears. This is due to age and decay of the storage medium and the file.
Image extracted from a raw forensic disk image of the floppy disk. As you can see, the image is missing bits and extremely pixilated. This is due to damage to the disk or bit rot from the file.
Another image retrieved from the raw forensic image taken from the floppy disk.
These presentations address preservation and conservation issues for all types of materials.
