Storage Challenges for Analog & Digital Records

There are several preservation challenges related to your personal service records and mementos. One of the often overlooked or undervalued aspects of preservation remains the decision of where and how to store your collections. Most service members accumulate a wide range of materials, including analog or physical objects such as paper-based records, photographs, uniforms, challenge coins, and many others. Your collections probably also contain a significant number of digital materials. These may be analog records that you digitized or, more likely, born-digital files, such as digital photographs and videos, social networking posts, blogs, or emails.

Before we continue, take a moment to think about the different types of materials you have in your own collection. Do you know where everything is currently physically located? Do you keep everything in a single location in your house, garage, basement, attic, or storage unit? Or are things spread out in different areas? What about your digital records? Are they on a single device or cloud storage? If you needed to locate a file, could you do so easily?

After thinking about the answers to those questions, you might already have some understanding of the storage-related challenges at hand. While we will discuss more detailed information regarding different format types in a later module, it is important to understand the more generalizable issues you may face with your materials—regardless of format.

Location

Where you store materials is just as important as what you store them in—perhaps more important. You do not necessarily need to keep everything in one place. In fact, it may be preferable to store things in different locations based on their specific formats or as a security measure in case of a natural disaster or accident. That being said, it is vital to keep track of where you store your collections. This will make it easier to locate items when you need them. The most significant threats to analog materials are temperature and relative humidity. In general, materials prefer cool, dry places—much like fine wine. Try to find a storage location that maintains a temperature of about 70 degrees Fahrenheit with relatively little variation (a few degrees here and there is fine, but avoid spaces that significantly fluctuate day-to-day). Relative humidity measures the amount of moisture in the air relative to the maximum moisture the air can hold at a given time. Relative humidity of 100%, for example, means the air is completely saturated with moisture. For our purposes, you should aim for storage space with relative humidity under 55%. Some formats prefer cooler or drier conditions than the above, but 70 degrees and 55% RH are good general benchmarks. Just selecting a suitable storage location can significantly decrease the threats of deterioration, mold growth, or pest damage. Here are some areas in the home to avoid: attics, basements, non-climate-controlled garages, barns, or sheds. Additionally, avoid locations near HVAC vents or water sources (such as under sinks).

Digital materials stored on local devices, such as internal or external hard drives, flash drives, or SD cards, should follow general guidelines. The most significant challenges related to general data management practices for items stored within cloud-based solutions (e.g., Box, OneDrive, iCloud, or Dropbox). The possibility of losing access to your files presents the largest risk. This may be caused by losing or forgetting passwords, third-party services being discontinued, or a company may even be hacked. The loss of access is often associated with passwords, so consider using a password management platform to keep track of your important passwords. In addition, you also need to consider that software and hardware both evolve, and this may cause difficulties in accessing your materials. For instance, some early models of digital cameras could only be plugged into a computer via cable. If you lose access to that cable, you may also lose access to your photos. At the time that we write this, USB is a standard cable extension, but this may change in the future.

Different solutions for digital storage present different drawbacks and opportunities. Information on internal storage, such as the hard drive in your laptop or desktop, is readily accessible to you and thus is the easiest to access. At the same time, it can be volatile as any changes you make to a file become fixed unless you keep separate copies before you edit. External drives give you the flexibility of moving your information, as well as reading and writing files regularly. The downside is that they can be bulkier and require cables to connect to a computer. This can make them cumbersome to carry around. By contrast, flash drives such as SD cards or USB sticks (aka pen drives) are far more mobile because of their smaller sizes. However, partly because of this, flash drives have lower storage capacity. They are primarily designed to carry files, not for regularly editing their files, unlike hard drives.

A gold standard in digital preservation is the LOCKSS program, or Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe. LOCKSS is a digital preservation solution designed to collect and preserve digital content. The software allows multiple computers to be linked as a network, where each one contains a full copy of a digital collection. Each node in — a computer connected to — the network reads, validates, and repairs the data it holds based on a comparison to the information available in the other nodes. Thus, the more nodes available, the more copies of information, and thus, the safer the collection is. You can also think of LOCKSS as a principle for your digital materials. By keeping multiple copies across devices and locations, you increase the safety of your data overall. The difference here is that you, not the software, are in charge of maintaining those copies up-to-date, which means periodically checking on and updating those copies.

Enclosures

Not only do you need to think about the general location you store your materials, but there are also issues related to the enclosures you keep the records in themselves. When selecting the types of boxes, albums, and other storage containers to keep your materials in, be mindful to choose ones that match the general shape and size of the objects to be held within them. For example, if you have a group of 4x5 photographs, use a box of similar size rather than having them loosely stored in a large office box. The storage enclosures should add another element of stability by supporting the items contained within. This will help avoid accidental damage from handling the objects themselves. There are many different types of enclosures, including paper-based and plastic ones. For paper-based enclosures, look for acid-free materials when possible. While acid-free containers will cost more, they will not damage their contents. Avoid those made from acetates or polyvinyl chloride (PVC) for plastic storage. Instead, look for polyester, polyethylene, or polypropylene materials. Finally, when possible, store items flat rather than folded or rolled.

Please see the list of preservation suppliers when considering purchasing enclosures and storage materials. Also, consider using enclosures for your digital devices like flash drives, SD cards, or external hard drives. We strongly suggest that you color-code and label your enclosures. Labeling the disks with the date of purchase, or even better, the date of manufacturing, can give you a reference point to calculate when to migrate your information to new devices.

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