Care at Home
Photographs deserve a place in everyday life and a little thought about how they are kept. A wedding album, a family print and a folder of digital images each need a care routine. The Library of Congress offers guidance for both physical photographs and digital files. Start with the images that matter most, decide where they will live, and make the steps easy to repeat.
The Library of Congress identifies a good storage environment as one of the most important ways to care for photographs. Before choosing a shelf or cupboard, consider the surroundings. Its guidance advises against attics, basements, exterior walls and places close to vents, fireplaces or radiators. It also cautions against locations at risk of condensation, water leaks or large changes in conditions.
For an album or a group of prints, think through the location rather than choosing it only because there is room. Is it beside a heat source? Is it along an exterior wall? Does it receive a lot of light? These questions turn the guidance into a useful check of the places available at home. Choose a location with the recommended conditions in mind.
Before putting the photographs away, decide which albums and prints you expect to look at often and which will stay in storage between viewings. Compare the possible locations with the Library's recommendations for each group. Make the choice deliberately, with both access and the surrounding conditions in mind, so the photographs have a place to return to after a viewing.
In its guidance on caring for photographs, the Library of Congress recommends a relatively dry, cool and stable environment: 30-50% relative humidity and 70°F or below. It identifies relative humidity as the most important factor for most photographic prints, with ideal fluctuations of less than 5% over 24 hours. Stability belongs alongside the temperature and humidity ranges when considering a storage space.
Color photographs and film negatives have a different emphasis. For these materials, the Library identifies temperature as the controlling factor affecting stability and recommends storage at 40°F or below. Keep that distinction in mind when reading the general recommendation for a cool room; the guidance does not give the same temperature target for every photographic material.
Light exposure should be limited, and exposure to atmospheric pollutants minimized. The Library also describes well-ventilated storage with filtered air as ideal. Think separately about where a photograph is displayed and where it is kept between viewings. When considering a place for prints, include the light it receives in the decision, alongside temperature, humidity and nearby sources of heat.
The Library of Congress recommends handling photographs with clean hands or clean nitrile gloves. Avoid touching the image area, and hold a photograph by its edges or its housing materials whenever possible. During an album viewing, keep this same principle in mind: look at the image without placing fingers on the photograph itself.
The guidance also notes that gloves can become soiled and limit dexterity. It suggests considering gloves for metal, glass and plastic materials, including negatives. Clean handling is the goal, whether using hands or gloves. Avoid marking photographs whenever possible. If a picture needs identifying, a description in a separate inventory is a way to keep that information without writing on the image.
Begin by identifying where your photographs are. The Library of Congress includes cameras, computers, removable media such as memory cards, and photographs on the Web in this first step. Make a list rather than relying on memory. Then select the images that matter most. Where an important photograph has several versions, the Library recommends keeping the highest-quality one.
Its digital photograph guidance recommends descriptive file names, tags naming people and subjects, and a folder structure for the selected pictures. Write a brief explanation of the folders and their contents. A folder called "Family celebration" is an example of a descriptive label; use wording that makes sense for your own collection.
Make at least two copies of the selected photographs; the Library says more copies are better. Keep other copies on separate media and store them in different locations, as far apart physically as practical. Record where the copies are in your inventory. The Library also recommends keeping a copy of that inventory with important papers in a secure location.
Check your photographs at least once a year to make sure you can still read them, as the Library of Congress advises. Use the inventory to find the copies and work through the files you selected. The check is also an opportunity to revisit which images matter most and whether their descriptions still help you find them.
The Library recommends making replacement media copies every five years or when necessary to avoid data loss. Include that step in the same routine as checking readability. Keeping the inventory, file names, folders and copies together as a plan makes the annual check easier to follow.
The U.S. Copyright Office explains that the Copyright Act protects many kinds of photographic works, including images captured as digital files or on film. Wedding and portrait photographs are among its examples of commonly registered works. The Office lists group registration options for unpublished photographs, called GRUPH, and published photographs, called GRPPH. These descriptions concern the Office's registration categories and programs.