I have just returned from nearly two months away – Italy and Norway, hot and cold (although Norway was surprisingly warm, as is Europe at the moment). In both countries I came across interesting, historical methods of passive environmental control. In Italy, we went up into the mountains north of Bologna,...
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Condition This beautiful object – an undated Margaret Preston woodblock – came into the studio recently in a very sorry state. As with many paper-based artworks, it had suffered badly from being framed with acidic materials. It was fully adhered to an acidic backboard, and the window mat (also of acidic...
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Sydney Observatory Glass Plates In 1887 Sydney Observatory joined 19 other observatories from around the world to map the stars. This was an extraordinary project established by the Astrographic Congress in Paris to map the stars using the newly developed dry plate photographic process. Sydney Observatory created over 22,000 glass plate negatives...
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Embarking on the onerous task of writing your organizations Disaster Preparedness Plan (DPP) can be daunting, overwhelming and often gets put into the “too hard basket”. Well, we successfully assisted a small council to write their DPP within a short time frame and limited budget – and now they are...
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Most families have stories from the past handed down from the oldest to the youngest, recalling the history of the family through major and minor events – sometimes tragic, sometimes funny. Most families also have memorabilia of some sort, often connected directly to those stories. This physical material helps keep these stories alive and relevant, making them more meaningful and giving a ‘voice’ to the past generations.
If a family wants to maintain its history, and keep those stories alive, it is important to preserve that material as best we can. As conservators working at Preservation Australia, we work with families in conserving their objects and advising them on how best to store and preserve their family history material.
A family of four siblings approached Preservation Australia to help them preserve their family history collection of 100 WWI postcards. These postcards were from their grandfather who had served at various posts overseas during the war. His stories were inscribed on the back of the postcards, and unusually, many stories continued over several postcards. These four siblings all loved the postcards and the stories they told. The siblings are now dispersed around Australia and all wanted access to the postcards and to share the stories with the next generation. They were also concerned about how best to preserve and conserve this important family collection.
