Complete Collections Care Workbook

Collection Care Workbook | Family Archive Preservation Guide | Photos, Textiles, Digital Media & Heirlooms | Printable PDF

You don't need a museum background to take care of what your family has kept. You need a system, and this workbook is that system.

The Collection Care Workbook is a 20-page, standalone companion for building and stewarding your own collection, whatever it includes. Photos in a shoebox. Grandma's wedding dress. A hard drive of old files nobody's opened in a decade. This walks you through it all with the same tools archivists actually use, translated into plain language.

What's inside:

A working glossary of key terms (acid-free vs. lignin-free, interleaving, provenance, and more) so you know what you're looking at when you shop for supplies

A 4-category condition rubric to track what's stable and what needs attention

A location and labeling system so anyone, including future-you, can find anything without asking

A full inventory log (30+ rows) to document what you have

Phase checklists for every material type: paper & photographs, textiles & clothing, digital media, heirlooms & objects, and books

An emergency quick-reference for water damage, fire, and smoke exposure

A supply shopping tracker scaled to your collection size

A condition check log for revisiting your collection every 6-12 months

Space for provenance and story notes, because the story behind an object is often worth more than the object itself

An insurance and documentation tracker for anything appraised or insured

Who this is for: Anyone sitting on family photos, letters, textiles, heirlooms, or old digital files who wants to take care of them properly, without hiring a professional or guessing at what actually works.

Format: Instant digital download, 20-page printable PDF. Print at home or at a copy shop, or fill in digitally.

This workbook was written by Mary Snyder, an archivist and public historian with over a decade of experience building and preserving real archival collections, including work at Whitney Plantation, The Henry Ford, and Harvard's Legacy of Slavery initiative. Every method in here comes from real practice, not theory.

Please note: This is a digital product. No physical item will be shipped. Due to the nature of digital downloads, all sales are final.