Save Your Stuff

The Marco Island Historical Museum was the host of the inaugural Save Your Stuff workshop, Thursday, July 27 in the Rose History Auditorium. A small but enthusiastic group gathered to learn preservation and salvage techniques from Collier County Museum’s Curator of Education, Elaina Gyure.

Gyure drew on resources from FEMA, the Smithsonian, and the Florida Department of State’s Division of Library and Information Sciences to help her educate attendees.

"The Save Your Family Treasures program is a new initiative from FEMA,” said Gyure. "Literally, their first deployment was the tornadoes that hit Tennessee months before Ian hit us in September.”

Gyure spent the beginning of the workshop dispensing tips on how to protect favorite photographs. Some basics include using acid-free folders and boxes to store photos and important papers. She stressed making sure albums or scrapbooks are made from acid-free stock. She also warned against using old-fashioned “magnetic” photo albums.

"Never use magnetic albums with adhesive pages to store important documents or photos,” Gyure said, "as the adhesive will permanently damage your items. I'm sure some of you grew up with these lovely albums in your home. They were very popular because the photograph sticks right on. If you already have some photos in your family collection that are in magnetic albums, look into getting scans done with the sheets. Find a way to get photo documentation of those albums right now.”

Gyure then moved the workshop into the lobby where she gave a demonstration on how to salvage a damaged photograph using pans of distilled water.

 “You can take three pans,” Gyure said, "and then you want to fill the pans with distilled water. For cleaning a photograph, all you need to do is have three trays so that you can do a progressive cleaning method. That is what FEMA suggests.”

Gyure suggests a soft-bristled artist’s paintbrush to remove matter from your photographs.

"I'm just using the brush to brush off as much of this as possible,” she said. "You do run the risk of scratching the emulsion, so that's why we use the soft bristle brush.”

Gyure suggests hanging cleaned photographs to dry using a clothesline and clothespins.

Gyure then sent the attendees packing with a starter kit consisting of a clothesline, clothespins, unprinted paper towel sheets, freezer paper sheets, window screen, disposable aluminum pans, and the FEMA Save Your Family Treasures Supply and Instruction Sheet.