National Preservation Week: Introduction

You’ve been modeling a long time.  Over the years, the model airplanes, pictures, old flight equipment and club t-shirts have built up and are currently piled in your garage.  You’ve got more modeling stories than you can remember.  What’s going to happen to all of it next year, in five years, twenty-five years?  Books, boxes and AV materials pile up in bad storage conditions.

In order to help modelers keep their treasures to last, and to recognize that model aviation’s history matters, the museum is participating in National Preservation Week.  Created in 2010 by the American Library Association’s sub-group Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, Preservation Week focuses attention on the need to protect and care for our individual and cultural heritage by preserving the things in our life that matter.

Monday through Friday, April 22-26, 2013, there will be a daily post to the National Model Aviation Museum blog with information on how to care for the long-term needs of the special artifacts and memories you own.  Provided information will include easy-to-follow advice for people at any income bracket. Here’s the schedule for the week:

A museum intern removes a letter taped to the back of a patron.Monday, April 22, 2013:  Preserving stories
Tuesday, April 23, 2013:  Preserving documents and photographs
Wednesday, April 24, 2013:  Preserving model airplanes (& storing models)
Thursday, April 25, 2013:  Preserving textiles (making a padded hanger)
Friday, April 26, 2013:  Preserving equipment and memorabilia

Members are encouraged to contact museum staff to ask questThe rotor blades of a toy helicopter wrapped in acid-free tissue paper.ions regarding the long-term care of their papers, photographs and artifacts.  Feel free to ask your questions to the museum’s blog, Facebook page, or by emailing staff directly or at mariav@modelaircraft.org.

If you are looking for more information and other ways of getting involved in Preservation Week check out these webinars (sponsored by the American Library Association), which are free and open to the public.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013: The Preservation of Adhesive residue degrades on an AMA patch.Family photographs https://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/upcoming/webinar/pres/042313

Wednesday, April 24, 2013:  Personal Digital Archiving
https://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/upcoming/webinar/pres/042413

Thursday, April 25, 2013:  Archiving 101: Dealing with Suppliers of Archival Products
https://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/upcoming/webinar/pres/042513

You can also find an event happening at a museum, archive or library near you at the Preservation Week Event Map.

Preservation Week - pass it onSponsored by the ALA’s Association for Library Collections and Technical Services and partner organizations, Preservation Week will inspire actions to preserve personal, family and community collections of all kinds, as well as library, museum and archive collections. It will raise awareness of the role libraries and other cultural institutions can play in providing ongoing preservation information.  More information can be found at https://www.ala.org/alcts/confevents/preswk.