To celebrate the end of the year, I decided to clean up my old photos and other important documents, which were either still in paper format or had been copied to CDs and DVDs, which had already deteriorated somewhat. I saved the scans and photos from the discs to an external hard drive. My scanner at home isn’t particularly good, and the digital copies aren’t of good quality. Nevertheless, I believe it’s better to have lower-quality copies on my computer or portable drive than none at all. Documents and photos deteriorate when stored at home. They’re often kept in basements or attics, dusty and cluttered with other things.
Therefore, I have an important challenge for you this New Year: in your free time (and you’ll surely find some sooner or later), digitize old photos and documents so that years later you won’t complain that a photo of your great-grandmother or great-grandfather has been irreversibly damaged by, for example, water damage. If you have a substantial collection of memorabilia from your ancestors in your home archives, any archive, whether state or community, will surely be happy to take it over and take proper care of it.
So… let’s get started!
That’s one small step for you, one giant leap for mankind… to quote Neil Armstrong,
I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the mission’s success 🙂