I have some handwritten letters from the eighteenth century. What is the best way to preserve them? Is it better to just hand them over to a library of some sort that can take care of them? Is it possible to take photographs of them without doing damage?
Thanks.
The museum in which I work has a massive archive of historical documents.
First of all, if you want to donate them to a museum, that’s wonderful. They’ll get the best of care there. Yes, you could photocopy them before you donate them. (The museum might even do it for you.) The damage from light is cumulative-- one photocopying isn’t going to do a large amount of damage.
If you want to keep the originals yourself, place them flat in a large acid-free envelope. (It MUST be acid-free, or you risk the document being eaten by the acids in the envelope.) Store them in a drawer or cabinet somewhere in the interior of your home where the humidity and temperature are relatively constant. A closet is usually fine for this sort of thing, but make sure that it doesn’t get accidentally crushed by putting other stuff on top of it.
Following on from Lissa’s recommendations, there’s useful advice here.