If you have successfully accessed records about you or your whānau, you want them to be stored somewhere where they will be safe and secure (rather than keep them with you).
You may also want to know how best to look after or store records that may have been damaged or degraded over time.
You might want your records or whānau records to be stored somewhere if:
Currently in Aotearoa, the only way to get your records stored in a secure location (archived) is by asking the Alexander Turnbull Library to take them. The Alexander Turnbull Library is part of the National Library in Wellington.
To make a request to donate records to the Alexander Turnbull Library, fill in the form on their websiteopen_in_new, giving as much detail as possible about the information you want to donate.
Be aware that due to the high volume of requests the Library receives every year, they are only able to accept some of the requests made to them.
If you decide to keep your records, the National Library has advice and resources to help you and your whānau preserve them. This can be particularly important if records were not well cared for by the organisations that created them (records holders), and therefore may not be in good condition.
Examples include:
If your records have been damaged in these ways, you may find some useful information about how to better care for and preserve your records, including:
Records of a person's time in the guardianship of a particular government agency or organisation may contain photographs. Often, these photographs were not properly cared for or correctly stored by the records holders, and have been damaged, or naturally started to degrade over time.
Here are some ways that you can try to ensure these photographs are better protected against damage in the future:
Try to always handle photographs by holding their edges, to avoid leaving fingerprints. The oils and salts in our fingertips can leave permanent marks on photographs and contribute to them fading
If a photograph is torn or in pieces, try to keep it flat in a folder or sleeve by itself
Try to avoid photos coming into contact with materials like sticky tape and masking tape, as this can cause fading and staining. Over time, the glue in sticky tape can dry up, allowing the photo to fall apart again.
Knowing how to properly store photographs can also help keep them in as good a condition as possible. Try to ensure that photos are:
kept somewhere cool, dark, dry and well ventilated
stored in boxes, folders, albums, and sleeves, made out of paper or plastic
not stored somewhere where they will be regularly moved or disturbed
not laminated or covered in a layer of plastic film. This is because once photographs have been sealed in the plastic, it cannot be removed and over time the material used to laminate the photographs can damage them.
Avoid storing photos in:
garages or sheds: that may be damp, have insects and may magnify temperature changes
on the floor, which puts photos at risk of water damage if there is a flood
in a hot water cupboard, where the combination of heat and moisture can cause mould to grow on photographs.
Many of the same issues that relate to photographs can also affect paper records - for example, becoming discoloured or damaged due to not having proper processes for maintaining records. As with photographs, there are things you can do to help better preserve them by preventing further damage to paper records.
Before handling records, wash and dry your hands or wear disposal gloves. Paper easily absorbs skin oils and perspiration that can cause damage and staining to records. If you will be accessing fragile material w frequently, consider photocopying the original onto acid-free paper, or take a photograph and use the digital image file.
Make photocopies onto acid-free paper to preserve the information on the records, because paper records will degrade over time and become yellow and brittle. Even if documents have tears and holes, try not to repair them using sticky tape or masking tape, as these can cause lasting damage and staining.
Remove any metal fasteners such as staples, metal paper clips or pins, as these can rust. You can replace them with plastic paperclips, or plastic-coated clips.
If a paper record has become damp or mouldy, try drying it out thoroughly in a space with good air circulation - but not next to source of heat such as a heater.
Carefully storing records and photographs, especially if they have been previously damaged by record holders, can play an important role in preventing further damage and helping to ensure their preservation.
It is best to store these items in: