Get It Scrapped Blog » Memory Keeping

What does “archival” scrapbooking mean to you today?

Debbie Hodge — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:47:55 +0000

by Debbie Hodge

“archival” scrapbooking in the 90s

When I began scrapbooking in the mid 90s (this was following the photo-albuming I’d been doing until then) I immediately learned that to scrapbook well, using supplies low in acid content was crucial for my photos’ assured long life. And I believed! Of course I believed: I have several of those peel-away albums (still) degrading my older photos.

There were several years during which I was “archival” compliant (kind of like ISO9000 compliant). And then . . . I got a digital camera and a color printer — and I could, thus, make scrapbook pages with photos I’d just taken. Still I considered these home-printed photos temporary–I wasn’t really sure of the ink and the paper—and it seemed humidity could affect them. So I ordered professionally printed photos and subbed them in . . . as I had time.

The thing is . . . I stopped making time and many pages are still waiting for those professionally printed photos to be subbed in. Every once in a while I pull a few pages and start replacing the home-printed photos–but, dang!, if a lot of my old chipboard alphas aren’t falling off now. Sometimes I get them reaffixed. Other times I put them in a bowl with all of my strays, mostly confident I’ll remember which page they came from.

“archival” scrapbooking in 2010

What happened to me? Why did I let my archival guard down?

You probably know why: because of technology.

I left out part of my story above. Because I was publishing scrapbook pages in magazines for several years, I was scanning all of my pages. Not only was I scanning them—-I was opening them in Photoshop and dragging over DIGITAL versions of the photos so that the scanned pages looked as good as possible. With these scanned pages accumulating –and storing so nicely on my hard drive–I’ve started to lose my sense of urgency about fixing up the paper pages. They are what they are. They’ll last for . . . however long they last. . .and my archives? They’re digital now!

I now make both paper and digital pages, but I always make my paper pages 11.5″ x 11.5″ for easy scanning. And I make sure to scan at 300ppi. I make a variety of albums (either bound at Shutterfly or printed and slipped into page protectors) — and any of them can include any of my paper or digital pages.

When I think about how my family or I might view these pages in 10 years, I imagine it’ll be on something like a digital tablet. Yet, really, I understand that it’ll be on something I haven’t even imagined–but I’m confident it’ll display digital images.

There might be someone who will appreciate my paper pages in the future. . . or maybe not, but I’m no longer worried about my records decaying — in the traditional way. The archival worry now is for the digital medium upon which I store my scrapbook pages. I keep my pages on my computer’s hard drive, and on an external hard drive, and I upload them to Shutterfly, and I use Mozy to back up everything offsite.

And I’m optimistic about the possibilities for preserving, mixing, and sharing all of my “scrapbooked” memories.

A Brief History of Scrapbooking in America

Debbie Hodge — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:32:40 +0000

by Debbie Hodge

From my interview with Patricia Buckler, co-editor of The Scrapbook in American Life in 2006.

“Scrapbooking is not just a craft or a way to pass the time, but a serious activity designed to speak to the future about life as we know it,” says Buckler. The essays in her book are written by historians, librarians, and curators. Think about it: today’s scrapbook is tomorrow’s artifact. My favorite essay described “scrapbook houses,” which were made by girls and women between 1875 and 1920. They were self-contained worlds full of realistic and fanciful details as well as pieces of mass market magazine advertisements–what we would now call “collage albums.” Other essays look at the scrapbooks of a bordello madam, 19^th century medical practitioners, the author Willa Cather, children, and housewives.

Buckler’s advice to current-day scrapbook keepers is to “take to heart the importance of including not only photographs and decorations, but also the actual items that represent your experiences—like tickets, programs, certificates, corsages, wedding invitations, and birth announcements. Otherwise,” she says, “We will lose important artifacts about daily life.” She also encourages writing comments in your own handwriting so that your grandchildren will come to recognize it on other family documents.

Timeline of Scrapbooking/Memory Keeping in America

1^st century BC – 1^st century AD

The Early Greeks used koinoi topoi, or “places in the mind” as memory aids for recreating events and recalling info.

1350 (ish)

The gradual introduction of paper into Europe.

1450 (ish)

The advent of the printing press.

1550 (ish)

With the early Renaissance, artists and collectors preserved prints, bookplates, and other ephemera in albums to make them more available for public use.

1640 (ish)

The Commonplace Book was a blank book kept by both schoolboys and statesmen to gather notes for speeches and writing, and other fragments of memory.

1775

James Granger published a history of England with blank pages so owners could collect and add engravings. Thus, the “Grangerized” book came to mean a printed, bound book with blank pages to be personalized by each owner.

1837

With the invention of photography, photographs could now be put into the albums, and the variety of albums available widened.

1850 (ish)

A variety of patented photograph books and scrapbooks became widely marketed, with Mark Twain patenting and marketing his albums as “the only rational scrapbook the world has ever seen.” His book came with pages already coasted with mucilage, and others followed with improved bindings and methods that made pictures easier to manipulate. (1873)

1880s

Color printing technologies became available and there were a multitude of cheap, color images available to the general public. In the 1880s, there was a fad among U.S. children, especially girls, of making scrapbooks from advertising trade cards, calling cards, religions verse cards and the decorative die-cut paper known as “scrap.” The public education movement commended scrapbook keeping as an educational and moral tool. (1880s)

The “snapshot era” was to begin with Kodak introducing lighter-weight print papers and rolled film.

1940

The emphasis in album keeping became more and more on photographs.

1975

A new and growing interest in genealogy created a resurgence of scrapbook keeping.

1980

The Christensen family displayed 50 family albums at the 1980 World Conference of Records in Utah. Soon after they wrote the book “Keeping Memories Alive” and opened The Annex, the first modern-day scrapbook retail store, in Spanish Fork, Utah. Many Mormon families, are required by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to document their family history. Because of the large Mormon population in Utah, many scrapping companies began there.

1990s

Improved technology allows scrappers to take digital photos, print photos at home, meet and share with other scrapbookers on the Internet and shop for supplies via the Internet. Scrapbooking’s popularity grows.

2000s

Weblogs begin to be used as a place to post thoughts, diary/journal details and photos.

Page layout software, affordable scanners and a variety of new printing options make digital scrapbooking possible. Photos, ephemera and embellishments are created using computer software, saved to a computer file, and stored in a digital album, and/or a printed for inclusion in physical album.

The features of online services like Flickr make online photo sharing and storage affordable and appealing.

Online services let you set up your own photo and video sharing website – your “virtual” scrapbook.

Alternatives to the traditional scrapbook album

Debbie Hodge — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:06:53 +0000

What’s your approach to memory keeping for your family? Do you keep prints of your photos in order in boxes? Do you have everything uploaded to a site like Flickr and organized digitally? Do you make albums? And do you make these albums to share for the whole family or do you make albums for individuals in the family?

Technology has made it possible to easily and affordably replicate photos and scrapbook pages. You can:

print and bind albums of scrapbook pages you have scanned and uploaded
print and bind albums of scrapbook pages you have made digitally
print individual scrapbook pages you have EITHER made digitally or uploaded (in a variety of sizes) and slide into traditional pocket albums
use a service to “slurp” the writing and photos from an online blog and then print them in a bound book

The implication of this is that you no longer need to be scrapping albums for each family member page by page. You may now:

print multiple copies of an album
print customized variations of an album
print multiple copies of a scrapbook page and then put together in a customized album.
print albums and/or pages in different sizes for different people; i.e., 12×12 for your family album and 8×8 for the college-bound son or daughter.

Album pages can be:

photos arranged in standard templates by your online retailer
pages you have digitally scrapbooked
pages you have scrapped with paper
scanned and printed digital copies of scrapped pages

How are you making family and individual albums now? Has technology change your approach? What would you like to know more about?