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Meet the experts working to preserve Ukraine’s cultural history

<p dir="ltr">As the war in Ukraine wages on, officials are growing increasingly concerned about the preservation of the country’s art history and cultural heritage. </p> <p dir="ltr">As historic museums and buildings are being bombed by the Russian offensive, while precious artefacts are being stolen and looted. </p> <p dir="ltr">"We have museum buildings destroyed, with all collections turned into ashes — it's quite a barbaric situation," curator and art historian Konstantin Akinsha tells <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-roundtable/13821526">ABC RN's Sunday Extra.</a></p> <p dir="ltr">"[The] other side of the problem is that in little towns which are occupied by Russians, we have the first cases of random looting of museums."</p> <p dir="ltr">Recently, Scythian gold artefacts dating back to the fourth century BC were stolen from a museum in the southern Ukraine town of Melitopol.</p> <p dir="ltr">Officials in Ukraine said Russian soldiers were accompanied by an unknown expert "in a white coat", who carefully extracted the ancient gold artefacts from cardboard boxes hidden in the museum's cellar.</p> <p dir="ltr">"This is one of the largest and most expensive collections in Ukraine, and today we don't know where they took it," Melitopol mayor Ivan Fedorov said at the time.</p> <p dir="ltr">Mr Akinsha, who is an expert on the cultural destruction of World War II, says he is now “reliving” what he learned during his studies “in real time”. </p> <p dir="ltr">He has been in contact with many curators and artists throughout the conflict, and reports that many museums have been unable to evacuate their collections in time. </p> <p dir="ltr">Moving them outside of Ukraine would be highly political and would require permission from national authorities. This has meant some of those looking after art have been forced to pack up the collections and live in the museums' cellars.</p> <p dir="ltr">According to Ukraine officials, more than 250 cultural institutions have been damaged or destroyed since the conflict began in February. </p> <p dir="ltr">Since the start of the war, members of the ALIPH Foundation, an international alliance that works to protect cultural heritage both during and post conflict, has been helping cultural heritage professionals and museum directors in the Ukraine.</p> <p dir="ltr"> They have sent crates, packing material and fireproof blankets to institutions to help protect collections and respond to their needs.</p> <p dir="ltr">"The storage facilities themselves need to be up to standard … [they] need to have proper humidity control, be away from the elements and the packing boxes need to be of a certain calibre in order to protect the artefacts because these artefacts are, of course, precious and fragile," said Sandra Bialystok, the communications and partnerships officer for ALIPH Foundation.</p> <p dir="ltr">Despite the huge challenge of protecting these cultural works, Konstantin Akinsha said their preservation is uniting the people of Ukraine. </p> <p dir="ltr">"In individual towns and villages attacked by Russians and occupied by Russians, people are trying to save objects from the local museums, hiding them in their houses," he says.</p> <p dir="ltr">"Because for them, this heritage is extremely important – it's part of their life.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

Art

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Ukraine launches online “museum” to preserve the nation’s art

<p dir="ltr">Ukraine has launched a unique NFT museum to preserve the “statehood and history of Ukraine” while supporting artists struggling from the Russian invasion. </p> <p dir="ltr">Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Alex Bornyakov announced plans for the website, titled “<a href="https://metahistory.gallery/">Meta History: Museum of War</a>,” on <a href="https://twitter.com/abornyakov/status/1507341599394746410?s=20&amp;t=935nfhKtmG8B1WABTQJA5w">Twitter</a>. </p> <p dir="ltr">The site also includes a “<a href="https://metahistory.gallery/warline">warline</a>,” a timeline of events, each of them accompanied by a corresponding NFT.</p> <p dir="ltr">Each NFT features a tweet from a significant moment in the war, with a corresponding illustration by various Ukrainian artists. </p> <p dir="ltr">For example, one NFT features a tweet from NATO calling on Russia to halt the invasion on Day 3 of the war at 4:40pm Ukrainian time. The accompanying graphic depicts a compass with a bullhorn attached illustrated by artist Alina Kropachova.</p> <p dir="ltr">The NFTs are now on sale, with all proceeds going directly to the Ministry of Digital Transformation. </p> <p dir="ltr">The Meta History twitter describes the project as one that fights against Russian dissemination of fake news and propaganda using the permanent ledger that is the blockchain.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Disinformation is used by Russia on a par with deadly military weapons in Ukraine. The NFT-museum is based on a deep intention to keep the memory of real wartime events via blockchain and raise charitable donations to support Ukraine,” reads one <a href="https://twitter.com/Meta_History_UA/status/1508150728572952586?s=20&amp;t=ICoQhq8aZtNSu_VUtAHStQ">tweet</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">The unique project follows a number of successful fundraising campaigns in the war-torn country through the use of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. </p> <p dir="ltr">The <a href="https://www.ukrainedao.love/">UkraineDAO</a> NFT project has raised over $5 million, which is just one of the many ways people are raising money for the people of Ukraine. </p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

Art

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66 million-year-old perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo found

<p><em>Images: Courtesy Shoulin Animation &amp; Getty </em></p> <p>Scientists are showing off a perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo fossil that was preparing to hatch from its egg, much like a modern-day chicken.</p> <p>The embryo fossil, nicknamed “Baby Yingliang,” was discovered in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province in southern China, and is believed to be at least 66 million years old.</p> <p>Researcher Dr. Fion Waisum Ma told the AFP News Agency that this discovery is “the best dinosaur embryo ever found in history.”</p> <p>According to a study, researchers at a Chinese mining company, Yinagliang Group, found the egg fossil more than 20 years ago, but put it in storage with other fossils for 10 years.</p> <p><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.25px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7846550/new-project.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/8b66ef36cdec4b21b7bfdff89ef98730" /></p> <p>When construction began on the company’s natural history museum, the fossil storage was sorted, and museum staff pulled the dinosaur eggs from the collection for closer examination. That’s when they noticed some bones on the broken cross section of one of the eggs.</p> <p>Researchers say the egg belonged to a toothless theropod dinosaur, or oviraptorosaur. Ma and fellow colleagues found Baby Yingliang’s head below its body, with its feet on either side and back curled. This posture is familiar in modern birds but not previously seen in dinosaurs.</p> <p>Researchers believe the animal was on the verge of hatching, but it was likely preserved when it was buried by a sudden mudslide.</p> <p>Oviraptorosaurs, one of the closest relatives to the bird, evolved earlier from small, feathered dinosaurs. This group of dinosaurs was still blossoming and diversifying during the last few million years before an asteroid struck Earth about 66 million years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs.</p> <p>The baby dino measures about 27 centimetres long and is currently on display at the Yinglliang Stone Natural History Museum. Most likely a herbivore, it would have grown to be about three metres long if it lived to adulthood.</p> <p>“We were surprised to see this embryo beautifully preserved inside a dinosaur egg, lying in a bird-like posture. This posture had not been recognized in non-avian dinosaurs before,” Waisum Maof of the University of Birmingham, told CBS News.</p> <p>Despite fossilised dinosaur eggs having been found during the last 100 years, a well-preserved embryo is extremely rare, the researchers said in their study. Paleontologists have found them over the years only six times.</p>

International Travel

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Why this Coles cake is causing concern amongst customers

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A Brisbane mother has been left in disbelief after finding a piece of cake she bought from Coles on her partners desk for two months, still perfectly intact.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Brittnee Rose was concerned about the levels of preservatives within the cake, which she purchased to celebrate Mother’s Day with her family back in May.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">She shared a photo of the cake to Facebook.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I decided to clean my partner's office and just found this Coles drip cake from Mothers Day!” she wrote.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Gross I know! You'd think it would be mouldy ... we didn't like the taste and thought it tasted too much like preserver and now we know why,” she wrote. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ms Rose spoke to </span><a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/brisbane-mum-shocked-coles-drip-cake-amount-preservatives-084717017.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Yahoo! News Australia</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> saying that nobody in her family of four children under the age of six, as well as three adults, enjoyed the taste of the cake.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><img style="width: 300px; height: 300px; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7829074/3403499.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/8b07e19eb4ff4da2b4fb10e1269bd742" /></span></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Coles Drip Cake</span></em></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“It tasted too much like preservatives,” she said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Her partner had taken a piece of cake to the office with the intention of eating it but had forgotten about it.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">He was reminded a few weeks later but wanted to know whether or not it would get mouldy. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“He said it got to a point where he wondered if it would go mouldy, so he just left it there,” she said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ms Rose received a reply from Coles concerning the taste of the cake instead of her main concern as to why the cake wasn’t green with mould after two months.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"I was more shocked at their response regarding taste over and lack of concern for a cake that should be green with mould after essentially two months in a room," she told </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Yahoo News Australia</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Coles said in a statement to </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Yahoo News Australia</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that they didn’t pack their cakes with preservatives.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Mould requires air and moisture to grow and food left uncovered in an air-conditioned environment would dry out very quickly on the surface, creating a dry crust, which may prevent the occurrence of visible mould,” the supermarket stated.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">”Our Coles Drip Cake, like all Coles Brand products, contains no artificial colours or flavours.”</span></p>

Food & Wine

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Preserving Singapore’s hawker culture

<p>During the recent National Day Rally in Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke of the country’s plan to nominate hawker culture for Unesco’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.<br /><br />Let’s break down what that means:</p> <div class="view view-article-slider view-id-article_slider view-display-id-article_slider_block view-dom-id-d2af67d470943b3427b9defbec3eb04b"> <div class="view-content"> <div class="views-field views-field-field-slides"> <div class="field-content"> <div class="field-collection-view clearfix view-mode-full field-collection-view-final"> <div class="entity entity-field-collection-item field-collection-item-field-slides clearfix"> <div class="content"> <div class="field field-name-field-slide-title field-type-text field-label-hidden"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item even"><strong>What is the URLICHH?</strong></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-slide-content field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item even"> <p>Just what is the Unesco Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity?</p> <p>While the name may be a mouthful, simply put, it’s a list of important cultural practices and heritages from around the world that need to be preserved or safeguarded.</p> <p>These can include oral traditions, rituals, performing arts or traditional craftsmanship, among others.<br /> <br />The list was started in 2008 and currently has about 400 elements, covering such diverse practices as the traditional art of Jamdani weaving in Bangladesh to the scissors dance of Peru.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="views-field views-field-field-slides"> <div class="field-content"> <div class="field-collection-view clearfix view-mode-full field-collection-view-final"> <div class="entity entity-field-collection-item field-collection-item-field-slides clearfix"> <div class="content"> <div class="field field-name-field-slide-title field-type-text field-label-hidden"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item even"><strong>Why Singapore hawker food?</strong></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-slide-content field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item even"> <p>Hawker food is said to be an intrinsic and integral part of Singaporean life.</p> <p>PM Lee described hawker centres as the nation’s “community dining rooms” and has said that preserving hawker culture “will help to safeguard and promote this unique culture for future generations”, while also letting “the rest of the world know about our local food and multicultural heritage”.</p> <p>There are more than 6000 cooked food hawkers in over 110 hawker centres around the island, and they’re not just the go-to places for affordable and good food – 28 of them have even received the 2018 Michelin Bib Gourmand award.</p> <p>Anyone can<span> </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.oursgheritage.sg/" target="_blank" title="" data-original-title="">go to this website</a><span> </span>to pledge their support for the cause.</p> <p>The nomination will be submitted to Unesco by March 2019 with results expected to be announced at the end of 2020.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="views-field views-field-field-slides"> <div class="field-content"> <div class="field-collection-view clearfix view-mode-full field-collection-view-final"> <div class="entity entity-field-collection-item field-collection-item-field-slides clearfix"> <div class="content"> <div class="field field-name-field-slide-title field-type-text field-label-hidden"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item even"><strong>Does everyone agree with the nomination?</strong></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-slide-content field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item even"> <p>There’s been an uproar from neighbouring Malaysia, with the argument that many other countries also have unique street food cultures.</p> <p>Malaysian celebrity chef, Chef Wan, called the move “arrogant behaviour”, while another celebrity chef, Datuk Ismail Ahmad, described Singaporean hawker centres as being “beautiful but tasteless”.</p> <p>This isn’t the first time the two countries have had a<span> </span><a rel="noopener" href="http://www.readersdigest.com.au/food-home-garden/dishes-dispute" target="_blank" title="" data-original-title="">war of words over food</a>.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="views-field views-field-field-slides"> <div class="field-content"> <div class="field-collection-view clearfix view-mode-full field-collection-view-final"> <div class="entity entity-field-collection-item field-collection-item-field-slides clearfix"> <div class="content"> <div class="field field-name-field-slide-title field-type-text field-label-hidden"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item even"><strong>What are the other Asian cultures already included?</strong></div> </div> </div> <div class="field field-name-field-slide-content field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"> <div class="field-items"> <div class="field-item even"> <p>While this will be Singapore’s first attempt to be included, many of its Southeast Asian neighbours are already listed.</p> <p>Vietnam, for example, has 12 elements inscribed, including ca tru singing, which is a complex form of sung poetry from the north of the country, and tugging rituals and games, which are played among rice-farming cultures to ensure prosperity and a good harvest.</p> <p>The latter is also practised in the Philippines. Malaysia has Mak Yong theatre, an ancient theatre form originating from the villages of Kelantan.</p> <p>Three more nominations are still being considered.</p> <p>Indonesia also has several entries on the list, including the wayang puppet theatre, the musical instrument known as the angklung, and batik.</p> <p><em>Written by Siti Rohani. This article first appeared in </em><span><a href="http://www.readersdigest.com.au/travel/preserving-singapores-hawker-culture"><em>Reader’s Digest</em></a><em>. For more of what you love from the world’s best-loved magazine, </em><a href="http://readersdigest.innovations.com.au/c/readersdigestemailsubscribe?utm_source=over60&amp;utm_medium=articles&amp;utm_campaign=RDSUB&amp;keycode=WRA93V"><em>here’s our best subscription offer.</em></a></span></p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <p><img style="width: 100px !important; height: 100px !important;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7820640/1.png" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/f30947086c8e47b89cb076eb5bb9b3e2" /></p>

International Travel

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4 tips to preserve your family history

<p><em><strong>Simon Cunich is an award-winning documentary director and founder of <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.heirloomfilms.com.au/" target="_blank">Heirloom Films</a></span>, an innovative service helping Australians record their life stories.</strong></em></p> <p>Family history is about more than just names and dates. It’s also about memories and stories.</p> <p>Think ahead 60 years. Imagine being able to watch a movie with snippets from your life in 2016. Or if you’re no longer around in 2076, image your children or grandchildren being able to watch that movie.</p> <p>The video above is an excerpt from a life story film produced by Heirloom Films. It is of <a href="/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/06/my-grandmas-dementia-diagnosis-led-me-to-create-heirloom-films/" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">my grandmother, Lesley</span></strong></a>, and includes home movie footage that lets me and my family travel back in time to a day in 1957 when she and her kids were playing in the backyard.</p> <p>Here are some tips to make sure videos and photos like these will be around in another 60 years.</p> <p><strong>1. Digitise your family photo collection</strong></p> <p>Most families have large photo collections that go back many years. Maybe they’re in crumbling albums or tucked away in shoeboxes at grandma’s house. They’ve probably faded over time and that’s only going to keep happening.</p> <p>The first step to preserving those memories is to make digital copies. You can do this yourself at home with a good scanner and a bit of time. To get the best quality scan the photos at a resolution of 600dpi and scan negatives or slides at the highest settings possible.</p> <p>If you’re staring down a tower of photo albums the task of scanning them all yourself might seem a bit daunting. Luckily it’s becoming more affordable to hire professionals to do it for you. You can get thousands of photos digitised for under $500, which might be the best investment you can make to preserve your family history.</p> <p>The same applies to home movies, whether they’re on film reels or in more recent (but increasingly redundant) formats like DVD.</p> <p><strong>2. Organise and label photos</strong></p> <p>It’s not going to be very interesting or useful for future generations if they have thousands of old family photos but no idea who’s who.</p> <p>Once you’ve made digital copies of your photos spend the time sorting them into folders and labelling them. There are various ways to do this including software that allows you to add metadata to images. But the simplest method is to rename the files, adding people’s names, places and dates into the file names.</p> <p><strong>3. Back it up!</strong></p> <p>Just because you have digital copies of your family archive it doesn’t make them safe forever. Make sure you have multiple copies in multiple locations, and consider making one of those places cloud-based storage.</p> <p>Digital files and hard drives also ‘fade’ over time. File formats and technology will change in ways we can’t predict now so this process is something you’ll have to return to over time to make sure you’re keeping up with the changes, and keeping your family archive safe.</p> <p>The same applies to more recent photos that started their lives as digital files on your phone or camera. If you have them saved to one computer (or just uploaded to Facebook) they won’t be very future proof.</p> <p><strong>4. Capture stories</strong></p> <p>Often people get so focused on researching their genealogy or preserving archives they forget to record their living family history. Capture the stories of your parents and grandparents any way you can – text, audio or video.</p> <p>Stories are what will give all those photos and home movies meaning.</p> <p><em>First appeared on <a href="http://heirloomfilms.com.au/" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Heirloom Films.</span></strong></a></em></p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><a href="/lifestyle/family-pets/2015/12/life-lessons-from-grandparents/"><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Top 10 life lessons kids learn from grandparents</span></em></strong></a></p> <p><a href="/lifestyle/family-pets/2015/10/quotes-about-siblings/"><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">9 heart-warming quotes about siblings</span></em></strong></a></p> <p><a href="/lifestyle/family-pets/2015/10/role-of-grandparents/"><em><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">The 10 “types” of grandparents</span></strong></em></a></p>

Family & Pets

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The best way to preserve photos and documents

<p>There’s nothing more important than memories. Especially those from long ago and even family ones that came before your time. The preservation of such memories usually comes in the form of precious photos and documents. We’ve done the legwork for you and come up with the tips and tricks you need to know to ensure your black and white pics and old documents stand the test of time.</p><p><strong>Work out its future use</strong><br>It is important to think about how you want to use your documents and photos in the future. This will impact how and where you store them. For instance, if it’s your birth certificate there may be times when you need to use the original and therefore you will need to store it somewhere that you can easily retrieve it without unsettling other documents it's stored with. So it’s a good idea to separate photos and documents into frequent use and non-frequent use. You may also want to do the same for very precious ones and not so precious ones. Then you can make/label your folder, boxes and so on accordingly for storage.</p><p><strong>Go digital</strong><br>As well as physical copies, it's worthwhile to have digital copies of everything too. For instance, you may need to get a document out of storage for a date rather than having the supply a document to someone – and in the case it would be much easier if you had a folder on a computer that housed all of your documents and photos in sub folders. Ah, isn’t organisation grand! Remember if you’re naming lots of documents, be sure to be as descriptive as possible so that you can use the search tool rather than going into various folders and trawling through countless images and documents. For example, for an image you may want to use something like, “Mother’s Day picnic Sydney 1984” or “Grandma Jennifer Coles birth certificate”. Then you can further organise folders by creating them by event, family, surname or by type of record. Creating digital versions of your documents also makes them easier to print and share, too, which is very handy.</p><p><strong>Make it compatible</strong><br>When saving your photos and documents, make sure you save them in a format that will be compatible when sending, sharing and printing too. Jpeg and Pdf are the most common format for these uses.</p><p><strong>Handling and care</strong><br>It should go without saying that you should never eat food and drinks around your documents and photos. You should also ensure any surface areas surrounding where you get documents out and place them onto, should be clean and dry. And the most important one, always ensure hands are clean or that you wear disposable cotton or surgical-type gloves and you hold documents and photos on the sides and corners to minimise fingerprints and other damage. When carrying these types of things from room to room or around, use a rigid support system, such a piece of cardboard to transport things around.</p><p><strong>Preserve and storage</strong><br>Photographs and paper documents are prone to various types of deterioration. The prime causes being atmospheric pollutants, physical fragility and chemical instability. A storage area with a stable climate is recommended. Avoid high temperatures and humidity levels. Temps between 18 to 20<span class="st">°C</span> ad at a relative humidity between 45 to 50% are desirable. Note that wide fluctuations in this can physically stress documents and accelerate their deterioration. A sustained relative humidity over 65% is when mould growth can occur. A cupboard in an internal room that does not contact external walls can help buffer photographic records from daily temperature and humidity fluctuations. Ensure you turn off the light when you don’t need it on and inspect storage areas regularly for insects, water leaks, structured damage or other events that may threaten them. Lighting is an important one as material degrade more quickly when exposed to light. Don’t apply labels or stamps directly onto photographs or documents – this should be done to the packaging. The best thing to use is a soft, 2B graphite pencil. Never use metal pins, staples, paper clips, rubber bands or adhesive tape to secure these things. Corrugated board storage boxes can provide a convenient micro environment by buffering documents from the full effects of temperature and humidity. For storage within the boxes or cupboards, simple archival enclosure such as folders, wallets and paper cards protect paper-based items against things like light and dust. Choose a high-quality paper product for long-term storage.</p>

Family & Pets

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8 tips to preserve old photos

<p>We all have a stack photographs so precious that if anything happened to them we’d be devastated. From deterioration to damage, photos are fragile items that need a little bit of care. So don’t wait until it’s too late, take a look at our top tips to keeping your photos is good shape so they can be shared and enjoyed for years to come.</p> <p><strong>Handle carefully</strong></p> <p>Our hands contain dirt, dust and oils that can damage photos. When handling old photos, it is a good idea to wear cotton gloves. If that is not possible, make sure you wash your hands thoroughly with soap before touching any photos.</p> <p><strong>Store safely</strong></p> <p>Store your photos in a cool, dark and dry place. High temperatures and exposure to light will quickly fade photos. Fluctuating humidity will also cause prints to curl and crack. So remember to keep photos away from heated places like fireplaces and avoid water damage by storing them on high shelves.</p> <p><strong>Avoid tape or glue</strong></p> <p>Never use tape or glue to mend photos or hold them in albums. Both contain chemicals that can damage photos. If a photo tears, place it in a clear polyethylene envelope to prevent further tearing or use special photo-safe glue or tape. Also avoid paper clips and rubber bands. While these are quick storage techniques, they can very easily damage photos.</p> <p><strong>Stop writing</strong></p> <p>We are all guilty of writing on the back of photos to remember people, locations and dates, but most ink contains acids that will stain your picture over time. Instead use an acid-free photo marking pen or a pencil. Make sure you are not pushing too hard when writing. </p> <p><strong>Separate from newspapers</strong></p> <p>Newspapers have acid in the paper that can ruin photos. If you want to pair photos and newspaper clippings, photocopy the newspaper onto acid-free paper. </p> <p><strong>Digitise photos</strong></p> <p>Digitising your photos ensures you have a backup if anything happens to the physical copies. It’s also a great way of sending and sharing photos to family and friends. You can create digital copies by either scanning the photos yourself or pay a professional. Doing it yourself might be time consuming but is rewarding as you get to sort through all your old pictures.</p> <p><strong>High-quality albums</strong></p> <p>Avoid cheap photo albums and plastic storage boxes that aren’t specifically made for storing photos. Look for albums that hold photos on a polyethylene page or store photos in acid-free paper boxes.</p> <p><strong>Make copies</strong></p> <p>Do not display the original photos in frames as sunlight can cause the photo to fade. Instead make a copy to frame and store the original safely away. </p>

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