Services
Archival services for families, community organizations, and businesses in New Orleans
Photographs, papers, film, tape, and the digital files that came after them — organized, described, digitized, and preserved to the standard a museum uses for its own collection. On site across Greater New Orleans, or by mail for film.
Start with what you have
Five doors into the same practice.
Every collection is handled with the same method — consult, assess, arrange and describe, digitize and preserve, hand off. What differs is the material and who it belongs to. Pick the page that sounds like your boxes.
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Photos & documents
Family photographs, letters, albums, and papers — inventoried, described, rehoused, and scanned, with a finding aid so your family can search it.
Prints · negatives · slides · albums · letters · papers
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Film
8mm, Super 8, 16mm, and 35mm inspected, repaired, and cleaned by hand before frame-by-frame capture. The step the volume services skip.
8mm · Super 8 · 16mm · 35mm · mail-in
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Video & audio
VHS, camcorder tapes, cassettes, and reel-to-reel audio transferred before the tapes — and the machines that play them — are gone.
VHS · Hi8 · MiniDV · cassette · reel-to-reel
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Community archives
For the organization whose history is in six people's garages. One collection, one catalog, and standards a grant funder and a future partner will both accept.
Nonprofits · congregations · krewes · clubs · neighborhoods
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Business & nonprofit
Records that prove how long you have been here, and a heritage collection you can actually use for the anniversary, the book, and the wall.
Corporate records · founders' papers · marketing archives · anniversaries
What every engagement consists of
Same order · every collection
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01
Consult
A free conversation, on site or from photographs. What is there, roughly how much, what condition it is in, and what you need to be able to do with it.
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02
Assess
Every box opened and listed. Condition problems noted now, not halfway through. You get a written assessment and a proposal with a fixed price for the scope.
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03
Arrange and describe
The collection put in an order that reflects how it was made and used, and described item by item or folder by folder — names, places, dates, and how we know.
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04
Digitize and preserve
Fragile items rehoused in archival enclosures; what merits digitizing captured at archival resolution and named to match. Damaged items needing true conservation are referred to a conservator.
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05
Hand off
The originals back in labeled boxes, the finding aid, the digital files, and a walk-through — including how to keep adding to it.
Who this is for
Three kinds of client. Three different worries.
- Families & estates
- “I inherited this and I’m going to be the one who loses it.” Nothing gets thrown away, everything gets a name, and you end up with something your children can search. Usually starts with photos and documents or a box of film.
- Community organizations
- “Our history is in six people’s garages and two of them have moved away.” One collection, one catalog, standards a grant funder will accept. See community archives.
- Businesses
- “We’ve been here ninety years and we can’t prove any of it.” Records kept for the long term, plus a heritage collection that earns its keep at the anniversary. See business and nonprofit archives.
Formats handled
If it is not here, ask
| Kind | Formats | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Photographs | Prints, negatives, 35mm and medium-format slides, glass plate, tintypes, cabinet cards, albums, scrapbooks | Photos & documents |
| Paper | Letters, diaries, certificates, ledgers, clippings, maps, blueprints, framed and oversize items | Photos & documents |
| Film | Regular 8mm, Super 8, 16mm, 35mm — silent, optical sound, and magnetic stripe | Film digitization |
| Video | VHS, S-VHS, VHS-C, Video8, Hi8, Digital8, MiniDV | Video & audio |
| Audio | Cassette, microcassette, reel-to-reel, oral history recordings | Video & audio |
| Born-digital | Hard drives, CDs and DVDs, memory cards, phone photo libraries, email, websites | Any full-collection project |
Film and tape are the ones with a clock on them. Acetate film shrinks and sours; magnetic tape sheds and the players stop being made. If you have to choose what to start with, start there.
Not sure which page you are? Start with a photo of the boxes.
Four questions and a picture is enough. I’ll tell you what you have, what it needs, and what it would take — honestly, including if what you need is a photo lab and not an archivist.
Book a free consult