orials - Preservation of Documents

- The documents that are being saved outside of the archive centers should be locked in metal and fire safe boxes
where they are protected against fires, earthquakes, water, theft, light (UV rays are one of the biggest damaging
factors), pests, etc.

- The temperature for storage should be between 18 and 22°C and the relative humidity should be between 50 and 70%.

- For magnetic recordings, discs, tapes etc, the temperature should be between 10 and 15°C and with a relative
humidity between 30% to 40%.

- It is believed that it is better to store documents in dry places rather than damp.

- All materials used to house documents such as various folders, envelopes, sheet protectors, and boxes have to be acid
free and clearly labeled and marked with the information about the contents.

- It would be a good idea to enclose a detailed list of the contents for each box or folder holding several documents.

- "Offical" Archival Preservation of the ducuments has of course several more regulations that define everything from
the height of the shelves to electric installation and they vary from country to country.

Where to save and find the documents in Slovenia?

- In Slovenia people can give the documents to the Archive of the Republic of Slovenia (they also accept documents
from abroad but you have to have the permission of the country of the origin) and they will store them free of charge
forever. You can also include a clause forbidding any third person from viewing the documents for an amount of time to
be determined by the owner of the documents.

- The Archive of the Republic of Slovenia also
has a restoration shop where they fix damaged
documents in the style that would have been
used at the time when the document was issued.

- I had the privilege to see this shop and watch
the restoration of papers from the eighteen
hundreds. They also showed us how they fix
books from the 14th century that were hand
written on vellum, a writing surface made of
animal skin, and have cover pages made of
wood. The oldest document they have is from the
year 1163. The archive has around 25 km of
shelves and saves around 220,000,000 documents.
It is comparable to any European archive and has
even higher standards then many of them.