My albums are done...now what do I do with them?


For starters, if your albums are going to handled alot, you might want to think about 
using page protectors.  They're not practical for every page, such as one that has alot 
of bulky memorabilia on it, but for most pages, they'll protect your work from dirt
and fingerprints, and also protect photo pages from ones that may have acidic memorabilia
and souvenirs on them.

Next word of advice...DO NOT store your albums in an attic or basement!  If they're 
anything like mine, they're prone to leaks, and dampness will definitely destroy your 
albums...as will the stray gnawing mouse *G*.  Don't store them in cedar chests, either.
The wood is acidic, and will discolor and damage your albums as well.

Your best bet is to keep them on a bookshelf, where you keep all your other books...and
if you have small children in the house, keep the albums up high enough that they won't
be able to use them as coloring books when you aren't looking!

A concern of many is what to do to keep your albums safe in the event of a fire or flood.
Basically, there's nothing you can do, unless you were to lock them up in a fireproof
safe-deposit box...which defeats the whole purpose of an album, since nobody will be 
able to look at them.  There are 2 alternatives...the lesser expensive one is to photo-
copy all your pages in color, and assemble them in "backup" albums, which you can then
store in a fireproof safe-deposit box.  The more expensive alternative is to have your 
albums digitally saved, in CD-roms.  (I'll have sources for that on the Links page soon.)
In either case, the originals would be destroyed in the event of a disaster, but at 
least the memories would still be around for future generations to enjoy.