The Unofficial Family Archivist: A Guide to Creating and Maintaining Family Papers, Photographs, and Memorabilia

This guide is written for the novice but it does contain a wealth of excellent information. Although I have been doing genealogy for many years, there were still a number of excellent hints contained in the book.

It wasn't what I expected. It was just for people who collect a lot of pictures and articles about ancestors.

In the course of managing a university archives, my colleagues and I often come into contact with smart, interested, conscientious family history researchers who want to do right by their precious family documents and artifacts, but have not been exposed to the do's and don'ts, the so-called "best practices" of the archival profession. For these eager researchers, Melissa Mannon's new book, "The Unofficial Family Archivist" is a god-send. It is written in crystal-clear, jargon-free language, the information is solid and the advice is most practical. Add to that the appealing anecdotal style, glossary of terms, sample documents, finding aids and illustrations, and you have a truly wonderful resource for family historians, genealogists, local historians, and even keepers of the collection of smaller historical societies and repositories. It is true that "many irreplaceable documents [...] are deteriorating among our personal belongings" but this book will certainly help to reduce those losses. Highly recommended.

Melissa Mannon does a terrific job reaching her target audience - people like me who have drawers and closets overflowing with years of family memories in the form of artwork, pictures, letters, and legal documents and not a clue how to maintain or preserve them. Ms. Mannon reduces the technical concepts and terms of the professional archivist or curator to easily grasped and readily performed tips for the family archivist. In addition she provides insights and ideas for how to personalize an archive with family stories, event recollections and thoughts captured on paper or audio, and of course provides practical guidance on preservaton, organization and indexing. I highly recommend it for the custodian of family history, but even more so as a gift to the young family members who will be the future custodians...Ms. Mannon's book is a how-to for avoiding problems, and maximizing the life and enjoyment of family memorabilia!!