Saving Stuff, by Don Williams and Louisa Jaggar
338 pages, published by Simon & Schuster, 2005
Don Williams, senior conservator for the Smithsonian Institution, was given a problem by his friend, writer Louisa Jaggar: how can everyday folk preserve their collectibles and antiques like the pros do, without having to spend decades learning the process? For the most part, Williams and Jaggar are quite successful. This book covers, in simple instructions but great detail, how the average collector can preserve their valuables with the skill of a historical conservator and a target of centuries for survival.
The book is divided into specific category-based chapters, to make it easier to find specific instructions. The chapters cover a variety of collectibles and antiques that the average person would have in their home, from toys to records and photos, to linens and the good silver. The authors say in the introduction that the book isn’t designed to be read from cover-to-cover, but collectors should instead focus on the chapters of interest and ignore the rest.
This does cause for quite a bit of repeated information if you’re interests cover more than one area, and readers may run the risk of ignoring relevant information while glancing over the same warnings (“Wear gloves! Keep out of sunlight!”) over and over. The common warnings for care are significant ones, though, often overlooked by the casual collector who might otherwise leave their collection on a shelf in the livingroom, bathed in sunlight, ready to be pawed by dirty-handed people, and on the verge of being knocked off the shelf by a pet. It should be noted that the primary purpose of the book is preservation, not display, so many of the instructions involve hiding away the object to protect it from damage. The book generally offers some alternatives to be more accessible than others, albeit with the risks emphasized for the reader.
Saving Stuff does its best work when it describes specific tasks, rather than lists of ‘tips’. The projects, easily done by only slightly-handy crafters, range from hanging tapestries in the least damaging way to making a truly eon-surviving time capsule for your family. Some of the ideas are iconoclastic, like his recommendations for wood-care, but the author’s credentials give him a credibility the HGTV people lack in many ways.
If you’re a collector who’s unsure if they’re displaying their oil paintings correctly, concerned about the proper way to store comic books, or at the very least just keep Grandma’s quilts in good shape, this is an excellent, easy-to-follow reference for the average collector. The Wifey also mentioned that this would be a good gift for a newlywed couple or a pair starting a family; these sort of lifestyle changes are full of reasons to start archiving memories, and having this book would be a way to start out on the right foot.
