All the efforts involved in establishing a church archives can be meaningless if all our historical materials will be unusable in 25 years. Most church archives will not be blessed with having a trained archivist or conservator to operate the archives. Many sophisticated techniques used in the restoration of material cannot and should not be attempted by church archivists. There are measures and actions, though, that can be taken to lengthen the life span of church archives collections. The material nature of the archival record is diverse.
Paper is the most common material found in archival collections.
Leather, cloth, film-based material, photographic image and tape recordings can also be found in archives. A majority of our historical records are maintained on highly acidic paper. It has been determined that acidity is one of the primary causes of paper deterioration. Most of the paper produced today has a life expectancy of less than 50 years. The rate of deterioration is dependent upon several external factors, such as environment, storage conditions and handling procedures.