A great challenge: The conservation of information for the future
The archives must constantly balance the legitimate interest of the public and the state administration in using the records with the equal need to ensure their protection as the ravages of time eat away at records, maps, pictures and charters. Archivists attempt to arrest the various processes of gradual decay by arranging good conditions in repositories, while those records which are in constant use (e. g. the copies of church registers), which are easily damagable (e. g. large maps) or which are difficult to read (e. g. carbon copies on inferior paper), are only presented to the reader on microfilm, macrofiche or digital image.
Until recently „modern“ paper (i. e. paper produced after 1850 containing acid) has presented the greatest challenge for preservation. For some years now archivists have also been confronted with an additional and equally urgent problem: the acquisition and long-term preservation of digital records, a task for which only the beginnings of solutions have been discovered.
The restoration department of the Landeshauptarchiv Schwerin treats selected, particularly valuable records, which have to be saved from destruction or are needed for a special occasion, and prepares them for use in the reading room or for lending to an exhibition. External commissions unfortunately cannot be accepted.
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