Storage of Old Photos

A few weeks ago, we bumped into an old friend down at the local pub. His name is Arthur, and he runs a self-storage company in the London area. We ended up discussing the Storage of Old Photos.

The Impact of Lockdown on the Self-Storage Business

With the likely impact of more lockdowns due to the Omicron variant of Covid-19, our conversation quickly turned to how he managed his business during the previous lockdowns. Arthur explained that this was a major problem for his business as he required people to constantly arrive at his warehouses to deposit new things or collect existing stored items. But with the lockdown restrictions, the visits were no longer possible.

To overcome this problem, Arthur set up a delivery and collection team using some of his staff that was under-utilized at the self-storage depots. This team would respond to requests from customers who wanted to retrieve or store items. Arthur also set up new payment plans for existing customers, as he realized that many people did not require the use of the self-storage units but could not visit the warehouses due to the Covid restrictions.

These approaches let Arthur’s company keep most of their existing customers (many at reduced rates) while finding many new clients due to their Covid secure delivery and collection service.

Self-Storage of Photographs

Why do we collect old photos? For the memories. In the old days, the only way to keep old photos was in boxes or albums in attics or wardrobes. Now, using a service such as Digitize Media, it is easy to digitize your old photos and slides and save them on the cloud, on drives, disc cards, and even on your smartphone.

One of the major problems Arthur experienced during lockdown was the retrieval of poorly marked boxes as it was unclear what they contained. It was much more time-efficient for his team to simply collect a box rather than open a series of boxes to find the correct one.

The same problem occurs with photos, either digitized or in hard-copy format, as it takes a long time to find what you are looking for in boxes, albums, or digital folders that are not clearly marked.

With physical copies, when people are moving them, many boxes get misplaced and sometimes lost. So, the question arises is, Where is the best place to store your photos?

Is It Safe to Store Photos in A Self-Storage Unit?

Yes, of course, it is secure to use a Self-Storage unit to store your old photos, but will they come out in the same condition as they were stored?

Here are some tips that you may follow before sending your precious photos to the storage unit.

• Organise them. You may opt to start with older ones and end with new ones, so you can easily access all your photos.
• Use the correct storage method. If your photos are sticky, then align them in a catalog, put loose photos in stacks, and for large frame boxed pictures place them in a separate carton.
• Do not pile them up as you may damage the photos
• Only store photos in a climate-controlled storage unit

Best Way for Storage of Old Photos

If you are about to re-organise your, or your loved ones, life or are about to spend a lot more time at home then you may be looking at storing your boxes of old photos.

If you cannot face throwing all those memories away and want a secure solution – even though they take up a lot of space – then a two-phase approach is probably best:

• Use a climate controlled self-storage unit to store the physical copies
• Digitize all the most important images at a professional photo scanning service like Digitize Media which will take very good care of your old photos and slides before returning them to you

In both cases, you will first want to sort and identify the old photos in a careful manner to make it easier to retrieve them!

For more information on digitizing your old photos then contact Digitize Media.