A conservation guide: tape, disc and paper

Every collector starts by accumulating and, at some point, becomes a museum conservator without the diploma. The good news: the basic principles are simple, cheap and apply to almost everything — magnetic tape, optical disc, vinyl and paper.

Golden rules

• A stable, moderate temperature: sudden swings condemn any format.
• Humidity under control: mould is irreversible in tapes and sleeves.
• Away from the sun: direct light fades the sleeve, the label and the film itself.
• Upright: tapes and discs stored on their edge, with no weight on top.
• Clean hands; hold discs by the edge, never by the recorded surface.

VHS tapes and cassettes appreciate a full rewind from time to time, and a respectful distance from speakers and magnets. Vinyl wants an antistatic inner sleeve and a carbon-fibre brush before every play; wet cleaning solves the more serious cases.

DVDs and Blu-rays prefer closed cases to plastic wallets — and be suspicious of any surface that “looks clean”: micro-scratches come from bad cleaning, always in radial strokes, from the centre outwards, with a microfibre cloth.

Paper — posters, magazines, booklets — lives better in PVC-free sleeves and far from adhesive tape. And catalogue everything: a simple spreadsheet turns a pile into a collection. Yours is an archive; treat it as one and it will outlive many streaming catalogues.