Family History as Archiving

I posted recently about the upcoming Webinar on "Low-cost Ways to Preserve Family Archives" and commented that it was nice to see family collectors were listed in the group of people interested in preserving archival collections.  Often family historians are not included in this type of outreach, so even those who have a more serious interest in preservation don't hear about available opportunities.

There's a recording online of a panel discussion last year in San Francisco that also acknowledged small collections have merit with points that are relevant to family collectors, though the title wouldn't automatically make you think so.  "Radical Archiving as Cataloguing and Social History" was hosted in September 2013 by Shaping San Francisco.  Though the primary focus of the panel was on archives held by alternative and nontraditional (think "radical") groups, some of the discussion touched on independent archives and collections built by ordinary people, which definitely sounds like family historians!  Some of the topics were maintaining a small archive and what to do with materials if the archive needs to close.  The discussion is available in an audio file hosted at the Internet Archive.