Preserving and Digitizing Old Letters
Items to Preserve
Historical and Personal Letters
Whether your collection of letters supports historical research or represents a family legacy, each item requires careful handling, context, and decision-making to ensure it is preserved responsibly and respectfully.
Letters are the most personal and intimate historical primary sources. A journalist or literary author writes through a specific lens to serve a cultural purpose. Unlike formalized writing, collections of letters give us insight into individual lives, unfiltered due to their familiarity with the recipient and the rawness of the stories they tell. They can also provide insight into the private side of public figures.
Because materials, handwriting, condition, and goals vary widely, each letter collection is approached as a unique preservation project.
A Digital Letter Collection
The steps involved in preserving a collection of letters depend on factors such as paper type, ink, physical condition, and how the materials will ultimately be used.
Our state-of-the-art optical character recognition software has some limitations when it comes to handwritten text. What the software is unable to recognize, our team of seasoned archival experts will transcribe. Anderson Archival takes a technology-forward approach, implementing AI-powered handwritten text recognition where beneficial to a collection.
A digital collection of old letters can be kept for private use, for collections intended for broader access, Anderson Archival and design a custom website that presents materials responsibly and with appropriate context. No two letter collections are alike, and workflows are always customized.
Related Services for Historical Letters Digitization and Preservation
Handwritten Text Recognition
Don't just digitize your handwritten letters, take them to the next level with AI-powered HTR
Rehousing and Archival Storage
Protect original letters with robust storage solutions for flipping through and for posterity
Collection Arrangement
Organize collections in chronological, author, era, or even thematic order
Museum-Quality Digitization
Family history is public history, so we deploy the same techniques for family letters as museum pieces