Archive Stewards

The stories are in your boxes. We help you give them back to the people they belong to.

Museums, libraries, cities, churches and historical societies hold interviews, tapes, journals and photographs that almost no one has read or heard. We turn a collection into a searchable, readable archive on your own address — one you own, control and can take with you — using advanced software tools and careful hands.

Tell us about your archiveSee a working archive
What we do
Digitize
Scanned books, typed transcripts, ledgers and photographs become clean, searchable text and images — page by page, in the order they were kept. Cassette tapes are captured to archival audio on site; originals never leave your building.
Make it readable
Every collection gets a reader on your own address: interviews as chapters, a search box over every word, and a page-turning view where a recording plays while the photographs turn.
Keep it yours
You hold the master copy in a repository of your own, in plain files you can read, back up and move. Your name is on the door: yourname.treasures.ink, or a domain you already own.
Govern access
Private for staff, open to registered family, invite-only, or public — per collection, per book, decided by you, changed by you. Nothing is published without your written terms.
Bring the families in
Descendants find their own people, listen, and add photographs and stories of their own. A named steward keeps each page; nothing is added anonymously.
Stay honest to the record
Every page shows a real document, attributed to its source. Uncertain readings are marked. Corrections live in your copy, and the archive is rebuilt from it.
How it goes
  1. A visit. We look at what you hold, count it, and note its condition and its rights.
  2. A pilot. One collection, start to finish, on your own address — for you and your board to see, asking nothing.
  3. The archive. Volunteers and our tools work through the boxes; you set access as each collection is ready.
  4. Handing over the keys. Your staff run it from a plain dashboard. If you want, your own software assistant can build and update pages for you.
Who it is for

County and city museums · public libraries · municipalities keeping the records of their founding · churches and congregations with journals and rolls · historical societies · charities with a story to keep · and families with a box of tapes and a grandmother who deserves to be heard.

Cost

The pilot is free. After that, small holders pay a modest yearly fee for their address and their reader; larger projects are scoped by the box. Families can be offered a way to sponsor a book or a tape in a loved one's name, with the proceeds going to the holder. Grants exist for exactly this work, and we help write them.

Talk to us
No newsletter, no list. One person reads this and writes back.

Archive Stewards is a service of RoundGoods Consulting Group, LLC · Price, Utah · Working examples: The Helper Museum · treasures.ink