to keep or not to keep?

Last night Chris and I were in our basement, having just completed an Insanity workout and waiting for Modern Family to come on, when I suddenly had all this energy.  I needed to do something!  I did some yoga poses (mainly balance poses) but was a little shaky, so I turned my attention elsewhere.  I thought, perhaps I would go through stuff in the basement to see what needs to be taken to the thrift store.  When I mentioned this to Chris, he naturally got a little anxious, and told me not to touch his stuff.  ;)

So I started looking in a few of the drawers down there, and aside from guitar picks and strings (Chris's), pens and some paper, and a deck of cards, there was little for me to go through, let alone ditch take to the thrift store.  Truly, the only things that are down there, that I consider truly mine (and therefore can decide their fate), are my photo albums and movies.

I don't have that many movies and the ones that I do have I watch (Chris has gotten so used to the Pride and Prejudice music that I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote lyrics to it; although, in my defense I watched it recently for the first time in years. . . yep, years!).  So, I started turning my attention to my scrapbooks.  Working at a special collections library, I appreciate how scrapbooks, diaries, and correspondence provide us with a glimpse into the lives of earlier people.  I think I've reached a point where I don't need my scrapbooks from earlier travels, but I can't throw them out.  I would rather donate them to a special collections library, but would they want them now?  Obviously, I wouldn't want to part with all my memories, and the scrapbooks of Chris and I on our honeymoon and travels overseas I would keep.  But, in the last 20 years I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've looked at the scrapbook from my 1997 trip to the Pacific Northwest with my family.

I know some bloggers out there deal with this by scanning the pages and keeping a digital copy and ditching the paper.  But in the archival world, this is creating a void.  I mean, who writes letters anymore?  And who keeps years of email correspondence?  We are obviously losing touch with our ability to leave a legacy for future researchers, and I don't want to be a part of that.  In fact, one of the reasons I waited so long to write a blog was because I didn't want to give up my journaling.  But I think I can manage both.  Now I just have to decide whether to hold onto these scrapbooks for another 20 years or to donate them.  Suggestions?