• Constitutions and bylaws ✔
• Member handbooks and policy statements ✔
• Meeting minutes and supporting documentation ✔
• Reports or key financial documentation ✔
• Organizational histories, reference files, or research material for your group ✔
• Websites, blogs, and other social media (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr) ✔
• Newsletters, fliers, brochures, posters, press releases, and other publications ✔
• Photographs, scrapbooks, clippings, audio recordings, and video ✔
• Correspondence that documents programs, activities, and events ✔

• Active records you regularly refer to conduct your business ✘
  • ​These should be kept until they are no longer active and you are ready to transfer them to us!
• Duplicate copies of publications published by your organization ✘
  • We’ll keep two copies at most.
• Company-wide memos or announcements, unless they relate directly to the group or events in which the groups participated or organized ✘
• Artifacts like trophies or award plaques ✘
• Routine correspondence like requests and acknowledgments ✘
• Routine financial documents like receipts, purchase orders, canceled checks ✘
• Blank forms, letterhead, or other stationery ✘

You can be our eyes and ears – both in seeing what you have and pointing us to what you think we should save. To give some direction (without giving direct orders), we’re interested in collecting things that would show someone 50 years from now what the pieces of the brewing scene were in Oregon.

• We’re interested in things that document an industry including corporate records, technical or legal information, marketing materials, press releases, recipes, practice and production records, and maps with locations.
• We can also document the industry through items like trade periodicals, professional organization publications, reference books, or industry journals.
• Consider doing an oral history interview with us. You can see the full list of OHBA oral histories on this guide. 
• We’d like to have reference and research materials on prominent brewers, people related to the brewing industry, or breweries which includes newspaper or magazine articles, resumes, biographical information, and interviews.
• We collect ephemeral items like beer lists, menus, coasters, posters, brochures, event openings and announcements, or advertisements – all the things you picked up when your favorite brewery first opened.
• Pictures and videos tell a story and record a history in a way documents can’t. These can be archival or historical, but also recent. We’re interested in topics like hop yard and brewery practices, barley harvesting, brewery interiors and exteriors, craft brewing industry pioneers, or important early home brewing events.  
• We have a facility that can safely house rare books and we’re interested in historic or unique published items on the science of hops and barley, the science of brewing, or the history of all facets of brewing in the region.
• And remember, while these things may all seem like physical items you might have gathered, we’re also interested in preserving web sites, blogs, digital images, or social media sites – and we have the tools to do it!

• Document the activities of your company or professional organization. This might mean keeping minutes from meetings, saving copies of publications and flyers, and organizing your photographs.
• Develop a straightforward filing system that works for you. Have a strategy for organizing paper and electronic records. It can be as simple as starting putting things in file folders. 
• Label your materials/folders with full names, dates, and descriptions of events or circumstances. 
• Use good naming conventions for electronic records -- we avoid "IMAGE0001.JPG" and so should you. 
• Keep records together in one central place. Back-up your files and talk about off-site server storage.
• Keep records safe. Store them away from dampness, dust, excessive heat, and sun.
• Remember your non-paper documents. Electronic records can pose software and hardware access problems. Save compact discs, memorabilia, photographs, posters, and tapes, as well as traditional paper documents. Contact Natalia for help an advice with maintaining and transferring electronic files.
• WHEN IN DOUBT, DON'T THROW IT OUT! We can help you decide what to keep and what to toss, so ask for guidance.