Letter to the editor.

Dear Editor:

I am writing because I am concerned about your recent article on preserving memories in the October 2004 issue of Photo Marketing. This article fails to mention Creative Memories, even though we are PMA members and are the largest manufacturer of photo-safe albums and

The article gives the impression that John Porter Everyday Archives is the only company performing dark stability tests. While I recognize the information was included as a quote from John Ratzloff, a cursory examination of our website or a phone call to Creative Memories would have established this information was not correct. In fact, Creative Memories spends nearly $1 million per year performing extensive tests oil all products designed for long-term photo storage. These tests include dark stability, as well as chemical identification, light stability, and the Photographic Activity Test.

Creative Memories goes to great lengths to accurately describe our product offering. We provide our customers with specific definitions for all terms we use to describe our products. These definitions are available at www.creativememories.com/dictionary.pdf.

--Dr. Mark Mizen

Director of Technology Creative Memories

Saint Cloud, Minn.

Editor's note:

The October 2004 article, "Preserving memories in albums that last," was intended to offer a sampling of the archival albums on the market and a look into some research being done regarding what constitutes an archival product. The article was also meant to help define the word "archival" in words of other companies, since there are many definitions available in the industry today. It was meant to get retailers and others in the industry thinking about archival albums, what constitutes an archival product, and why archival products may be important selling points to today's customers.