The video takes viewers inside the preservation lab at the National Archives where specialists construct custom boxes for items as varied as a Cold Warera pistol and a 1761 Indian treaty. The boxes can be simple affairs, built to house a book or extremely complex, holding multiple, related items in multichambered constructions.

Conservation technician Richard Hnat shows how items are digitally measured and conservation specialist Doug Mcrae shows how those measurements are translated into custom instructions for the Archives' automated boxmaking machine. Gail Harriman explains that the materials used to construct housings meet rigid archival standards: acid free, lignin free, high cotton content, etc.