The Henry Ford had long been concerned about preservation and housing of film negatives and minimizing the damaging effects of the by-products produced by their deterioration. These negatives are a vital resource for historians as well as museum programs. Since 2002 these large collections of film negatives have been stored in cool storage with independent ventilation. We tackled the large collections of film negatives using well-established principles of preservation with several IMLS grants and assistance of a consultant. Now we are looking to improve and update the system and would very much appreciate knowing how other museums, archives, libraries and organizations with large film negative collections handle them. The following are some questions we have:
Are the film negatives stored in freezers or cold storages? What temperature and relative humidity are they kept at? How access issues have been managed if they are kept in freezers? How reformatting nitrates onto modern polyester-based film were handled?What technical standards for reformatting were followed? How quality assurance procedures for a duplication program were set up? How duplicated materials were inspected? What company was used? Were the nitrate collections disposed of after reformatting? Thank you for your comments. Minoo Larson Senior Conservator P: 313.982.6100 Ext. 2588 E: [email protected] The Henry Ford 20900 Oakwood Boulevard Dearborn, MI 48124 www.thehenryford.org<http://www.thehenryford.org> ****** Unsubscribe by sending a message to [email protected] Searchable archives: http://cool.conservation-us.org/byform/mailing-lists/cdl/
