As most librarians know, it is virtually impossible to stop or reverse the affects of vinegar syndrome and it can spread virally. If you have microfilm that has been produced prior to 1980, read this carefully!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar_syndrome#Decay_and_the_.22vinegar_syndrome.22
http://eleventhstack.wordpress.com/2009/07/16/literary-autodidacts-and-public-libraries/
This is a great article!
I didn’t have to worry about money to go to school/buy books as these literary minds may have but I was still at the library almost every day as a child. Although my choices consisted more of Sweet Valley High and the Box Car Children, I spent A LOT of time reading. It is hard to imagine having limited access to that. In the midst of trying to save dollars, people are forgetting just how much the library contributes to the expansion and growth of our minds and that the short term budget cut solution could be devastating in the long run!
Are you responsible for official document archiving? There’s no time like the present to get important documents in order. Disasters sometimes help people to remember that documents aren’t always replaceable. Read this story as a prime example.
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2009/07/09/news/casper/962e775e463290ee872575ee0003620e.txt
“Historic newspapers supply vital evidence of our history and culture and are used by students, scholars, historians, arts groups, businesses, urban planners, genealogists and others. These primary source materials provide a window into the life of local Oregon communities a century or more ago, covering early environmental preservation, industry, agriculture, urban development, Native American and race relations, the establishment of the state and more.”
I couldn’t have said it much better myself. The case for preservation of newspapers and their use and importance couldnt have been better articulated than this brief quote from folks in Oregon.
With the current clammor for digitization of microfilm images running rampant accross the country, most institutions and government entities have lost sight of the fact that digitization really doesnt preserve history properly. After all is an electronic file capable of many problems including technology changes and obsolescense, and corruption of files even though they may be in redundant forms. It is however, a wonderful advancement in the access of that recorded history.
The wonder of sitting at home over a morning coffee and sifting thru the online images of your family’s history or a front page of a newspaper printed long ago is amazing!
Way cool! I have done that myself. But when newspapers are filmed and preserved on microfilm for estimates of upward of 500 years, it is truly saved for many uses including, digitization for ease of access.
The forethought of that step (microfilming) to preserve is characterized by the millions of hits on our sister site, NewspaperArchive.com. By that access and online availability, historians, schools, families and individuals have instant views of our past.
All because we viewed the importance and used microfilm to properly preserve that paper. It is stable and enduring and despite some that think that microfilm is going away. It simply remains the best format to ensure our history.
My Blog entry this week is from a news article in the April 19th edition of Vermont’s Rutland Herald. Deb Markowitz, Secretary of State writes:
“Last year my office took over responsibility for the public records division of state government, consolidating this department with the State Archives. We undertook a comprehensive and critical examination of all the programs of that division and discovered that tax dollars had been paying for a department that performed work that was obsolete. In our digital age, it is rarely necessary to microfilm records for storage or protection. By eliminating that department, we are saving the state hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and we did it without compromising access to, and the maintenance and preservation of our government records.”
This pronouncement by Vermont’s Secretary of State leaves me bewildered making the assumptions she makes, she doesn’t “get it.”
This thought process as it relates to microfilm’s costs and so called obsolescence is more wide spread than we think. Microfilm as I have stated in earlier posts, is about the ONLY true way to “preserve” important documents. Electronic forms of “archiving” information is just that - archiving. What the good Secretary doesnt understand is that elecronic forms of archiving can become corrupt which renders the information contained, unusable and gone forever. Have you ever lost a digital file or a document and couldnt retrieve it? Imagine what would happen to important State of Vermont documents if those files were to become corrupt in any way. They would be gone, unretrievable and only could hope that the redundency of those files, works.
Don’t get caught thinking that the digital age is the perfect solution to costs and preservation of information. Digital saving of documents is a great avenue for ease of access to those documents and records, but there needs to be a more permanent history that one can have as a fail-safe for important documents. Cost cutting mentality endangers that history.
Just my take for what it’s worth.
Across my desk comes a reminder of a growing problem. Aging acetate microfilm.
Prior to the early 1980’s, most microfilm used for preserving newspapers, documents and even movie film, was made with cellulose triacetate. “Acetate” as it is commonly known became the standard from the 1930’s to the late 1970’s when production ended. No one really had taken into account various methods of storage and handling, thus resulting in a wide-spread deterioration of all acetate-based microfilm.
This has resulted in a big problem.
In our industry many libraries, historical societies and others, have much of their preserved history on this material. This presents a financial problem as well as the risk of losing the historical information forever if acetate deteriorates further. So do you have acetate microfilm in your collection?
The first thing we must do is identifiy the material. The best way to begin is to look back at your records and see how much of your collection has been purchased prior to 1980 or so. If you bought reels prior to 1980, there is a good chance it is acetate. Film purchased after 1980 is likely current-day polyester based microfilm. There are other methods of acetate detection.
Hold your reel of film up to the light. If it is acetate, as you look through from the side of the reel, it will be opaque, or light will not easily pass through it. Acetate also had tendencies to curl across the width of the film. There are other scientific chemical tests one may do on their film, but they are usually very expensive and cost prohibitive. So if you detect acetate and it is deteriorating, what do you do?
The first thing that can be done is move it physically to a different environment to hopefully retard further deterioration and damage. Store it in a cool and low humidty environment. Ideally below 50 degrees and humidity at 20%. Keep in mind that will only SLOW the deterioration.
The best long-term way to deal with this problem is to refilm. If originals are still available, it is advisable to refilm onto polyester microfilm and create a new master copy. Since most institutions and organizations destroy the origial hard-copy material, or it is simply not available, the only realistic method to move that historical or preserved information is to make a duplicate or “dupe.” This is assuming that the film has not deteriorated significantly.
Using a silver-negative film ensures the best quality and allows that information to be saved for future use.
So take a look at your material, be proactive to it’s demise and save your historical information properly. Let’s make it last for another 500 years.
Thought I might start my first blog attempt on a subject that might help clarify what we do with newspaper and other historial documents. Do we preserve or do we archive?
The verb “preserve” means to keep up or maintain. So when we “preserve” we maintain a record of that document, historical item or event. In our industry, we make newspapers and the information they contain, available for future generations in a format that is reliable and stable. In the microfilm industry our format has life expectancy of up to 500 years when filmed properly and stored in a proper environment.
Archiving on the other hand can sometimes mean something different. The verb “archive” means to place or store. Something that is archived can be placed anywhere for instance. Newspapers laying flat on a shelf in a library’s basement perhaps. They have been deposited or “archived,” but they are not preserved. See the distinction?
The importance of that distinction, to historians or those seeking to look back at family history for example, means that even though the records have been archived, in order for them to be retrieved or made available they would have been preserved.
That’s my diatribe for the moment. Have a great week everyone.
The Winnipeg Free Press, the oldest newspaper in western Canada, has partnered with U.S.-based Heritage Microfilm and NewspaperARCHIVE to digitize and make its entire newspaper archives available online.(See here) http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/issues/ISArticle.asp?id=97359&issue=03162009
I noticed on a few list serves there has been a lot of talk on this subject I thought I would share a great article on the future of microfilm: by Paul Negus, Managing Director, Genus The Microfilm Shop here
