Week of June 15th

This week at the History Center, I continued film inspections. I am beginning to think about some of the policies that might be written up based on current practices. I am not sure how policies are generally decided on, but I have some ideas, I am just not completely sure that I am going about this in the proper way. I decided that polices are likely born out of three possible scenarios. 1) Polices are drafted based on theories, they are put into place prior to encountering problems associated with whatever the policy is on. An example would be developing a film storage policy before the institution gets any film. 2) Polices may be drafted based on theories and created as a reaction against problems associated with situation x. The example being “film has always been stored like ‘this’, which is very bad, so a policy is drafted to change existing procedure”. 3) Policies may be drafted based on proper handling of situation x. The example here is “we store film like ‘this’, which is the proper method, we should draft a policy documenting what we do”. I feel like the situation at the History Center is a combination of the second and third examples. There may be more to this, but I have not had a whole lot of time to develop this line of thinking, and I am not entirely sure that it would be worthwhile for me to do so at this time.

My observations this week are this:

Inspection
Films are inspected based on The Film Preservation Guide for Archives, Libraries, and Museums. Films are checked for emulsion and base scratches, dirt, perforation/edge damage and repair, and color fading. The History Center does not currently have the ability to check for shrinkage or warping. The films are identified using size, base material, color/bw, sound/silent, length, collection, title, and collection number.

Processing
Films are taken off of their current reels, which are non archival. They are inspected for the above criteria. During processing, films are transferred to plastic cores.

Storage
Films are stored in archival film containers and stacked on shelving units in the “E Room”. Films are not to be stacked more than 5 high. They are marked with a tag on the outside of the container which has a number that corresponds to the one assigned on the inspection sheet. The split in the core is not used during storage. Films are taped to the core, and the tail is secured with a small piece of tape.

This weekend I plan on reviewing some of the film policies that you (Janet) have provided me. I want to get a better idea of what things need addressed by a film preservation policy. I will use this information to focus my observations. I am also going to put together a small survey and perhaps some interview questions for archives employees, so that I can begin honing in on the institutional attitude.

word count = 495