Core Preservation Administration Interest Group

Hello Everyone,

We are examining our policies and procedures around nitrate film (sheet and motion picture) in archival collections. We are reaching out to colleagues to get a better sense of how you are dealing with these materials in your collections. If you are willing to share your experience, please answer the following questions. Feel free to email me off list if you prefer.

• Do you permanently retain nitrate film?  
• Do you digitize and de-accession?  
• Where is it stored? Have you ever outsourced storage of nitrate?  
• How do you move nitrate around? 

Thank you!

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Beth Doyle
Head, Conservation Services Dept.
Duke University William R. Perkins Library
She/Her/Hers
b.doyle@duke.edu
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Hi Beth!   We recently revised and reposted our internal policy for Management of Cellulose Nitrate Motion Picture and Still Film, which can help point you to some globally applicable codes and regulations.  The answers to your questions can be simple or complex, but often the answer is "it depends", based on a variety of factors - the mass, the condition, the geographical or building location, and our individual units' collections policies, staffing bandwidth, options for storage, oversight, etc.  Internally, we've been working on a living handbook to help implement our policy. We have a few FAQs that I'll tap to answer your specific questions offline and I'm happy to consult with you.

See also: In collaboration with the AMIA Nitrate Film Committee, we've launched a living bibliography on Zotero.  There are a number of more recent publications included that discuss values (to inform disposition: reasons for deaccession or retention) that may be helpful to you, and newer survey and analytical identification methodologies.  (There is a subject tag structure, but I owe some more organization into subfolders.) In the bib, there is a link to video of an inspection protocol "Film Library Inspection Party (FLIP) by the University of South Carolina's Moving Image Research Collections (MIRC). Check it out, they may be helpful to you in the local area. 

Cheers, 

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Nora Lockshin
Senior Conservator
Smithsonian Libraries and Archives
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Original Message:
Sent: 7/11/2022 12:42:00 PM
From: Nora Lockshin
Subject: RE: Nitrate in library/archives collections

Hi Beth!   We recently revised and reposted our internal policy for Management of Cellulose Nitrate Motion Picture and Still Film, which can help point you to some globally applicable codes and regulations.  The answers to your questions can be simple or complex, but often the answer is "it depends", based on a variety of factors - the mass, the condition, the geographical or building location, and our individual units' collections policies, staffing bandwidth, options for storage, oversight, etc.  Internally, we've been working on a living handbook to help implement our policy. We have a few FAQs that I'll tap to answer your specific questions offline and I'm happy to consult with you.

See also: In collaboration with the AMIA Nitrate Film Committee, we've launched a living bibliography on Zotero.  There are a number of more recent publications included that discuss values (to inform disposition: reasons for deaccession or retention) that may be helpful to you, and newer survey and analytical identification methodologies.  (There is a subject tag structure, but I owe some more organization into subfolders.) In the bib, there is a link to video of an inspection protocol "Film Library Inspection Party (FLIP) by the University of South Carolina's Moving Image Research Collections (MIRC). Check it out, they may be helpful to you in the local area. 

Cheers, 

------------------------------
Nora Lockshin
Senior Conservator
Smithsonian Libraries and Archives
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