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June 2002 Summary Report
June 2002 Summary Report
The following collections have been processed and relocated
over the last 6 months:
| Frank Johnston |
13,030 negatives |
| 'ANU and Early Canberra' (Robert Strangman) |
6,635 (in process) |
| Athol Shmith |
369 negatives |
| AIS Material Cabinet 62 (in process) |
560 (in process) |
| Total |
20,594 (20/6/02) |
Almost all of these negatives were on cellulose acetate.
The Frank Johnston collection was found to be in uniformly
good condition, and has been relocated to the NLA Cold Store.
The 'ANU and Early Canberra Collection' has now been
identified as belonging to the Robert Strangman Collection. All but 14
negatives are on cellulose acetate and in good condition.14 were found to be on
cellulose nitrate. This collection is almost finished, one subcollection
containing 979 negatives remains to be rehoused.
The Athol Shmith Collection was also on cellulose acetate.
76 out of a total of 369 negatives were found to be actively deteriorating and
smelly (20.6%). These deteriorated negatives are now in the Preservation
Services freezer, the others in the NLA Cold Store.
The AIS collection in Cabinet 62 contains material relating
to Papua New Guinea in the 1950's and 1960's. It was missed when the earlier
AIS material was processed because it was physically located in another area.
Unfortunately, a substantial proportion of the negatives in this collection are
already severely channelled, while most of the rest are actively deteriorating.
Looking at the patterns of deterioration in this collection suggests that film
type is an important factor in determining when a collection or parts of a
collection will 'go' - all the channelled negatives have had a 'U' shaped
notch, while none of the 'V' notched films have been channelled or shown AD
readings greater than 1. This is in spite of the fact that some of the 'V'
notched films are apparently older than the U notched films. It also appears at
this point as though film type could be just as important, if not more
important, than physical proximity to 'smelly' negatives, in determining the
onset of active deterioration. 1
Apart from the physical relocation process, the reporting
process of the project has been refined, and standardised, in order to make the
many details more intelligible to others, such as Special Collections
cataloguers, for example. This information is now available Library wide, in
'Cellulose Acetate' folder on the J-drive. The new reporting format details
factors such as film base, format, how many are black and white vs colour, new
location details of the negatives as well as locations of relevant paper and/or
electronic files relating to the material, as well as the significance, level
of use, discard decision and copy priority rating of the material.
(1) All AIS
negatives are already labelled with 'L' numbers, however, they are physically
arranged by subject, which bears no relationship to the L number. If the data
that has been collected so far is sorted by L number, rather than by PIC number
(which we are assigning and which is an indicator of physical proximity in
storage), it becomes evident that the L number appears to be a better predictor
of deterioration than Pic number.
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