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Facilities/Storage Options

Humidity controlled cold storage vaults

Many institutions with very large collections in the United States have chosen to store their valuable photographic material in large scale humidity controlled cold storage vaults. The advantage of having a humidity controlled environment is that the material requires no special packaging, which reduces costs in terms of materials and handling, especially where very large collections are concerned.

There are a number of humidity controlled cold-stores used by a variety of institutions in Australia (see Appendix 1). These may house valuable polyester or acetate masters, among other materials. Because of the volatile acids released by degrading cellulose acetate, many cold store managers have concerns about accepting cellulose acetate, and particularly degraded cellulose acetate, into their vaults. Although controlled results are not available, the ability of acetic acid vapours to initiate and/or accelerate the deterioration of other nearby materials is well known. However, whether this is likely to be a problem if the materials are not in direct contact with each other, and the storage area is well ventilated, is not known with any certainty.

Domestic frost-free freezers

According to McCormick-Goodhart,

“… a careful economic assessment of the extra material and labour costs associated with packaging methods will show that it is cost-effective for small to medium size collections up to and including those which would normally occupy a storage area of 100m2. With this size of photographic collection, the material and labour costs associated with packaging and reuse are more than offset by the lower operating cost of a conventional freezer when compared to the operating cost of the custom dehumidified vault design …” (McCormick-Goodhart, 1999, p.22).

For small collections, Henry Wilhelm9 advises the use of domestic frost-free freezers. However, domestic frost-free freezer units usually maintain humidity levels between 50% - 70%, which are too high for storage of cellulose acetate. The material therefore needs to be sealed to protect it from the high humidity levels. A system similar to the CMI package (section Enclosures ) may be useful.

Domestic frost-free refrigerators

In his book “The Permanence and Care of Colour Photographs”, Henry Wilhelm advocated the use of frost-free refrigerators for the storage of photographic film. Since that time, there have been concerns that the relative humidity inside a frost-free refrigerator is not suitable for the gelatin emulsion. Therefore it is suggested that if using frost-free refrigerators, the objects be enclosed in sealed enclosures with some form of buffering material. Again, a system similar to the CMI package (section Enclosures ) may be useful.


(9) Henry Wilhelm (1993) “The Permanence and Care of Colour Photographs: Traditional and Digital Colour Prints, Colour Negatives, Slides, and Motion Pictures”. Iowa: Preservation Publishing Company


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