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State Library of New South Wales

Current operations for microfilm at the State Library of NSW

Since 1993, all microfilming carried out on behalf of the Library has been produced to Australian Standard specifications. This entails the production of three generations of film: master negative produced on silver halide, polyester based film; duplicating negative produced on silver halide, polyester based film; and a positive use copy (either produced on silver halide, polyester based film or vesicular film depending upon the material being copied).

Two reliable microfilm bureaux undertake microfilming on behalf of the Library. The Library undertakes quality control checking on a random 10% of the microfilms produced. The master negatives are housed in archival boxes and placed in cold storage at the Government Records Repository at Kingswood. Duplicate negatives and positives are stored on-site at the Library.

What does this mean for the State Library of NSW collections?

It is inevitable that some of the films produced prior to the mid 1980s will be in a state of deterioration. However, the extent and rate of this deterioration is unknown.

Recommendations

  1. That a Library-wide committee (a high level planning group) be established to oversee a survey of our holdings to determine the quantity of films at risk.
  2. The Committee develop a strategy and action plan, taking into account storage for the entire microfilm collection (Mitchell and SRL) for master negatives and duplicating negatives and estimate the costs and timeframe, to ensure the ongoing access to our cellulose acetate collections of enduring value.
  3. The Library contributes to and participates in the Australian Network for Information on Cellulose Acetate (ANICA) to be launched by the NLA in June 2002.

For more information, contact:

Ms Heather Mansell
Manager, Preservation
State Library of NSW
Macquarie Street
Sydney NSW 2000 Australia
Telephone: +61 (0)2 9273 1679
Facsimile: +61 (0)2 9273 1265
Email: hmansell@sl.nsw.gov.au
www.sl.nsw.gov.au


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