Month: June 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the Spring 2021 semester, the RML project supported three interns from the NYU Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. Each intern was hosted by an organization located on Long Island, which includes Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, and Kings counties. The following post is from Ana Salas, who interned at Queens Museum.

For my first internship, I worked at Queens Museum as part of the Regional Media Legacies Project (RML) which is supported by the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. My duties primarily included updating the inventory and performing inspections. To update the inventory, I opened every box and pulled out every item; this way I could ensure the item was still in the same location and appeared to be in good condition. 

While updating the inventory I found films with mold on them. 

I had learned about mold in my Conservation and Preservation class during my first semester in the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program at NYU. We learned how mold can be detrimental and dangerous to both the items it affects and the archivists handling them. I had seen mold on media before on my grandma’s old photographs she kept stored in a cardboard box in her room. She lives in Costa Rica, where houses don’t typically have temperature control or humidity control. Due to the constant high relative humidity levels, the inactive mold on my grandma’s old photographs became active. Everything I had ever learned and seen about mold on media was terrifying. 

Naturally, I was startled when I saw the mold on the films at Queens Museum, and I wondered where and for how long the films had been stored. The labels dated the films between 1960 and 1965, so I assume in the sixty or so years it took for the films to come into my life, they probably lived in a moist basement with little ventilation. I knew the films needed to be cleaned right away before the mold could continue to grow and spread. But out of everything I had learned and seen about mold, I never learned how to get rid of it. I quickly began my research to find a solution. 

From my initial research, I learned that most sources will tell you to seek professional help when faced with mold, but they don’t really tell you what is considered a ‘professional’ or where to look for one. I assumed a film lab would be considered a ‘professional,’ but I quickly realized film labs and mold remediation can be expensive. I tried to look for organizations in the area that were willing to do the mold remediation at a lower cost. My internship supervisor thought if we could find an organization that could use this mold remediation to create documentation or teach a workshop, then in exchange, we wouldn’t have to pay full price for the procedure. 

I performed a series of Google searches but came up with nothing. I knew what I was looking for was probably out there and I simply wasn’t performing the right queries. I also knew this was a matter of urgency and I couldn’t spend more time rearranging the same set of words to see which combination would yield the results I wanted.  

As a first-year student, my list of contacts is short but I decided to reach out for advice to those I know. Asking for help isn’t always my first response, not because I don’t think I need it but because I don’t want to bother people with questions that may seem like they have a simple answer. In my short time in the AV preservation field, I have realized that sometimes asking for help first is much more productive than trying to find the solution yourself. The term audiovisual encompasses a myriad of different formats, all with oddly specific needs; that means we can’t all be experts at everything! Everyone has different strengths and expertise they collect through their time as AV archivists and that means we often have to rely on each other to complete tasks and overcome challenges. 

I first consulted with the RML project team, specifically Claire Fox, who suggested I contact Rob Anen. Rob is also an RML fellow who has done mold remediation in the past. Without hesitation I drafted an email to Rob, attached pictures of the monstrous mold to the email and waited for a response.

As I mentioned above, everything I had learned so far about mold had been bad, so naturally, I expected a negative response. Anything from “there is nothing we can do”, to “the only solution is paying hundreds of dollars per film to salvage them”. Rob responded promptly, and to my surprise, he was incredibly calm about the situation. He said everything was going to be okay and said we just needed some nice weather and isopropyl alcohol; his confidence in being able to help with the issue let me know everything was going to be okay. 

We set up a time to do the mold remediation in April. When the time came we brought the film inspection bench outside, and together we cleaned the mold off the films. The materials required to perform a mold remediation include 99% isopropyl alcohol, and a non-abrasive cloth.  The process is simple, the film reel is mounted onto the film rewind, and the cloth is soaked in the isopropyl alcohol and used to clean the film as it is being wound onto the take-up reel. 

It’s important to note here that a specialist should always be consulted before attempting to remediate mold on your own since you may be dealing with different variables, such as different types of mold or a damaged film. Additionally, safety measures need to be taken such as performing the remediation in a well ventilated area, and wearing latex gloves and a face covering, preferably an N95 mask. After performing the mold remediation the films need to be housed in clean film reels and most importantly, the films must be stored in a temperature controlled environment to prevent the risk of mold in the future. 

After just a couple of emails, I had found a viable and relatively simple solution to what before seemed like a challenge I was not going to overcome. I learned not just how to remediate mold myself, but how important asking for help and being open to collaborating with others is. Of course, the answer won’t always be as straightforward, sometimes there may not even be an answer. As archivists, we face different challenges daily, some harder than others, but we are also part of a community that is not just ready, but eager to help each other in overcoming those challenges.

Over the months we’ve been working with our Regional Media Legacies (RML) site partners, the RML team has encountered more analog audiovisual collections than digital collections. Analog materials include formats like 16mm films, VHS videotapes, and compact audio cassettes, all representing content created many years ago (in one case, one film from as early as 1915!). This focus on analog materials is unsurprising for us: our site partners are primarily historical societies with collections from the mid to late 20th century or earlier, and digital media wasn’t widely adopted until the mid-2000s. 

What this means is that all of our site partners have a shared need to migrate their analog collection materials to a digital media format to ensure their longevity. This migration practice is widely known as “digitization,” and is a common archival practice where transfers of analog materials are made in a digital format that can be preserved, accessed, and distributed. Digitization is just one part of the larger process of collection management (how we handle collections, preserve them, and prepare them for access), and works in tandem with digital preservation planning.

Digitization is important for analog media because of two primary concerns: obsolescence and degradation. Obsolescence refers to the fact that legacy audiovisual formats (16mm film, VHS videotape, etc.) always need a media player (like a projector or a VCR) in order to view the content they carry. As time passes and players are phased out of production, they become increasingly difficult to find, making it difficult to play back their associated media formats. Degradation refers to the fact that media items are vulnerable to chemical degradation, particularly when they’re not kept in climate-controlled environments.

Creating digital copies of analog media stabilizes content and brings audiovisual collections into the present. While some films and tapes may still be able to be played back on their original media, the creation of a digital transfers ensures that contemporary media players (like Quicktime, VLC Media Player, or Windows Media Player) can play back the content, and additionally provides a copy that can be made accessible to researchers or other community members without damaging the original films and tapes.

While the incentive to digitize audiovisual collection is clear, the process of digitization itself can be complex and expensive. A lack of budget is a major deterrent to any long-term preservation project, and the expense of digitization is a major barrier to preserving audiovisual collections. It makes sense that digitization is expensive: the process of digitization is a specialized skill, particularly when making high-quality digital copies (often referred to as “masters” or “preservation copies”) that can be used to make a variety of access copies (lower-quality or compressed digital files, including files that can be uploaded to platforms like YouTube).

While limited budgets are a major barrier, there are a few key strategies that can be used to ensure that your digitization project reaches its full potential, and can even pave the way for future digitization projects. Below, we outline a few strategies we’ve learned directly from working with our RML partners.

Tip #1: Create a storage plan before digitization

One of the most important parts of audiovisual archiving is providing a secure, long-term storage environment where digital files are kept. At a minimum, this means that you have a designated storage device (like an external hard drive or an internal hard drive of a reliable workstation) that is monitored by a staff member or volunteer where your new digital files can be saved. Even still, we encourage our RML site partners to strive for preservation-level storage.

Preservation-level digital storage at a minimum requires redundant backups; in other words, for every digital file you have, create one additional (ideally, two additional copies) of that file. At least one of these copies should additionally be stored in a different geographic location than the others, so if one set of files is damaged or lost, at least one copy will be safe. Files and the storage media (hard drives, etc.) they’re saved on can be impacted by a number of potential risks: natural disasters, device failure, and human error are three examples. With redundant backups and geographic separation, the potential for irreparable loss is immensely reduced.

Archival digitization is a necessary, if expensive, investment in your archival collections. Without creating a storage plan ahead of the digitization process, stewards risk losing access to that investment. Consulting with archivists to create a storage plan ahead of digitization is a key component of collections care, and is an important step toward preserving your collections for generations to come.

Tip #2: Choose a sample set of materials to digitize.

It’s logical to want to digitize a collection in its entirety. For some of our RML partners who only have 5-10 videotapes, this is a real possibility! Other RML partners have over 100, or even upwards of 10,000 items to digitize. These numbers represent a significant expense, and it can be discouraging to know how or where to begin.

One way to begin the process of digitizing your collections in a lower-cost way is to choose a sample set of materials that you’d like to prioritize for digitization. While choosing fewer items to digitize is an obvious way to reduce costs (fewer items = lower cost), it has incidental benefits, particularly for organizations that are just getting started with digitizing their collections. 

First, the process of prioritizing particular items allows stewards to re-familiarize themselves with their audiovisual collections. While it may be time-consuming, the process of going through your collections item by item could allow you to remove items that you may not want to digitize (like commercial titles or duplicate copies), which will reduce your digitization budget in the long run. 

Second, sending out a small set of items to digitize allows stewards to understand the digitization process on a smaller scale, both in terms of the steps involved and in terms of the deliverables received. Stewards may find that they have preferred methods of shipping or delivering items to vendors, or realize that timelines need to be articulated in a specific way. Stewards may also realize that they may or may not need access copies made for a variety of reasons. Might you need access copies that can be uploaded to YouTube, or that could be projected onto a large screen, or maybe you’re capable of creating your own access copies? Sometimes you won’t know what you need until you go through the digitization process for the first time, and doing so with fewer items means you learn those experiential lessons on a smaller scale.

Tip #3: Choose a vendor you trust.

Our third and final tip is to work with a vendor that you trust. The RML project currently oversees some small digitization projects with vendors we have vetted and trust, and some of our site partners have their own vendors they trust to perform strong digitization work. Generally speaking, if collection stewards are embarking on digitization projects on their own, we highly recommend calling potential vendors, asking questions, requesting estimates, and talking about timelines. Taking some time to get to know your vendor provides you with an opportunity to put your mind at ease as you send your archival materials off-site. Ideally, stewards are sending materials to vendors that they trust to handle historical materials with care and respect!

Even if you’re working on small-scale or one-time projects, digitization is often a years-long process. With that in mind, it’s important to work toward finding a vendor you can see yourself working with for years to come. Vendors can be great allies as stewards work toward preserving archival collections, particularly as obsolescence and degradation become more severe issues over the coming years, and as technology continues to evolve. Even still, technology aside, RML always recommends finding people to work with who you trust, whether they’re digitization vendors, conservators, volunteer catalogers, interns, or otherwise. Building trust in archival work is key to long-term preservation, and no technology is more important than that.