originally: http://www.oclc.org/programs/ourwork/past/presmicrofilm/default.htm
Preservation Microfilming Projects & PracticePreservation has been a central focus of RLG since four large research institutions founded the organization in the early 1970s. In a series of projects in the 1980s and 1990s, we preserved significant collections while creating tools to assist institutions worldwide in preserving and improving access to endangered research materials.RLG members and staff:
BackgroundRLG’s achievements in providing operational capacity and expertise in brittle books reformatting were made possible by the efforts of energetic RLG members, generous grants from a number of US charitable foundations, and, especially, support and funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities' Division of Preservation and Access. The following overview updates "RLG: A Pioneer in Collaborative Preservation"—a report contributed by Nancy Elkington and Patricia McClung to an extended article “The Research Libraries Group: Making a Difference,” that appeared in issue 46 (12:2, 1994) of Library Hi Tech.Although it is easy to forget in these days of high-speed data transmission, international networking, and the Web, libraries’ first forays into the world of technology began not with automated catalogs in the 1960s but with microfilm in the 1930s. Looking for ways to ensure continued access to newspapers and heavily used journals as well as unique archival materials, major research libraries began setting up internal laboratories complete with state-of-the-art cameras, processors, printers, inspection equipment, and highly trained staff. For decades these labs churned out miles of 16mm and 35mm microfilm containing books, magazines, pamphlets, periodicals, and university archives. By the middle of the 1970s, most of these labs were still operating, some with two or three staff, most still using vintage camera equipment purchased nearly 40 years earlier. When the four original members of RLG’s preservation program met for the first time in 1975, one of their top priorities for collaborative action was to develop a coordinated microfilming project for brittle materials. Within just a few years, that desire translated into one of the nation’s first coordinated attempts to take an existing reformatting technology and apply it systematically to brittle materials. Why was that first project so significant? Because it provided a model around which national preservation reformatting efforts coalesced. Participants in that effort worked together to identify appropriate handling procedures, to make changes in RLG’s RLIN® system that would support collaboration, but also, in effect, to re-engineer existing industry technical specifications to ensure that the resulting microfilm would have a life expectancy of at least 500 years. Thus, RLG became a change agent in preservation reformatting technology, a role it continues to play today in the era of digital preservation. Cooperative Preservation Microfilming
Project
(CPMP), Phases I and II Following a similar model but focused entirely on materials published in China, Japan, and Korea, the East Asian Microfilming Project built on the RLIN capacity for CJK® original-scripts cataloging and at the same time provided an opportunity to expand the filming guidelines in new directions. Great Collections Microfilming
Project, Phases I-IV Art Serials Preservation
Project Archives Preservation
Microfilming Project In caves deep beneath the hills of western Pennsylvania, RLG leased vaults starting in the 1980s for long-term storage of our members' 35-millimeter master negative microfilm rolls. If an owning institution's microfilm print master was damaged or lost, the master negative could be retrieved from storage to create a replacement. RLG acted as coordinator and broker for the shared facility, billing participating members annually to recoup each one's proportional share of the annual leasing cost. RLG stored several thousand rolls of master negative film that we owned as a result of our grant-funded Great Collections microfilming projects of the 1980s and early 1990s. RLG worked with Iron Mountain Inc.'s National Underground Storage to create an environment that met the US national standard for preserving research resources captured on 35-millimeter master negative microfilm rolls. Iron Mountain, Inc. maintained the environmental conditions within a very narrow range of temperature and humidity fluctuations, using an uninterruptible power source. Services included ensuring security and managing the film inventory—guaranteeing that film rolls were filed correctly by institution and always accessible. Guides & tools from this projectUnder this project, RLG produced some standard references that are used worldwide:
In 2001-2002, the Projeto Cooperativo Conservação em Bibliotecas e Arquivos, with funding from the Mellon Foundation and the Brazilian Vitae Foundation, translated the RLG Archives Microfilming Manual into Portuguese and distributed copies to 1,800 institutions throughout Brazil. The Manual do RLG para Microfilmagem de Documentos (publication Nr. 53) is available at no charge from www.cpba.net. |