Publication Date
Summer 2014
Document Type
Article
Keywords
Digitization, Preservation, Photography collections
Abstract
Film-based photographic collections of nitrate negatives pose major challenges to preservation and access because of unstable media and the lack of item-level indexing. Digitization offers an opportunity to capture the content of deteriorating negatives, to extend access to them, and to restore their usefulness as information resources. Digitization as a preservation strategy has been the subject of ongoing debate. This article contributes to the discussion by exploring access to and the preservation of film-based photographic collections and by presenting the digiti- zation project at the American Geographical Society Library as a case study. The project, Saving and Sharing the AGS Library’s Historic Nitrate Negative Images, was undertaken from 2010 to 2012 to preserve and provide access to over 69,000 nitrate negatives from its historic collections.
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Rights Holder
Krystyna K. Matusiak, Tamara K. Johnston
Provenance
Received from author
File Format
application/pdf
Language
English (eng)
Extent
29 pgs
File Size
5.1 MB
Publication Statement
Copyright held by the author or publisher. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Publication Title
The American Archivist
Volume
77
First Page
241
Last Page
269
ISSN
0360-9081
Recommended Citation
Matusiak, K.K. & Johnston, T. K. (2014). Digitization for preservation and access: Restoring the usefulness of the nitrate negative collections at the American Geographical Society Library. The American Archivist, 77(1), 241-269. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.77.1.gr125w680h64u277
DOI Link
https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.77.1.gr125w680h64u277