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Modern media and basic archival problems: technical procedures
simultaneously orientated to long-term international access
and the solution of problems of conservation
The project design as agreed in 1988 foresaw the following
steps
Rephotographing a large number of the images in the Basel
Mission archive collection using a high-density clour film
designed for maximum long-therm chemical stability.
Transferring the images from this film to an electronic
medium, thus allowing them to be consulted on screen, and
offering a feasible form for mass duplication or publication
for access outside Basel.
Linking the electronic medium with a database both for purposes
of cataloguing and research.
Our intention was to "kill two birds with one stone".
Rephotographing the images was, on the one hand, a pragmatic
and financeable measure of conservation for the collection
as a whole. Whatever changes the originals may undergo in
the middle-term future, we have a stable documentation of
their state in 1991-2, and this should survive unchanged for
something like a century. Rephotographing the images was also,
however, a measure to facilitate the transfer of the images
from one medium to another (including electronic media) and,
indeed, to make this possible for the collection as a whole
at an automatic level.
These procedures were implemented in the Project’s
first stage. We continue to believe that the rephotographing
process, using stable high-density colour film, provides the
most reliable way of storing the maximum of visual information
over the longest period of time possible. Furthermore, since
it uses photographic technology, it is not subject to uncertainties
in the future development of electronic storage and reading
systems. In the early 1990s, in addition, at almost every
stage in the transfer to a video disc, we were using technologies
which were well-established, so that we could exploit to the
full the possibilities of rapid, automatic and therefore inexpensive
transfer of the images from one medium to another that were
already in full industrial use in other connections.
We are still confident that the procedures used provide
us with a platform for exploiting future technical developments.
Since the rephotographed images are stored in the form of
36mm photographic film, we have little doubt that they can
be transferred automatically to any new electronic medium
which offers itself with the kind of ease we experienced with
the transfer to a laser video disc early in 1993. We look
forward to a move into the modern digital world (CD-ROM and/or
Internet) in the near future.
It is worth while adding that, although the great bulk
of the photographs included in the project are monochrome
prints, we are convinced that the use of colour film was appropriate
and, indeed, necessary. Working with the collection has shown
us that reproduction of, for instance, sepia-toned monochrome
vintage prints with modern black-and-white film and photographic
paper is an extremely delicate task in which aesthetic values
and even visual information can easily be lost. Furthermore,
the documentation of the state of decay even of a monochrome
image requires a coloured photographic record, since
deterioration of various kinds can be seen by changes in colour.
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