Week Two

Well today I began to get down and dirty with my collection, and I meant literally dirty. By the time I was completed with my two hours, my white glove had become completely brown from rust. There is every type of film deterioration present within my collection, ranging from simple dirt to mold and vinegar syndrome. One film in particular, “Spring Practice Varsity-34 vs. Old Timers-7 1952,” is in such poor condition that Miriam could not even believe the level of deterioration. (It was pretty gross..) This is very troubling, as some interesting and important material can be found in this collection, like the 1956 Sugar Bowl in which the first African-American player, Bobby Grier, broke the southern bowl game color-barrier. The depth of this collection and the interesting history of the Pittsburgh Football Team have lead to my decision to base my presentation topic on the concept of film as a primary source using this collection as a case study of sports film as representative of college history.
Anyway, back to today’s progress. I began by removing the cans fro their storage containers (mostly cardboard boxes and milk crates) and began to place them in chronological order. I decided to do this before creating an inventory or condition report because multiple reels exist for single games, and I thought it best to have them in order then sort out the other details. Films that did not have cans were housed in STiL Design cans. It is desired that the entire collection be rehoused, as all the current containers are horribly dirty and rusty, but for the moment only those without cans were rehoused. Two cans were so rusty that they had to be carefully tapped on the ground and pried open with a letter opener. I placed an AD strip in one of these rehoused films to test the vinegar syndrome of the film.
Additional notes to make based on last weeks observations are that the collection dates are wider than previously though, actually spanning from 1940s-1970s. My initial assumption that previous inventories were incomplete were verified today, as some sets of game cans are still held together with original masking tape, proving they have not been looked at since they were received. So far I am pretty disgusted but excited about my project and its possibilities.

Week One

For the first week of my film related work at the Archives Service Center I was introduced to the task at hand and read some materials relating to the subject. For my project I will be working with about 8-10 boxes of University Archive Film. This film is of varying sizes, formats, and conditions and my task is to indentify the material present and its condition. The purpose of this assignment is to decide the future maintenance or retention of the film.

To begin my research for this project I went the National Film and Sound Archives website. It was from here that I gained better knowledge on general film identification; http://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/film_handbook/film_identification.html,
And condition reporting; http://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/film_handbook/condition_reporting.html

In order to provide for sufficient access to these materials, it is important to know what they are in terms of format, subject matter, condition, and location. An initial, partially performed inventory shows that the majority of these films are of Pitt football games from the 1950s-1960s with some basketball or other sports related event. The films seem to be the original negatives and I do not know of the last time any of this material was viewed. Some issues that are evident from first glance at the film are mold, shrinkage, stress, scratching, and tares. The ultimate goal of this compile and complete inventory and condition report of the films, relocate and in some instances rehouse the film, and provide better knowledge for the user and the archive’s decision to preserve, digitize, or deaccession some of the material.