Preserving the Nation’s Visual Heritage

Daniel Burge, senior research scientist, teaches a workshop on digital print preservation. Image courtesy of the Image Permanence Institute.

Since their invention in the nineteenth century, photographs have been unparalleled records, preserving equally events of momentous public importance, our most cherished, private moments, and scenes of everyday life. But film and photographs are also delicate technologies, subject to chemical deterioration over time and damage from humidity, light, pollutants, and other environmental concerns. Since 1985, the National Endowment for the Humanities has helped the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Image Permanence Institute (IPI) inform and support the preservation of our nation’s cultural heritage, with a particular focus on photographic materials and sustainable environmental management in collecting institutions. More than $7 million in NEH funding has supported a range of research and educational programs, ensuring that professional conservators have innovative, proven methods for preserving the historical record.

Al Carver-Kubik, Research Scientist, photographs an object for Graphics Atlas. Image courtesy of the Image Permanence Institute.

Early grants to IPI helped the organization make great strides to preserve film and photographs. IPI improved national standards for storing photographic images, increased our understanding of the vulnerabilities of silver image materials and film-based supports, and researched the impact of pollutants on microfilms. With an NEH grant, IPI took on the major task of researching the degradation of cellulose acetate photographic film. This film was used by most filmmakers and photographers in the first half of the twentieth century. For decades, its rapid deterioration has been a major concern for heritage professionals, researchers, and anyone interested in the visual record.

Whitney Baker (left, University of Kansas Libraries) confers with IPI consultants, Christopher Cameron and Kelly McCauley Krish. Image courtesy of University of Kansas Libraries.

More recently, NEH funding has helped IPI support collections care at institutions throughout the United States. IPI has undertaken research into ideal preservation environments for delicate materials and is examining the impact of temperature transitions on the moisture content of absorbent collections found in libraries and archives—this knowledge will help collections managers ensure that rare materials are properly preserved for future generations. And workshops and training programs are bringing best practices to heritage professionals throughout the United States. One recent program taught participants to identify nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century photographic materials and will also help ensure that photographs are properly preserved—different types of photographs require different storage environments. Other programs are helping cultural heritage professionals manage their born-digital print collections and manage their storage environments sustainability, lowering building management and energy costs for the good of the natural environment and the institution’s collections alike.