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Friends of the Archives Photographic Cold Storage Facility

Read a detailed, illustrated account of our efforts to provide cold storage for photographs at the Canadian Council of Archives web site.

This 1600 cubic foot storage facility is kept at -18°C to preserve deteriorating photographs, chiefly cellulose acetate, cellulose nitrate and colour materials.

Without cold storage,

	cellulose nitrate negatives lose their silver image, then turn brown and sticky
	cellulose acetate negatives wrinkle and become brittle as they give off acetic acid (vinegar)
	colour materials fade, even in the dark

If the photographs become too humid in storage, they will deteriorate more quickly. Also, when they are removed from storage they may become sticky or spotted with moisture.

The photographs in our cold storage have been packaged using a system developed by the Smithsonian Institution.

	The photographs are put into thick-walled zip closure inner bags. Outside that bag is placed a label and two pieces of mat board that have been dried in an oven, then it all goes in another zipped bag.
	These packages are put inside boxes with still more mat boards, which are themselves bagged. The photographs have three layers of plastic and four pieces of absorbent board to protect them from humidity. The blue square is a humidity indicator; when it starts to turn pink, it is time to change the mat boards for freshly dried ones.

Time was running out for many of our negatives – they had to be frozen as soon as possible. We resolved to freeze them wherever we could, immediately.

	The frozen negatives were stored on a pallet in a commercial cold storage facility until our own freezer could be built.
	Under layers of pallet wrap and corrugated plastic, access was almost impossible, but the negatives were safe.
	Now the negatives are stored neatly on shelves, where we can monitor their condition and have easier access.

Chronology

Mid-1990's

Research at the Smithsonian Institution produced a storage method which controlled the relative humidity within individual packages rather than the entire freezer, allowing negatives to be stored in a conventional freezer.

1999

A frozen storage project for long-term conservation of photographs was underway with a grant from the Canadian Council of Archives to order supplies and start packing the negatives.

2000

Two negative collections (totalling 113,000 negatives) were packed for frozen storage.
In June the negatives were transported to a commercial frozen storage facility at Port Kells in Surrey.
The Friends of the Archives Society raised funds for the construction of an on-site photographic cold storage facility.

2001

The facility was constructed in November and December.

2002

The freezer was tested in January.
In February the negatives were brought back to the Archives to be stored in the new facility.
On February 20th, Mayor Philip Owen officially opened the Friends of the Archives Photographic Cold Storage Facility

Only three public archives in Canada have walk-in frozen storage units for their photographs: the Vancouver Archives, the National Archives, and the Provincial Archives of Manitoba.

We are pleased to be able to give our collections the best chance for long-term preservation.