I think Mark hits the nail square on the
head when he notes that it's going to cost $500,000 to reformat all those
negatives. I strongly encourate you to spend a lot less money building a
cold-storage vault with proper humidity controls. A lot less
money!
You may want to scan the neg's for
increased access. Because you're keeping the original negatives (which you
can pull for prints when requested), you don't need to do a photo quality
scan. I'd probably do something between 150 and 300 dpi.
If a neg is pulled for printing, dupe it
then, allowing patron use to select those images for more advanced
preservation. And, you can build at least part of the duping fee into the
cost of the patron order.
Richard Pearce-Moses
rpm9@mindspring.com |