Las colecciones fotográficas del Acervo Histórico de la Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo de La Plata

MARTHA GARRIDO,; TATIANA KELLY,; ALEJANDRO MARTÍNEZ,; IRINA PODGORNY

Entrepasados

Entrepasados

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2007 vol. 16 p. 163 - 174

Si bien no figuro como autora de este trabajo, el mismo se escribió bajo mi supervisión para presentar los resultados del proyecto financiado por la British Libray que dirigí el año pasado, tal como puede constatarse en http://www.bl.uk/about/policies/endangeredarch/2006/podgorny.html">http://www.bl.uk/about/policies/endangeredarch/2006/podgorny.html This pilot project discovered ‘forgotten collections´ kept in different departments of the Museum, exposed to high levels of humidity. Several ‘misplaced collections´ in the possession of private owners or other institutions were identified and efforts will be made to try to recover them. The most seriously endangered photographic collections were identified and relocated. Over 2,000 glass plate negatives (around 90% of the collection), albumen albums, carte de visite photographs and paper photographs were all moved to the Historic Archive where they are kept under controlled climate conditions of 40% RH and 17°C. Every piece was removed from its old non acid free packaging and placed in acid free archival storage envelopes and boxes. The most endangered collections were the ‘Arturo´ and ‘Maish´ pictures (Tierra del Fuego inhabitants). These glass plate negatives show an image which is vanishing and in some cases has almost disappeared. The whole of this collection was microfilmed in this pilot project together with a sampled selection. This archival master microfilm of 100 images is deposited in CEHIPE´s archive, with copies deposited with the British Library and the Museo de La Plata´s library. The multi-disciplinary team was trained by CEHIPE experts during several workshops in subjects such as preservation and manipulation of old photographs, microfilming and archival techniques. There were several meetings with the company in charge of microfilming during the different stages of the project. The achievements and evaluation of the pilot project will provide the basis to develop a proposal for a future major digitisation project.