Preserving Home Movies
The work of saving home movies and recordings are a unique challenge for libraries and archives. Home movies are generally one of a kind and may only exist in the format it was captured on. Developing this project required specialized work across WashU library staff to ensure the media contained within the films were preserved without damaging the originals materials. The Dr. Robert Johnson III Papers themselves are part of WashU Libraries University Archives. The work of preserving, storing and digitizing materials is performed by our librarians and technical specialists.
A critical component of media preservation is maintaining the right storage conditions to avoid deterioration from time and the elements. Everything from home movies on videotape to saved files on a CD require their own specific storage requirements.
Our film and media vault maintain a constant temperature of 45 degrees with stable humidity to prevent further damage. Film is especially at risk for breaking down, even while it sits on a shelf. Home movies on film from the 1970s are made of a material which can warp and shrink with too much heat or moisture. The chemicals given off by a film strip breaking down can “infect” and damage other films stored nearby.
While film has long been understood to be time sensitive, subsequent formats present their own challenges. Transferring films to video was believed to be an indefinite solution to the problem of deterioration. However video is now at risk, with many early video tapes are quickly becoming unplayable. Research in media preservation has determined that the earliest forms of home movies are already entering a period of irreversible degradation. Digitizing home movies are the best option, however that requires equipment, expertise, and time.
Along with the work of maintaining the media itself, cataloging and describing the materials are essential to making the collection accessible. Student workers, under the supervision of the Audiovisual Metadata Librarian, contributed to the process of recording timecodes, summaries, and capturing screenshots for this project. The primary goal of the project is to highlight the value of audiovisual materials while underlining their instability and need for collaborative efforts to save what we can.