Jean-Louis Bigourdan on Photo Collection Surveys

An interview conducted by Luisa Cassella, Fellow in the Advanced Residency Program in Photograph Conservation at George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Q: Where do you start when planning a survey of an institutional photo collection?

The first thing to do is to define the goal of the survey. What you hope to accomplish should dictate what you will look for, the methodology you will apply, and how much time you will spend. Ask yourself, “What do I need to know?” Some information can be gathered ahead of time, such as the average age of the collection, what materials it contains, and whether it has always been kept in its current location; this can give you a general idea of what you will find. If you know in advance that a collection contains vulnerable materials such as nitrate, acetate, or color, and that it is not kept in special storage, it would be safe to assume that better storage would significantly improve the state of the collection.

By asking the right questions, you almost could have the report before going to the site. You will want to know which objects are most valuable, which are most degraded, and which are accessed most often. It is important to structure the type of information you want to gather. Before you ask for information from the institution, consider what you will do with it. Will it change the decisions you make and the actions you recommend? As a rule, it’s a not a good idea to ask questions that may be difficult or impossible for the institutional staff to reliably answer. Finally, it’s important to know how long the institution wants the collection to last. Commonly, the answer is “forever” or “as long as possible.” If they have film or color materials they should be aware that “forever” is out of the question.

Q: How long does a survey usually take?

It all depends on the scope of the survey. A one-day collection survey can be done if you already have most of the answers. This type of survey can deliver generic guidelines on how to store and handle the collection materials, or which enclosures to use. But such a survey usually doesn’t address any specific problems the collection may have. You can’t achieve quantitative answers in only one day.

Q: What kind of information do you hope to gain from a survey?

The survey needs to answer three basic questions: What is the nature of the collection materials? What general condition are they in? How are they stored? Keep in mind that you don’t need to know every detail in order to recommend a reasonable preservation strategy that will make a difference.

Q: Can you tell us about some surveys you’ve been involved in?

I did a one-day survey at a science museum. I started by speaking to the museum manager, who explained that they had funding for a survey of an important gelatin glass plate collection. The museum manager gave me information about the size of the collection, the photographer, and the process. I then asked three questions: What is the collection used for? What type of environment has it been stored in? What are the major problems? This collection of images, sold as reproductions, is a potential source of revenue for the museum. Examination of a small number of the plates confirmed that this collection had problems commonly encountered in glass plate collections, such as delamination. That was sufficient evidence to support the recommendation of a preservation strategy that involved providing a cooler, more stable storage environment and setting up a prioritized duplication plan. So, before doing the survey I already had an idea of what the report would include.

In 1996, I performed a survey at a large federal institution. This involved two separate visits and took a total of five days. I looked at a lot of materials, but I didn’t look at everything—just enough to get a feel for what was there. I visited all the spaces where photographic objects were stored. After that I spent some time looking at individual objects and recording their condition and any type of decay I saw. This made it possible to set up some broad categories to work with in the survey.

In some cases, it’s possible to have the institution staff do the actual survey. This approach has been used several times, including a condition survey done at the Danish Film Institute (DFI), involving visual inspection, testing with A-D Strips, and monitoring temperature and humidity levels across all storage locations. The goal at DFI was to devise a strategy that would support the institute’s effort to construct new storage for the collection. An acetate-based film collection presents an interesting case, because we can measure the condition of the film using A-D Strips and can estimate the future evolution of the collection. It is easy to do, and the strips are a powerful tool. A-D Strips played an important role in the scenario implemented at DFI. I designed a survey and gave instructions on what to look for, how big the sample should be, and how many people would be needed to do the job. I showed their survey team how to place the test strips, judge the strip color, and distinguish acetate from polyester. The team put the A-D Strips in place, read the results, and entered the data into an Excel file, which was sent back to IPI. We analyzed the data and developed a strategy to fit the situation. How do you measure success? The DFI got new storage spaces. This method is cheaper for the institution, and museum staff can participate in the process, so it works very well. In the process, museum staff learns that the same approach can be applied to other collections throughout the museum. Everyone learns something.

Q: What manifestations of decay should be looked at during a survey and why?

The type of decay found in the collection can be meaningful: Is there glass plate delamination? Is there dye fading? Is there vinegar syndrome? With this information, you can categorize big groups of materials in terms of vulnerability. Wherever there are color materials, the vulnerable component will be the dyes. With glass plates, there will probably always be silver mirroring (although nothing can be done to change that, and it’s best to focus on areas where improvements can be made). For example, delamination of the emulsion from the plate can tell you something about the environment. This problem often results from periods of sustained high humidity followed by periods of excessive dryness that cause the gelatin layer on glass plates to alternately expand and contract. Stresses are created because the glass support doesn't expand and contract with the gelatin. Physical damage due to use indicates that handling practices should be improved.

If you have decay that is progressing over time—in an acetate collection, for example—you can predict what will happen in the long term, based on whether or not storage conditions are improved. With acetate, A-D Strips can help predict the evolution of the deterioration. With dye fading, you cannot predict as easily, but you can see it and perhaps recommend steps that will slow its progress, such as keeping the collection at low temperature.

In photo collections, you can more or less predict what sorts of problems you will see. You cannot know exactly how much of the collection is in danger, but I’m not sure that’s really important. If you did know the exact number of objects that were in trouble and related this information to the institution staff, you would very likely scare them to death. Decay can’t be reversed, and if you paint too dark a picture, the institution may simply give up and do nothing. That’s certainly not in the best interest of the collection. It is important to realize that for every damaged object there probably are many more still in useful condition. It’s probably better to focus on those.

The key is to focus on problems that can be fixed or at least minimized. Today, we know that the single most important factor in preserving collections is the storage environment. Assessing vinegar syndrome, dye fading, or glass plate delamination helps to define the most critical needs of the collection.

Q: What should go into the survey report?

First of all, it’s important to understand how the institution functions and to know what type of information can be translated into action. In my opinion, the most important things to include in a report are tables and flowcharts that show the various steps to take and that synthesize the “good information” so that it doesn’t get lost. Whenever possible, it is very useful to include a table that will enable readers to see, in a glance, all available options. Such a table enables institution management to estimate costs, which will help them choose the option or options that best fit the institution’s needs.

I don’t think I have ever written two reports that were the same. I do speak about the materials and what they are used for and then try to offer a balanced approach to their preservation. A good survey can help expand the opportunities for an institution. Regardless of how much data you collect during the survey, what really matters is how you analyze it, how you present the results, and how persuasive a report you produce in the end. Providing even limited data that is specific to the collection is more effective than presenting your client with a sort of generic preservation handbook that could apply to any collection.

You can list general recommendations of what should or should not be done, but you should focus on the actions that will make a difference in that specific collection. And focus more on what to do rather than what not to do. The list of what you can do is fairly small: improve the storage environment and treat the images that are valuable enough to be restored. Think of the extent of the improvement you will get by doing only those things.

If you provide only general recommendations for storage, handling, and housing in your survey report, chances are the effort required to implement them will seem so overwhelming to institution staff that nothing will be done. When the report is specific enough and includes a list of actions that can be taken, you can make a difference, even if these actions only focus on a particular group of materials in the collection.

In a report, there should always be a section on condition and use and one on environment evaluation (either institution staff monitors the area ahead of time or you get a sense of the conditions when you do the survey). These two elements dictate the basic needs of the collection.

Q: What preservation options can be offered?

The list of things that can be done is really very short: improve the environment; stabilize the objects physically (treatment is in this category); or duplicate or reformat the materials. I usually suggest a few practical actions that can be taken in these three categories. You cannot tell them, “You have to have this temperature and this RH.” They already know what the standard recommended storage conditions are. What they need to know is how to go as close as possible to the recommended conditions. So, instead of changing the enclosures, use the money to buy a refrigerator unit that will greatly improve the condition of the collection. You have to be realistic and try to help them decide what to do or what kind of freezer to buy.

In a recent survey, the institution needed to make a case for adding cold storage. The survey ended up being about how to implement the cold storage. Here is an instance in which the needs of the collection were determined through a phone conversation before the survey was performed. In this case, they wanted to use sealed cabinets for cold storage. They had settled on this solution even before the survey. They had the space and an engineer, but they hadn’t thought about any other alternatives. I spent a day and a half looking at the various ways in which cold storage might have been implemented. I found that different groups of materials were in different states of preservation and would require different conditions for optimum storage. In order to accommodate all of their collection materials, the institution would have needed several hundred cabinets. You have to think about it: Is this the correct approach?

If an institution has a duplication lab, materials that are in danger of being lost can be set aside for duplication. The problem is finding those endangered materials. If, for example, you estimate that 10% of the collection would benefit from duplication, you must remember that finding that 10% could take years. In such a case, if you instead recommend investing in colder storage, the whole collection will benefit. Rather than using A-D Strips to find all the objects that need duplicating, I would use the strips to show that there is a problem that could be solved by moving a whole group of vulnerable materials into colder storage. So you have to be flexible and apply what you know to provide the best options.

You can have a general outline, but you must tailor both the survey and the report to each institution, and this involves a lot of planning, cost analysis, and calculation of possible benefits.

Q: How do institutions use the survey report?

The survey is often requested because an institution wants to extend the life of its collection but doesn’t know where to start. The survey report can answer that question. The answer will not be the same for every institution. For example, if the collection is never accessed, the main issue will be storage, so you can propose that the institution apply for grant funding for environmental monitoring. Learn what kind of resources the institution has available—funding sources, for instance, and the value of the collection, which, if great enough, may help raise funding. The surveyor’s job, in a way, is to help the institution improve the situation, and getting funding is a big part of that. Your report will be used to apply for funding, so you must help the institution make a case. Often a report can be designed to apply for a grant. More and more often institutions are applying to NEH for funding to reformat their collections. These institutions will want the survey report to support their need to duplicate. Many present A-D Strips test results in their funding proposal, making a very powerful argument for the needs of the collection, the first of which, usually, is a better storage environment.