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RR 2014/150
National Film Preservation Foundation
San Francisco, CA
URL: www.filmpreservation.org/preservation-basics/ the-film-preservation-guide-download
Last visited December 2013
Gratis
Keywords Electronic media, Film, Guides and handbooks, Preservation
Review DOI 10.1108/RR-12-2013-0319
Nearly ten years since its print publication, The Film Preservation Guide: The Basics for Archives, Libraries, and Museums is yet a worthy resource to bookmark if you or the patrons you serve have even a single reel of film sitting on a shelf. Searchable PDFs of each chapter and complete book are a free download made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. I have overheard many archivists labelling this guide as a "must read" for everyone who works with film collections. In fact, it is required reading for all staff and student assistants who will have their "white-cotton-gloved hands" (NFPF, p. 20) on the films in the collections I manage.
The front matter of the guide indicates that not all possible permutations of film and equipment used over the past century of film's young history are covered, but rather focuses on the film types and equipment most commonly found in 2004 in film collections. Divided into nine clearly labelled chapters with subtitles included in the Table of Contents, the contents of this basic film guide are obvious and cover topics in necessity of film preservation policies and programmes, film format basics, film decay, handling and...