Long Term Storage of Video Tape

Related records

• Long Term Storage of Videotapes Bibliography

  Overview of audio and video formats; storage tips.

• Storage Guidelines Preservation

  Practical guidelines for short-term storage of videotapes recommend access storage at 60–73?F and 20–30% RH and advise lower temperatures for archival storage; access conditions are expected to keep tapes usable for ten years and fluctuations should be limited (no more than 7?F and 5–20% RH). The document advises monitoring temperature and humidity, allowing tapes to equilibrate before playback, choosing windowless, well-insulated rooms without carpets or food, using grounded metal shelving, storing tapes upright, avoiding magnetic fields, and storing duplicates separately. Cited resources include Playback: A Preservation Primer for Video (BAVC, 1998), Library of Congress Television and Video Preservation (1997), CLIR and Van Bogart reports, SMPTE RP 103-1995 and RP 190-1996, and links to ANSI, CLIR, NML and Solinet.

• Videotape Storage: How to Make Your Videotapes Last for Decades...or Centuries Bibliography

• Care and Handling of Tape Preservation

  Practical guidelines for videotape care to prolong shelf life and prevent sticky shed, mold and drop out; addresses upright storage, temperature and humidity control, contamination and magnetic-field avoidance, proper rewinding, labeling, tape hubs and containers, shipping, and use of high-quality brand-name tapes for copying and preservation. Further reading cites Playback: A Preservation Primer for Video (Bay Area Video Coalition, San Francisco, 1998), Jim Lindner, William T. Murphy (Television and Video Preservation, Library of Congress, 1997), Debbie Hess Norris (AIC), John Van Bogart (CLIR) and Jim Wheeler; suppliers named include Light Works, Conservation Online, Conservation Resources International and G.M. Wylie.

• The Handling and Storage of Magnetic Recording Tape Bibliography

• Video Tape Survival: The Cleaning, Time Base Correcting and Reformatting of Deteriorating Video Tape for Real to Reel: Artists' Video 1970-72 Preservation

  Sharon Grace, artist and Director of the Video Documentation and Archiving Program at the San Francisco Art Institute, organized Real to Reel, Artists' Video 1970-72 presenting 1/2" open-reel work funded by the California Arts Council and San Francisco Art Institute. Grace collected tapes, borrowed playback decks and obtained subsidized use of a Harris 690 time base corrector from BAVC for reformatting. She reported environmental and mechanical causes of tape deterioration, cleaning methods, storage guidance (70 °F and 50% RH) and life-expectancy estimates (about five to ten years for 1/2" reels).