Note: glass plate negatives and lantern slides are extremely heavy and fragile. Always wear white gloves when handling glass plate negatives. Use caution when preparing glass plates for digitization.
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- Find a clean flat surface where the glass plates can be handled.
- Assess current physical storage and arrangement of glass plates. Identify tasks required to achieve two physical processing goals:
- Physically rehouse the glass plates in archival quality storage containers
- Assign item-level reference codes
- Put on a pair of clean white gloves.
- Physically rehouse the glass plates as required. Refer to the following points for guidance:
- Archival material can only be physically separated during archival processing and digitization if the file- or item-level archival descriptions are cross-referenced. The finding aid must include notes that help document the manner in which the material was kept by the creator.
- Small amounts of photographs can be physically arranged and assigned physical storage locations and item-level reference codes as part of the “PB Box” system.
- Large amounts of photographs can be physically arranged into one or more boxes and assigned physical storage locations and item-level reference codes as part of a sequence of boxes that are physically grouped together by fonds- or collection-level reference code.
- Photographs can be physically arranged in a manner that reflects the intellectual arrangement in the finding aid, but it is not necessary. Items can be intellectually arranged in a manner that does not match the physical storage locations and corresponding item-level reference codes.
Assign item-level reference codes as required. Refer to the following table for guidance:
Format / size
Preferred physical storage
File-level reference code Item-level reference code
3 x 5 in. glass plates (or smaller)
Paper microfiche envelope in small Hollinger photograph box
Option #1 - use box number
Option #2 - write in pencil across the top of a tabbed indexed card
Write in pencil across the front edge of the envelope
4 x 6 in. OR 5 x 7 in. glass plates
Paper envelope in large Hollinger photograph box
Optional - written in pencil across the top of a tabbed indexed card Write in pencil across the front edge of the envelope
8 x 10 in. glass plates
Letter-sized archival file folder in letter-sized coroplast document box
Write in pencil across the front edge of the envelope Write in pencil across the front edge of the folde
- Assign physical locations to each item or update existing physical location information as required.
- If a file includes a mix of glass plates and textual records, also complete procedures described in the instructions on physically preparing textual records.
- If a file includes a mix of glass plates and slides, also complete procedures described in the instructions on physically preparing photographic slides.
- If a file includes a mix of glass plates and negatives, also complete procedures described in the instructions on physically preparing photographic negatives.
- Bring prepared file to scanner.
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