Conserving the South Asian Film Collection
Careful processes are used to identify, catalog, and preserve the South Asian Cinema collections so that they may benefit researchers for many generations to come.
Inventory and Organize
When new materials arrive, we unpack, inventory, and organize them. During this process, each item is assessed based on condition, re-housed in an archive-safe container, assigned a unique identifier, and shelved in its permanent location. Additionally, any items identified as needing conservation intervention are isolated and treated. The result of this process is a detailed inventory that documents the contents of the collection and facilitates access to the materials for future work by staff or researchers.
Catalog and Describe
Cataloging is the process of writing a description for an item within an archival collection. This description provides contextual information to aid the researcher in finding what they are looking for more efficiently. The information added to a catalog record is called metadata. Examples of metadata include title, format, film gauge, date, country of production, genre, and names of individuals and organizations.
Conserve and Preserve
The materials in archival collections are normally extremely rare or unique, and the materials in the South Asian Cinema collections at the George Eastman Museum are no exception. Many of the prints represented in the collections are the only known surviving copy of a particular title. Because of this, and to ensure that future generations have continued access to these objects, we must prioritize the safety and care of the materials. We accomplish this through maintaining temperature and humidity-controlled storage environments, by using storage containers that will not react with the collection materials, by inspecting the materials to create detailed condition records, and by implementing special handling policies, such as requiring gloves for viewing the materials.
Make Accessible
The ultimate goal of our work on the South Asian Cinema collections is to make them available to researchers, constituent communities, and the general public. All of the work we do – collecting, processing, cataloging, and preserving – is to ensure the materials are available. This access is provided in a variety of ways such as through our browsable catalog, in-person research appointments, digitized scans of collection materials, screenings, and many other forms of access. If you have questions about accessing the collections, please contact us at [email protected].