[NHCOLL-L:4504] RE: Cleaning Slides

[O'Brien, Mark]

There are a number of resources on the web, but it takes a lot of digging to ferret them out, and many are outdated.  Many people simply use isopropyl alcohol and swab the slide with a Q-tip  or a pec-pad to remove the grime.  Due to the number of slides now being scanned, some commercial products have appeared that are advertised as being the right solution to the problem: http://www.slidescribe.com/pcld.shtml   - The PEC-12 archival film and print cleaner should be the product that you are looking for.    In addition, you may want to inquire at George Eastman House in Rochester.  Wilhelm Research has a pdf (somewhat outdated) on managing a slide collection: http://www.wilhelm-research.com/book_toc.html    18. Handling and Preservation of Color Slide Collections

The best way to properly clean a transparency is to remove it from the mount and clean it with the pec-12 solution, because you want to remove the dirt, not just move it around to the edge of the mounted slide.   I suppose what you do may depend on how grimy the slides are.

The other problem I see is when transparencies are in glass mounts.  The formation of mold is often on the coating of the anti-Newton glass, and the entire slide has to be disassembled and cleaned, and in those cases I remount the slide in a plastic mount and not between glass.

Kodak used to have a fact sheet on mold and film, and it is available here: http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/007/007tlK-17401484.pdf

Of course, if these are only to be scanned, some of the dirt can be removed in post-processing, but it's probably less time to go ahead and clean the slide before scanning, anyway.

Good luck

Mark






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Mark F. O'Brien, Collection Manager
UMMZ Insect Division, 1109 Geddes Avenue
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079
734-647-2199    fax: 734-763-4080
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