Photo Shards

PHOTO S HARD S

Preparing to Move Broken Glass-Plate Negatives

Archival conservator Lauren Buttle pinning shards of a glassplate negative into a pincushion tray.

Moving is hard work. Moving an entire museum collection and an archive is a lot of hard work. The preparation for our move to the new Collections and Research Building is underway, and we’re busy making sure that collection material is packed in a safe, stable way, so it can withstand handling and transport. Any material that is not stable enough to be moved is flagged for conservation.

By Lauren Buttle Archival Conservator

One common conservation flag involves collections of broken glass-plate photographs. Glass plates were used as a support for photographic slides and negatives well into the first half of the twentieth century, and there are many in the collections. Many have undergone treatment in the past couple of years, but these treatments are time-consuming—too time-consuming, given the quantity of glass plates and the staff available. This means some plates will need to be moved before they are treated.

But how do you move sharp, fragile shards of glass in a manner that keeps both the photographs and those handling them safe, while also maintaining the links these plates have to their respective collections?

The solution we’ve developed involves custom-made pincushion trays. The trays are made from corrugated plastic board and high-quality foam, then lined with a plastic fabric to create a smooth surface for the plates. The glass-plate shards are set into the tray, one piece at a time, beginning in one of the

Two broken glass-plate negatives pinned into a pincushion tray.

corners. Each is held in place with a small block of foam, pinned with a stainless-steel dressmaker’s pin. Once enough pins have been applied to hold this first shard in place, the next shard is added. This process is repeated until all shards have been aligned and secured. The trays, which are large enough to hold almost any plate in the collection (and sometimes two!), stack into standard-size record-storage boxes. Each is numbered so the exact position of each plate can be precisely tracked.

These pincushion trays will provide temporary protection for each shard as collections are moved from one building to another, and afterwards as the plates await conservation treatment. The downside of this system is that it drastically increases the amount of space these plates take up— and in the context of most archival and museum institutions, space comes at a high premium. But since we are moving to a new, larger facility, the temporary increase in footprint is not a concern.

In the years to come, these plates will be treated and returned to the storage boxes that they were pulled from—work which will take place in the new laboratories of the Collections and Research Building in Colwood.

Archival conservator Lauren Buttle assembling shards of a broken glassplate negative on a transmitted-light table before transferring them to a pincushion tray.