Exploring

External Factors

These film negatives are stored in poor quality enclosures and do not have proper support to prevent distortion.

As with paper-based collections, external factors such as high, low, or fluctuating temperature and humidity; light exposure; the presence of pollutants; and poor storage and handling exacerbate the deterioration of film and electronic media. While these external factors affect all media collections to some extent, some of them are particularly damaging to specific types of materials, which will be the focus of this section. You will consider these external agents of deterioration in more detail in Session 4: The Building and Environment and Session 5: Collections Care, which will address how to control them and mitigate the damage they cause.