Re: [ARSCLIST] Thinner CD-R cases?; Archiving Temperatures?;CD-RCaseLabelling?

[Bradleys <stonecottage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Miriam Meislik wrote the ARCLIST
________________

Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 8:14 AM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Thinner CD-R cases?; Archiving
Temperatures?;CD-RCaseLabelling?

There is a hub label for CDs that is available.  They are also available in
an
acid free/foil backed version from University Products.  I have tried a
couple
and they seem to work well.  This is what I intend to use to label our CDs
and
the DVDs that we will be creating for an ongoing digitization project.  For
us
this appears to be the best labeling solution.

Miriam
___________

University Products has a line of archival supplies, correct? What claims do
they make for the long term safety and efficacy of these foil labels? They
could be appropriate. Metal foil may have advantages over paper as regards
concerns about dust, acid and manufacturing chemicals as well as being
thinner. If thin enough, they might hairline tear rather than force a disc
to curl if any sort of shrinkage or expansion were occurring. A lighter more
plastic friendly adhesive might also be on them (something to check but foil
is different then paper and a superior as well as thinner adhesive system
was perhaps available).

I concur with an earlier comment to this thread: the original Jewel boxes
are not very inspiring. I have had hinges break all the time. The cases are
brittle. Whatever plastic they are made with there is probably plasticizers
or other additives or manufacturing chemical leftovers that are not
something one would feel good about. Pressing the discs onto the hubs seems
to take appreciable force (some models) as well as puling the discs off of
the hubs. The special features of the slim cases previous mentioned sound
good.

Archival appropriate sleeves for photographs or photographic negatives might
also be okay to use on the discs (must be checked out though). If the
sleeved discs are packed into appropriate sized archival boxes (on edge,
single row, not tight) what would be the problem? If these discs really do
sag with age that would be a huge problem. Phonograph records are stored on
edge with out center support (using sleeves inside of original jackets
(where appropriate and available)--all of that placed into specially
designed archival boxes that hold several, are they not? Are there problems
with doing that? Are CD and DVD discs less robust in this respect then
phonograph records?

So far as I know original phonographic labels are left on the archived
originals. This is probably a case of "if it is not broken don't fix it"
plus the labels are an important part of the archival artifact being stored.

I have raised a few possibilities here to coax responses from those on this
list who know more about these matters. None of my questions are rhetorical.

Ralph Bradley
Family Voices, family archive services
Maryville, Tennessee