Odor in audio cassettes

Several cassette tapes of recent vintage (1990- ) in our collection have
developed a peculiar odor.  They smell like an electrical fire.  All are
Maxell Professional Industrial Duplicator cassettes.  I spoke with Chris
Paton, Special Collections at Georgia State University, and she had not
heard of this problem before.  She did say it could be any part of the
cassette system, not just the tape itself.  Has anyone else experienced
this situation with cassettes?  I assume we need to copy the existing
tapes to new cassettes.  Any information concerning this situation would
be helpful.

Marcia Watt
Preservation Officer
Emory University Libraries

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 8:18
                 Distributed: Sunday, September 4, 1994
                        Message Id: cdl-8-18-007
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