Damaged CDs

A member of the Ohio University community recently approached the
preservation department with a query about a collection of CDs which
were apparently damaged during shipment from India to the United States.
The music was purchased in the USA between 1989 and 1992 and played
fine. The owner shipped the 120-item collection to India (presumably in
1992) and had no problem. A year ago, the CDs were returned to the US
and it was then that the problem was discovered. According to the owner
the entire collection has been damaged beyond use. Attempts to play the
CDs resulted in his being able to hear the first part of the music
followed by "skipping". He describes the items as having a fungicidal
growth or coating and a peeling of the metallic foil around the edges
and centre of the disc. Jai is a photographer and has seen similar
growth on slides.

Most of the CDs are labels such as Phillips, Archive, Ouise L'lyre,
Columbia, Telarc, and Deutche Gramaphone; however, Phillips and DG
labels are the most severely effected. Jai is considering contacting the
manufacturers/distributors concerning this problem. In the meantime, I
am also trying to find some answers. Has anyone on the list experienced
similar problems with CDs? Might this fungus (or whatever the growth is)
be as a result of moisture build-up in the packaging? (the owner wrapped
10-15 CDs, per package, in plastic wrap & foam and then placed in
mailing cardboard boxes; additional foam was used inside the box to
minimize movement of the CD packages). The same method of packing was
employed to ship the CDs from the US to India and the results were fine,
which leads us to believe that packaging is not a part of the problem.
Even though Jai's collection has been ruined this issue may well come up
again. Any comments, suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks.

Patricia Smith
Head, Preservation Department
Ohio University

                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 8:41
                Distributed: Thursday, December 1, 1994
                        Message Id: cdl-8-41-007
                                  ***