Deterioration of glass negatives

At the Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn Archives in Bryn Athyn,
Pennsylvania, we have a collection of about 4000 Glass Negatives. We
are only just beginning to address their preservation appropriately,
and in doing so I have noticed that many of them smell pretty
strongly of vinegar.  While I understand that this is common for
deteriorating motion picture film, I haven't heard of this in
connection to deteriorating glass negatives. Does anyone have any
information that might explain the smell?  Can you point me in the
right direction?

Eli Echols
Assistant Archivist


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 14:26
                Distributed: Wednesday, November 8, 2000
                       Message Id: cdl-14-26-021
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