Glass plate negatives

I have to clean and prepare a large collection of glass plate
negatives for a scanning project. There are well over 10 thousand
glass plates, some have envelopes (some don't), some are in a
reasonable condition and will only require surface cleaning to
remove dust--but there are others which are broken, have the
emulsion layer peeling off and have the paper envelope stuck to the
glass (caused by damp).

Do you have any suggestions for

    *   the safe removal of the paper envelope?
    *   the safe cleaning of the glass negatives?
    *   the safe treatment of peeling emulsion layers?
    *   how to store the glass plate and envelope safely?
    *   any conservation advice for the scanning of glass plates?

Anna Meehan,
South Tipperary County Museum,
Ireland
+353 52 34555


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 16:2
                  Distributed: Thursday, June 20, 2002
                        Message Id: cdl-16-2-013
                                  ***