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194 BRADLEY August
working staff) should reduce to a minimum the risk of loss from fire, water, and chemical deterioration. The average vault in current use does not meet these requirements. Fires continue at an uncomfortable rate, damage from water in an attempt to control such fires remains serious, and the application of known chemical preservation techniques is frequently difficult if not impossible. In this latter respect, the chemist and the custodian have gone ahead of both the underwriter and the architect. In fact, our national thinking in terms of vault construction and storage practices seems to have come to a halt many years ago.
For example, the Underwriters' Laboratories, the National Board of Fire Underwriters, municipalities, and others in a position to speak with authority on the subject, still approve the storing of 7 pounds of nitrate film for each square inch of vent area, still require heavy and expensive construction to prevent a rupture of the vault by reason of fire and internal pressure, still approve up to 10,000 pounds of film per vault unit regardless of the subject-matter value of such film, and still recommend the storing of cans on edges in both vaults and cabinets, which exposes the film to damage by water. On the subject of temperature and humidity control these same authorities are almost completely silent. These are the facts; what are the implications?
Neither experience nor experiment supports such practices, particularly when the protection of archival or other material of high value is involved. Certainly a cabinet in which each can of film is stored horizontally in a separate compartment that is vented to the exterior, as advocated by Crabtree and Ives2 19 years ago offers greater protection against both fire and water than a vault where the cans are stored on edge in open racks. Certainly the need for protection against high pressures and chemical deterioration has been amply demonstrated in recent years. Perhaps the apparent discrepancy between existing regulations and recently developed information is the fact that such regulations have not been thoroughly revised in several years, a discrepancy we hope will be corrected shortly.
Perhaps a better explanation is a matter of misplaced responsibility. For example, the architect is not supposed to be a chemist or a custodian. He builds for others and in the terms that others dictate. The underwriter's interest in fire control is based chiefly on a possible loss of property. He is a sort of scientific gambler; he takes a calculated risk and if he loses he pays the debt, but not by replacing a priceless record. He bets against lightning striking the storage building.