We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
274 CUMMINGS, HUTTON AND SlLFlN
DISPOSAL OF DECOMPOSED FILM
Films of stages three, four, and five, designated for disposal, should be immediately submerged in water-filled drums. They should be carried in these drums to a remote, uninhabited area approved by fire authorities and destroyed by burning. The ground on which the film is to be burned should be free of brush, grass, leaves, and combustible litter. Burning should be confined to batches of not more than 25 Ib, as the heat from the burning of large amounts of film creates a strong updraft which may bear fragments of burning film considerable distances to endanger neighboring properties. Under no circumstances should films be burned in an inhabited area or within a building. The rapid production of gases by burning film makes it extremely dangerous, particularly if burned in a furnace or confined space. During test fires in a well vented vault, engineers of the Interagency Advisory Committee for Nitrate Film Vault Tests have recorded pressures as high as 18 psi. It is readily understandable that no ordinary furnace structure could withstand this pressure; its breeching would fail and fill the furnace room with flames and poisonous gases.
PROTECTION OF PERSONNEL DURING INSPECTION
It is quite possible in the initial inspection that a relatively high proportion of film in advanced stages of decomposition may be found. The opening of cans containing this film may liberate quantities of noxious gases into the working area. Personnel exposed to them may experience nausea, headache, and other unpleasant symptoms if the ventilation is inadequate. It is, therefore, recommended that the personnel working on old film inspection be given ten-minute rest periods each hour in the outer air.
If we are to enjoy freedom from film fires during the coming summer, a comprehensive program of film inspection should begin now so that the task may be completed before the onset of hot weather. Since film is constantly subject to decomposition, inspection should be repeated annually, preferably in the spring. Only by such procedure can we avoid the insidious menace to life and property hidden in deteriorating motion picture film. Particular attention should be given to film of unknown quality or of obscure origin.