Preserving glassed slides from the fifties?

[Galaxens President]

During the easter holidays I went through my grandfathers glassed 6x6cm slide collection from the fifties and sixties. Some of those photos are really great and I am interested in scanning them but they're quite dirty and I would also like to preserve them for future generations.

The glass is sticky and messy from degenerated tape holding the sandwich of glass and film together. Also the film itself seems to have dirt on it and a few of the images seems to have something that might be fungus on them.

If I take the slides apart to scan them, what do I use to clean them without harming them.

What do I do to maximize their lifetime? Should I unmount all the slides, clean them and keep the film in paper holders (pergamynt), or anything else? Any other suggestions?

/Richard

 

[Neal]

Dear Richard,

In the past I have found that folks at the George Eastman House are very helpful with photographic conservation advice. The last time I used them I left an e-mail and a well thought out reply was had in a couple of days.

Neal Wydra