4 ms·

Any particular reason they couldn't use one of these laser vinyl turntables?

• dredmorbius 5y ago
  "It looks like somebody just got hungry and took a bite out of it," says Haber. He has positioned the record on a turntable and fitted the broken piece back into place, like it's a jigsaw puzzle. "If we spun this thing fast, the piece would come flying off, you know, and maybe hit somebody," he says. Paragraph 2 of the link.
  • caseysoftware 5y ago
    In that particular case, definitely. More generally, it's risk. Every time an archivist touches the media - no matter gloves, a clean environment, the care applied, etc - there's a risk of altering or even damaging it. In our case, the eventual goal was to keep the ever-deteriorating originals in nitrogen-filled vaults. Therefore, if you can avoid having to touch it often (or ever), then you've managed to protect it better, probably longer, and more cheaply.
    • dredmorbius 5y ago
      Right. Static, high-resolution photography (or other imaging) is about the least-invasive, lowest-risk options available.