Update weekly log

Modified: February 14, 2026 7:58 PM Category: Logins Created: September 17, 2025 3:27 PM Master Type: Notes Hide: No Starred: No Status: Unassigned

The Hooks Brothers Collection arrived at the museum, wherein we did a box-level inventory and subsequently began assessing the photographs for future organization, digitization, rehousing, and long-term storage. In the process of beginning this assessment, nitrate negatives began to emerge within the collection, and we rapidly shifted priority to determining what other nitrate negatives were in the collection.

We processed 37 nitrate negatives to be stored in the freezer. Approximately 30 nitrate negatives were found to be in bad condition (what is considered “stage 3” deterioration—extremely brittle, noticeably bubbling, and/or emitting a noxious odor—or worse), and were quarantined to be given to the fire department for destruction. An additional 50 acetate negatives were found to be in bad condition, with the contents of the photograph too degraded to be discernible any more. Negatives that were especially deteriorated or outright hazardous were quickly documented before being placed inside one of three fireproof canisters.

The collections department continued to sift through and document every box and binder that comprises the Hooks Brothers Collection, both for nitrate negatives of any kind for safe storage or disposal, as well as particularly degraded acetates. Nitrates in poor condition were quarantined in one fireproof canister, while acetates in poor condition were kept in another canister to help mitigate the smell from the off-gassing. Negatives in good condition were placed in individual envelopes and stored in small stacks inside Marvelseal envelopes, while prints were left in their boxes for the time being. On Friday, the Memphis Fire Department was called in to retrieve the canister of quarantined nitrates, which included a stack of negatives too melted together to determine their contents or exact number, as well as 2 nitrates at “stage 5” deterioration. Some 100 nitrates negatives were removed from the premises, as well as a further 122 badly degraded acetate negatives.

Documenting the deteriorating negatives continued as boxes were examined for nitrates and/or badly degraded acetates, with the same process from the previous week: Negatives in poor condition, and all nitrates, were removed and documented to be imaged and processed depending on the type and condition of the film; any remaining negatives were placed in Marvelseal; all other items in the collection were left untouched in their boxes for the time being. Near the end of the week, a handful of nitrates in stage 5 deterioration were found, several of which were too adhered to their enclosures to be properly counted or imaged. An estimated ten (10) stage 5 nitrates were placed in quarantine, as well as one (1) nitrate in stage 4 condition.

Progress on imaging the deteriorated acetates accelerated rapidly after purchasing a tripod mount for the phone being used to take discovery images, so negatives could be quickly placed and removed on the light panel in Hooks storage with minimal adjustment; this additionally provided valuable knowledge and experience to assist with fine-tuning what would be needed for the full digitization project using a copy stand and DSLR. Elsewhere, collections staff continued to work through boxes to place non-hazardous negatives in Marvelseal. A third freezer for the negatives was delivered, and 5 nitrates in approximately stage 4 condition were imaged before being quarantined for disposal.

Continued sorting through negatives, and processing deteriorated acetates and nitrates, as well as making further progress on organizing and uploading discovery images. Personal assessment notes, images, etc. are stored in the online database Airtable, while shared notes and images are entered into the museum’s Google Drive account. Time was also spent triaging unidentified negatives for their condition, and whether they could be confirmed to be acetate or nitrate.

Further triaged the collection; two stage 5+ nitrates were discovered, imaged, and quarantined for disposal. Additional imaging and quarantine was enacted for additional nitrates approximately around stage 3, as well as some unidentified negatives; the fire department will be contacted to take all of these negatives away on Friday. Some additional data entry was completed for disposed negatives, and we finished organizing one section of the remaining collection of negatives to be evaluated for disposal.

Other time-sensitive obligations required putting a pause on imaging the Hooks collection this week. However, some of the collections department continued to triage the negatives for nitrate and deteriorating acetate.

Other time-sensitive obligations required putting a pause on imaging the Hooks collection this week. However, part of the collections department finished triaging the negatives for nitrate and deteriorating acetate! The entire collection had been reviewed for potential hazards, with nitrate and degraded acetate set aside, either to be stored in freezers or imaged for disposal.

Other time-sensitive obligations required putting a pause on the Hooks collection this week.

Eased back into the routine of working with the Hooks collection by continuing to upload the images of disposed of negatives, as well as work on data entry and update records for these photographs. With the collection fully triaged, resumed assessing the triaged negatives to determine which were in good or poor condition, for eventual rehousing or disposal as necessary for each object.

Completed assessing the triaged negatives to determine which were in good or poor condition. Negatives in good condition stored in record boxes to be rehoused as appropriate. Negatives in poor condition set aside to be imaged for disposal; this process resumed, grouping negatives by image size and taking discovery images before placing degraded photographs in the correct fire canister.

Continued imaging negatives for disposal, and concurrently resumed data entry and uploading images for the disposed of negatives. Arranged a meeting with the rest of the collections department as well as the curator of photography to discuss plans for storage and rehousing of the collection in greater detail, now that the entire collection had been assessed for potential hazards and the number of deteriorated images to dispose of was beginning to dwindle.

Another meeting was held between part of the collections department and the museum’s grantwriter to discuss details and specifications about the collection, including the history of the project, what had occurred since nitrates had been discovered, and upcoming plans for the project. Simultaneously, additional negatives were imaged for disposal, including a very large number of nitrates (around 200-300), all of which were at approximately stage 2.5-3.

Continued imaging negatives for disposal, with only a small number remaining to be processed. Many of these negatives lacked identifying marks, and were placed with the nitrates in quarantine unless the deterioration was unequivocally acetate in nature (crystallizing, delaminating, etc.)

Other obligations required putting a pause on the Hooks collection this week.

Continued, and completed, imaging negatives for disposal. These were comprised almost entirely of nitrates at varying points of stage 2.3, 3, and 4 of deterioration, and unidentified negatives demonstrating either similar degrees of degradation or that were likely degraded acetate negatives. In addition to taking all of the discovery images for the negatives to be disposed of, select images from two binders were photographed (using similar methods as the deteriorated negatives) to be used as discovery images for the exhibition checklist.

Continued data entry into Airtable for portions of the degraded negatives.

Data entry of degraded negatives briefly paused to shift focus to the binders in the collection, specifically those that had been catalogued and required images for exhibition checklists. Initial reference images taken of every item in the first 3 binders.

Relocated to museum’s print room to work more closely with the DSLR and copy stand, improving workflow and camera settings. One issue that appeared almost immediately was the time lost not only moving between the offices, print room, and Hooks storage, but specifically in the time lost separating acetates (which cannot be taken into the print room) from other photographs, and keep track of how these images have been separated from each other, and then relocate non-acetates to the print room.

Other obligations required putting a pause on the Hooks collection this week, including traveling to New York state for a workshop. However, the workshop covered topics relevant to storing the Hooks collection and will be useful to the project going forward.

Continued working in print room and finalizing the camera setup; ordered a “dummy battery” for the camera, to mitigate the occasional time lost to the rechargeable batteries dying too quickly. Additionally, research into alternative software other than Adobe Lightroom led to industry leading application Capture One. Some initial testing with Capture One led to excellent results in simplifying and streamlining the imaging process, and the workflow for capturing images of the collection was almost immediately shifted from Lightroom to Capture One permanently. Frustrations over time lost moving to and from the print room continued.

Working with the curator for the Hooks collection, adjusted and finalized how the digitized scans should look, image-to-image, for all digitized images. Continued capturing reference images of the binders for exhibition checklists.

Finalized capturing reference images of the binders for exhibition checklists, and used these for testing chosen digitization workflow.

A new location for the copy stand and camera setup is determined, much closer to the collection’s storage room, and that does not require separating any of the images from each other. Immediate improvement in the experience imaging the collection, and focus shifts wholly to prioritizing digitizing the binders, beginning with the larger glass plate negatives. However, issues arise when it becomes apparent the Canon DSLR struggles to take high quality images of smaller photographs, e.g. 4x5 or smaller.

There are interruptions in the new, shared workspace, but progress continues on imaging predominantly 5x7 negatives. Speaking with the curator for the Hooks Brothers collection, new cameras and their lenses are researched in order to address the Canon’s struggles to image smaller photographs, and the Sony a7r V becomes the predominant choice for a new camera.

Imagining begins on 8x10 negatives contained within the first four binders that have been catalogued; near the end of the week, another catalogued binder is incorporated into the imaging process. The new Sony camera is approved of and an order is placed, but shipping delays fail to result in its delivery this week.

Progress on the 8x10 negatives continues and is largely completed, and after several more shipping delays, the new Sony camera finally arrives. There is a brief adjustment period to become accustomed to the new camera’s settings and how it takes pictures relative to the older Canon camera. Some further adjustments are made to how photographs are mounted and framed image-to-image to account for the Sony’s increased resolution, with Newton rings briefly being a concern before the issue is resolved with materials already on hand.

With the new camera and an improved process for positioning each photograph, imaging the 4x5s can begin. At this point, additional record keeping beyond what was already in use is introduced in order to better facilitate each stage of when the photographs are removed from the binders, imaged, and returned to the binders, and this new method will be used going forward. The new camera invites experimentation and further streamlining the existing process to continually shave off small increments of time and the overall system used to capture images.

Imaging the 4x5s continues, with the pace improving slightly each day as familiarity with the workflow increases. Considerations for the small number of pamphlets and brochures within the collection are raised; research into book holders and other support tools is conducted, though these are ultimately not necessarily beneficial for the collection as a whole and appear overzealous given how few such materials exist within the collection. Further experimentation with the current digitization setup leads to the decision to purchase non-reflective acrylic, intended to be tested as a platen for both bound materials and severely warped photographs, to see how it affects lighting and placement during imaging.

The sheet of acrylic arrives and is immediately put to the test during the imaging process. It proves useful for keeping warped photographs flat and stable, though it is prone to attracting dust and debris, and its weight can be slightly cumbersome when placed on delicate or particularly fragile materials. Adjustments to handling and cleaning the acrylic are considered to minimize these issues.

Scanning of new images is put on hold temporarily to allow for the processing of previously captured scans ahead of the arrival of an artist visiting the museum in January, who will review the collection and ideally create work inspired by it. Consequently, focus shifts to exporting existing scans to PSD files, which can then be cropped, adjusted, and converted to positives where necessary, with metadata maintained for tracking purposes.

Processing of scanned images continues steadily, with the resulting files exported in both TIFF and JPEG formats to ensure flexibility for future use and sharing. File organization and preliminary quality control are carried out concurrently.

Out for the week for the holidays, though some work on scans continues remotely as time and bandwidth allow. Efforts remain focused on maintaining continuity and preventing backlog.

During remote work, an issue arises with Google Drive, which had attempted to upload all of the Hooks Brothers files—including those not intentionally marked for upload. Due to the large size of many files, Google Drive fails to fully redownload them for access, whether through the browser or the desktop app. Multiple attempts over several days fail, leaving the collection temporarily in limbo until a redundant, non-Drive backup can be leveraged to restore files. This preserves the integrity of previously captured images, though some processed scans are lost and require reprocessing. The situation highlights an urgent need to reassess and improve backup procedures moving forward.

Immediate steps are taken to research and acquire an external hard drive capable of holding the full collection, and missing or additional JPEG files needed for the artist visit are uploaded and shared to ensure all necessary materials are accessible.

Retrieval of files from the redundant backup continues, and reprocessing of files lost due to the Google Drive issue is underway. Simultaneously, the process of implementing a redundant backup system for the external hard drive begins to ensure future stability and prevent similar issues.

Reprocessing of files continues alongside ongoing work with the redundant backup, which is a time-intensive process given the size of the external hard drive and the number of files to be copied and verified. Progress is steady, though it requires careful monitoring.

Reprocessing of lost files is finalized, though redundant backup work is temporarily paused due to an accident with the external hard drive requiring repairs. Despite this setback, the collection of scanned images remains intact. Most of the week is spent working remotely from home, with one day spent on-site at the museum, during which ephemera from the binders begins to be scanned.

Out sick for part of the week, with work paused.

Scanning of any remaining prints and ephemera not yet captured from the binders in progress continues, with simultaneous improvements to the overall setup and workflow for imaging these materials. Vendor research is conducted to identify potential data recovery services for the damaged external hard drive, and communication is initiated to obtain a quote.

Processing of many images of prints and ephemera captured in previous weeks continues, while work with the HR department begins to establish a vendor profile for the hard drive repair.

Scanning progresses through Binders 1–6, and the damaged hard drive is sent for recovery.

Images are reviewed carefully to ensure nothing is missing, with gaps noted for follow-up.

Missing images are captured as needed, with concurrent follow-up on the missing hard drive and assistance provided for grant critique related to the collection.

Efforts are made to complete any remaining missing images, though details remain uncertain. Follow-up occurs regarding a failed attempt to recover the external hard drive.

File cleanup is undertaken, though specifics are unclear. Continued file organization efforts focus on ensuring the overall collection remains orderly.

File cleanup continues, addressing redundancies and ensuring accurate metadata.

File cleanup proceeds, with additional activities including participation in a New York Times interview and attempts to recall the timing of a meeting with Rose for context in documentation.

Airtable records are uploaded and cleaned up, consolidating metadata and linking images appropriately.

Further work is done on uploading and cleaning Airtable records, while photographs are taken for Rose as needed to supplement documentation.

Out on vacation, with no additional collection work performed.

Vacation continues, providing time for rest and recovery.

Airtable records are updated following return, continuing ongoing documentation and data integrity efforts.

Updated Airtable records coincide with participation in a large meeting with Jennifer, Rosamund, and Rose, where future plans for the Hooks collection and the possibility of interns are discussed. Work continues on editing exported images from the collection.

Editing of exported images continues, alongside additional updates to Airtable records to maintain alignment between files and metadata.

Airtable records are further updated as part of ongoing collection management and digitization documentation.

Research into DAMS vendors is conducted, with quotes collected and Airtable records updated accordingly for reference.

Weekly check-in meetings with Rose are initiated to assess digitization progress and exhibition needs more specifically. Research into DAMS solutions continues, with findings documented in Airtable.

DAMS vendor research and quote collection continues, with updates logged in Airtable to track options and pricing.

Digitization and uploading of items from Music Binder 1, as well as part of Music Binder 2, are completed to meet exhibition needs. Additional platens are acquired to support the imaging process and improve efficiency.

Remaining items from Music Binder 2 are digitized and uploaded to fulfill exhibition requirements, ensuring full coverage of relevant materials.

Automation scripts are refined to improve file processing speed and efficiency, resulting in faster workflows and reduced manual handling.

Work on Binders 13–15 continues, focusing on digitizing glass plate negatives. Processed files are uploaded to Airtable for organization and tracking purposes.

Progress continues through Binders 13–15, with additional scans of smaller negatives completed. Organization of the collection is improved, and an external request from outside the museum is fulfilled. Additional work is completed on file processing, uploading to Airtable, and DAMS research.

Scanning work continues steadily, with consistent attention to maintaining workflow and image quality.

Development and refinement of automation scripts continue, streamlining the imaging workflow and reducing repetitive manual tasks.

Work on scanning binders and refining the launcher.sh script proceeds even while sick. Additional catalogue scans are processed, and a second monitor (Apple Studio Display) is acquired to improve workstation efficiency and viewing accuracy.

Focus remains primarily on scripting work, particularly improvements to the launcher.sh script, while scanning work continues concurrently. New methods are developed for reducing TIFF file sizes and improving conversion speeds, which will support long-term processing efficiency. Additional scans of binders are completed and integrated into the collection workflow.