[NJARC] The David Sarnoff Library needs your help

[Dave Sica]

Dear Friends of the David Sarnoff Library,
 
The nor'easter that many of us have experienced this week resulted in an
unprecedented 20 inches of water in our basement storage areas.  Since we
have never had more than 5 inches before and I had never anticipated more
than 12, there are a large number of waterlogged and unique documents
from the Princeton Labs, the RCA Lancaster and  Broadcast Divisions,
Camden and other NJ locations, and Communications in Japan. Some 600
cubic feet of lab notebooks, technical reports, manuals, and some
manuscript collections are soaking.
 
Despite the flaws of this storage area, floods and water damage are
endemic to all archives--national, state, and university.  Sarnoff
Corporation has pumped out most of the water.  After that, time is of the
essence to recover these unique collections.
 
I called three document freeze-drying specialists recommended by
Princeton University and the NJ State Archives for quotes.  The winning
respondent, Document Reprocessors, will arrive in the next half hour,
when its crew will begin repacking the collections, tracking them, and
transporting the frozen boxes to its facility in Rochester, NY.  There
its staff will sublimate the ice and as importantly, flatten the dried
documents through its patented process.
 
Our liability insurance does not cover flooding.  Document Reprocessors
has estimated a cost of $100 per cubic foot.  They have very kindly
provided us a 50% professional discount on the freeze-drying and will
subtract another 25% of that cost if we can pay the invoice by the time
they are ready to return the collections--in 3-4 weeks' time. 
 
I am pleased to say that Sarnoff Corporation will help offset some of
this unexpected cost, and that members of David Sarnoff's family have
already sent contributions.  But these unique collections represent the
patrimony of RCA staff creativity in research, development, engineering,
and producing the communications and information technologies used around
the world.  We saved these files in the first place because of their
importance in documenting the birth of modern communications, from
broadcast microphones to color TV picture tubes, from satellite
communciations to the microchips that surround us in cars, computers, and
cell phones.
 
Please help us rescue and restore this world heritage by adopting a
report ($25), a carton ($100), or a cabinet ($1000).   Your checks, to
the David Sarnoff Library, or Paypal donations (https://www.paypal.com/,
to donations at davidsarnoff.org) will help not only preserve what must
be preserved, but enable us to move forward with the development of the
field trip programming this year that will allow the next generation
appreciate what David Sarnoff and RCA's thousands of employees created.
 
Thank you,
 
Alex
 
--
Alexander B. Magoun, Ph.D.
Executive Director
David Sarnoff Library
201 Washington Road, CN 5300
Princeton, NJ 08543-5300
 
609-734-2636
amagoun at davidsarnoff.org
(f) 609-734-2339
www.davidsarnoff.org
www.davidsarnoff.blogspot.com