They were pictures made to be printed in newspapers and magazines. They were bent, scribbled on, captioned and recaptioned. Some were stored near radiators and leaky pipes. No one took care of them, and now many are falling apart. A lot of the color film has faded and the acetate-based negatives have begun to break down, bubble and crack.
Film needs to be in cold, dry storage.
That is the only thing that can slow its deterioration, Mr. Wilhelm said. At the moment, the most vulnerable Bettmann negatives in New York are in two commercial freezers, awaiting the move to the mine. That will change soon. This fall, Corbis will start trucking all of its photographs, negatives and other graphic materials from New York to the new site that Mr. Wilhelm is helping to plan in the Pennsylvania mine. When the move is done, Corbis's New York office will contain nothing but people and their computers, plugged into a digital archive.