Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 39. (1986)
Archive Buildings and the Conservation of Archival Material. An Expert Meeting, held in Vienna, Austria October 30 - November 1, 1985 - STEWART, William J.: Summary of Discussions
258 William J. Stewart building 200 m above sea-level, next door to the vast woodlands north of the city. The former position was at the bottom of the Oslo kettle, near the harbour, where in the sixties measurements showed an air pollution very much the same as found in London or Chicago. The air-conditioning system, with heating/cooling, humidifying/dehumidify- ing, and circulation machinery, is operated by electricity. All air taken into the system has to pass rough, fine, and sulphuric dioxide filters. 90 per cent of it is re-circulated, after having passed filters again, and this, of course, saves a lot of energy consumption. All strongrooms are controlled from a central panel, and a temperature of 20 centigrades, and a relative air humidity (RH) of 50-55 per cent, are maintained. A special strongroom keeping +10 centigrades and a ca 25 per cent RH serves for the storing of microfilm originals. There is a special room for magnetic tape, and the like, as well. - An emergency power generator starts within seconds on failure of the ordinary electricity supply. An air space between the rock and the walls and roof of the strongroom building prevents moisture from penetrating into the interior of the building. There are no water installations in the strongrooms. Fire alarms will go direct to the fire brigade station from the strongroom-area, and the administration building, respectively. From the staircase and the lifts leading downstairs in a joint shaft from the administration building and ending outside the strongroom plant proper, the latter is reached by a corridor for each of the four storeys. This makes the transport of documents between the two elements more time- and personnelconsuming than would have been the case if the shaft had come into the centre area of the strongroom, but is a sacrifice on the altar of security. Mr Eken concluded his discourse with a commentary and annotation of an English language brochure he had distributed to the conferees, The New Building of the National Archives of Norway and with reference to Archivum 31 (1985). Benoit: May I ask a question of Dr Buchmann in reference to architectural drawings? Because of their peculiar dimensions, at least in relation to other paper records, can you tell us how best to store these materials? Buchmann: At the moment the easiest means of storage is microfilm but the most difficult question focuses on the future. In the next twenty years architectural drawings will exist in machine readable form only. This will cause difficulties because the information contained in them can only be extracted by using special program packages. These program packages present a difficult problem for long term storage. Du ehe in: This will be one of the themes of the ICA Congress in 1988. Auer: I have two questions partly with regard to Dr Buchmann’s paper and partly with regard to the intervention of Mr Eken. First question: Do you think
