One mission of the National Library of Medicine is to preserve the material in its vast collection. One approach the Library has taken is to microfilm many of the aging, brittle volumes. The Library has a collection of approximately 35,000 reels of microfilm that require archival storage and is currently producing additional reels at the rate of 5,000 per year. These films are a national resource since, in most cases film copies do not exist at other libraries. This project is to provide offsite archival storage of, and access to, the NLM microfilm master negatives. The project also includes shipping of microfilm masters to the storage facility, and management of the stored materials.
