- Bettmann Archive
The Bettmann Archive is a collection of 11 million photographs and images, some going back to the United States Civil War and including some of the best known U.S. historic images. The Archive also includes many images from Europe and elsewhere.
It was founded in 1936 by
Otto Bettmann (1903–1998), a Germancurator who emigrated to the United States in 1935. In 1960, Bettmann moved it from his apartment inNew York City to theTischman building on West 57th Street, New York City. In 1981, Bettmann sold the archive to theKraus Thomson Organization . In 1995, the archive was sold toCorbis , a digitalstock photography company founded byBill Gates .In 2002, to preserve the photos and negatives, Corbis moved the archive from Manhattan to the
Iron Mountain National Underground Storage Facility , a formerlimestone quarry located 220 feet (67 m) below ground in westernPennsylvania . The temperature of the storage room has been gradually lowered to 45 °F (7.2 °C), which was determined to be the optimal temperature for the long-term storage of the archive. At this temperature, the collection will degrade 500 times slower in storage at Iron Mountain than it did in Manhattan. [Wilhelm, Henry et al. (2004) [http://www.wilhelm-research.com/subzero/WIR_ISTpaper_2004_04_HW.pdf High-Security, Sub-Zero Cold Storage For the PERMANENT Preservation of the Corbis-Bettmann Archive Photography Collection] , IS&T's 2004 Archiving Conference] Meanwhile, Corbis has been scanning the negatives into digital form.The archive began with Otto Bettmann's personal collection of 15,000 images. Over the years, it acquired other collections including: the Gendreau Collection of Americana in 1967; the
Underwood & Underwood Collection of material from late 19th century to World War I in 1971; and theUnited Press International collection in 1984.References
External links
* [http://www.corbis.com/BettMann100/Archive/BettmannArchive.asp Bettmann web site]
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