Protecting Scottish film heritage
August 1st 2007

A building management system (BMS), supplied by Priva Building Intelligence and designed and installed by Campbell Control Services, is helping to protect 100 years of screen history at the Scottish Screen Archive in Glasgow.

The Archive is a unique source of Scotland's heritage, comprising more than 32,000 individual items of documentary, newsreel and short films, together with education, advertising, promotional material, and amateur footage. To ensure their longevity, this material is stored in three environmentally controlled vaults – colour film, magnetic tape and a freezer.

The vaults need to be closely controlled to ±0.5°C and ±0.5% relative humidity,an exacting task as Alan Russell,preservation officer for Scottish Screen Archives explains.

"The conditions we asked for are set by The International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF). Archives around the world have found the close tolerance required very difficult to maintain." Campbell Control Services recommended a Priva Compri HX8E comprising multiple RS232 and RS485 communications ports and Ethernet ports for direct connection to the TCP/IP network. As a result of a builtin web server, the HX8E directly connects to the user's PC browser. The Archive monitors the following conditions: dry and wet bulb temperatures, dew point temperature, relative humidity,absolute humidity, and enthalpy; allowing staff to accurately confirm that environmental conditions are being maintained.

In addition, to assist maintenance staff, Campbell Control Services installed a compact touchscreen that gives instant access to all measurements, 24-hour graphs and override facilities on all items of plant via a simple to use, password protected, interface, without requiring full access to a PC.