Can the thousands of photos and negatives from the Texelse Courant archive still be saved? That question hangs above the leak-affected editorial office of the Texelse Courant in Den Burg. The damage cannot be expressed in figures, but anyone looking for a photo of the ‘Koger Zonderling’ from 1920 is out of luck, says editor-in-chief Job Schepers: “I’m sick of it.”
The enormous leak in the basement of the editorial office at the Vismarkt was only discovered last week. There was now about eight inches of water in the basement, causing moisture to seep into the boxes full of photos and negatives. The fire brigade pumped out the water and editors immediately tried to save photos and negatives. With varying degrees of success, editor-in-chief Job Schepers says: “You also learn a lot in two days about saving photos.” You can see what that looks like in the video below.
Thousands of archive photos and negatives from the Texelse Courant have been damaged by water – NH News / Jurgen van den Bos
Schepers is not yet entirely sure how to proceed with the archive. The Texelse Courant has already been approached by the national archives and the regional archives and Ecomare employees have also helped with their knowledge of collection assistance. Schepers: “The municipality will probably also want to assist us, because it costs a lot of money and time to save the photos and negatives and then digitize them.”
Text continues below the photo.
The Texelse Courant will also call on the help of Texel residents, because the captions and data on many photos have been ‘drowned’. Schepers: “Ultimately you just want everything to be archived properly again. We have to see what we can do so that the photos are still available in a hundred years.”
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