Tip #29: Be extra careful with your CD-RWs.

Written By Dmitri Schmidt

The other week we mentioned you should store your optical media somewhere with a stable and regulated temperature. This is a good general rule for all archival material, but is particularly true for CD-RWs aka rewritable CDs.

Why, you ask? The point of a rewritable CD is to, well, be rewritable. To do that, a laser heats certain parts of the disc where information is stored and physically changes them to match the new information being added.

See the problem yet? Since the disc is designed to be changed through heat, that means the information can accidentally be changed if the CD is stored somewhere too hot. So unless you want some unsanctioned edits to your media, be sure to store them somewhere cool and dim.

Want to know more about preserving audiovisual materials? Check out our AV preservation webinar on YouTube!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtxDC7SPgW4

#ArchivalTips #BacklogArchivists #Conservation #Preservation

Dmitri Schmidt

Dmitri plays a pivotal role in coordinating Backlog’s outreach efforts. They curate our weekly #FridayFinds and #ArchivalTips social media posts, shedding light on items discovered in our genealogy work and providing tips and tricks to approaching problems in the archives.

Dmitri holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and German Studies from Saint Louis University. During their university years, they dedicated over 1000 hours to interning and volunteering at local St. Louis institutions, including the St. Louis Science Center and the St. Louis University Museum of Art. As the Collections Intern at the Science Center, Dmitri assisted in developing and installing the "Into the Vault" exhibit.

Before joining Backlog, Dmitri served as a Fulbright Grantee, teaching English as a second language in former East Germany. From guiding 11th graders in analyzing pop albums as poetry to discussing the significance of the civil rights movement with 8th graders, they covered a broad spectrum of subjects. While reveling in connecting with students and injecting fun into grammar lessons, Dmitri's deep passion for all things archival eventually drew them back home.

Today, Dmitri works as a Herbarium Assistant at the Missouri Botanical Garden, helping digitize the millions of preserved plant specimens. After being scanned and transcribed, these images aid scholars around the globe in furthering botanical research. Dmitri also serves as the archivist for the Kirkwood Historical Society. They are currently overseeing the “Journeys into Kirkwood’s History” project, which aims to digitize documents related to Kirkwood’s early Black settlements.

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Tip #28: Optical media isn’t immune to the typical archival archnemeses.