Photo archive move completed

An archive featuring 50 million images – 800,000 of which are online – has been established at a new facility outside Paris.

The Sygma Preservation and Access Facility can be used by publishers, photographers, researchers, iconographers, historians and others who work in creative industries globally.

The Sygma collection documents historical world figures and events and comprises nine separate collections from the second half of the 20th century. The 1950s and 1960s imagery includes photography from Apis, Universal Photo, Interpress, Spitzer, Reporter Associés and other agencies.

Collections from the 1970s and beyond include the photojournalism, news, magazines, celebrities and portraits from the Sygma photo agency, as well as television and movie set imagery from Kipa, and sporting events from Tempsport.

A dedicated team of archivists at Corbis, the company that represents the images, have been reorganising the collection since 2004 and have contacted more than 10,000 contributors. Henry Wilhelm, an expert in long-term preservation of photographs, advised the project and Locarchives designed the bespoke preservation facility in Garnay.

He said: "If the collection had remained in the uncontrolled, room-temperature conditions where it had been kept for so many years, it would have perished before the end of this century."

The 800 sq metre facility opened on Friday (15th May) following five years' work and features approximately 7,000 metres (4.3 miles) of shelving in a temperature and humidity-controlled, airtight environment. To preserve the high-resolution digital scans, Corbis has provided secure servers that are backed-up offsite.