I'm a scientist at the Library of Congress working on pre-play identification methods for sticky/degraded magnetic tape. I have a few of the very common tapes Ampex 406, 478, Scotch 227, 908 etc., but to validate the method (see IRUG 2012, Barcelona, Breitung abstract), I'm hoping to find in-kind offerings of any of the following (or others that are known to degrade):
Agfa PEM-468, 469, 526
Ampex 373, 407, 457, 499, 2020
Audiotape/Capitol Q15
EMTEC SM911
Melody 169
Scotch/3M Classic, Master-XS, 175, 201, 250, 806-9,
966, 967, Pro-206, 207, 226, 986 Sony - PR-150, FeCr, SLH, ULH-72-370-BL TDK 150H
Because of the ease of confusion of boxes, hubs, reels, tapes after opening, only unopened/sealed tapes are useful.
Also - if you know of other sources (besides ebay, etc.) or places I should post this request, please let me know.
In posting this on other forums, I've found that people don't always want to give up tape that they're not sure is 'bad'. If that's the case and you're willing to let me open the box, play the tape once on a Studer to evaluate its condition and allow me to contact the tape between two flat surfaces (an ATR-FTIR) in two, ~ 1 centimeter diameter spots within the first two meters of tape, I can return the tape after measuring. Alternatively, if you allow me to open, play, and cut the first meter or two, I will gladly return the remainder. Those tapes the the Library are allowed to keep will go into our storage vaults for future testing.
The two 1 cm contact spots, I believe but have not proved, do not affect fidelity. I will be testing this over the summer and will hopefully update the loc (dot) gov (slash) preserv website with my findings.
I've posted this request on a couple of other forums. One of them turned into a 40 post thread about how I'm not leaving my contact information and am likely not who I say I am. To avoid that here, if you message me directly, I will gladly offer you my work email and discuss tape donation, etc.
Thank you kindly -