DAYTON, Ohio (AP) - A film repository at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base that for decades has stored and preserved original copies of some of the nation's most famous movies is heading to a new home.

The Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Center, which has the original negatives of such classics as "The Maltese Falcon" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," is moving to a new facility being built in Culpeper, Va., about 90 miles southwest of Washington, D.C.

The move, which will begin in the spring and finish by September, is an effort to consolidate federal preservation and storage programs.

"It's going to be a really cool facility. It's going to be top-notch," Ken Weissman, head of the conservation center, said Wednesday. "It's very exciting."

The conservation center at Wright-Patterson has 98-degree, humidity-controlled vaults housing about 125,000 reels of film containing 25,000 to 30,000 movie titles. Some of the material dates to the 1890s.

The Air Force built the vaults after World War II to store reconnaissance film and military newsreels. In 1969, they were turned over to the Library of Congress, which had been looking for a place to store nitrate film.

Nitrate film, which can deteriorate if it is not kept in the right temperature and humidity, was used in commercial cinema until 1951, when it was replaced with cellulose acetate.

In Virginia, the Library of Congress is creating a National Audio Visual Conservation Center in an underground building previously owned by the Federal Reserve.

Most of the 20 employees at the Wright-Patterson center plan to relocate to Virginia. Weissman said he does not know what the Air Force plans to do with the buildings used by the center, which has an annual budget of $2.5 million to $3 million.

The Library of Congress receives and takes ownership of original copies of films from studios that apply for copyrights on the material.

In some cases, the center at Wright-Patterson works with studios to make those original copies available if they cannot be located in the studio's vaults.