 Hi, everyone. I want to welcome you back. And I'll just go through a couple of slides. If you need to reset your password, you can do it in Info at Cultural Heritage. If you have questions, and you have been contacting me, use this email. And if you have questions about course content, use the course discussion. And remember to receive a credibly badge for this course. You need to listen to all the webinars and complete the assignments. And you'll have until November 8th to complete everything. And after that, I will issue the assignment. And if you have questions about trying for your collections, you can post them in the Connecting to Collections Care community. And coming up, we have two webinars, one on facility planning and one on lighting. I'm sorry, there's an echo. And also, I wanted to just tell you about your, when you submit your assignments, please try to submit them as one document. And you can do it as a PDF or a Word document. And if they're too large, you may have to make them smaller. So I'm now going to turn this over to Gretchen. Hi. Can everybody hear me? Ooh. There is echo. I hope that everybody is working on the assignment and gets to me as soon as you can. I'm trying to keep up with the grading. Let me introduce Tara Kennedy, who is going to be your lecturer for today. And Tara, take it away. Hi, everyone. It doesn't seem like I'm echoing, so that's good. So I'm waiting for the slides to pop up. Ah, there I am. Hi, everyone, welcome. My name is Tara Kennedy. I'm the Preventive Conservator at Yale University Library. And I'm here to talk to you all today about housekeeping and molding collections. So I'm going to go over just what we're going to talk about today so you know what to expect. So one of the first things we're going to talk about is what is mold? How did it get where it is? What triggers it to grow and spread? What type of damage can it do to your collections? And what is that other white stuff you're saying that might not actually be mold? It's always good to identify it. And if it's not really a problem, then you don't have to worry about it. Secondly, we're going to talk about what you can do about mold. Which mitigation strategies work best to tackle the problem? We'll look at the 10 agents of deterioration as discussed in your previous lectures with Gretchen to see what preventive actions you can take in order to prevent mold from growing and spreading in your collections. And we'll also talk about what you can do when what you can handle in a small to mid-sized institution and when you really need to call the big guns to help, such as a conservator or a disaster remediation contractor. And most importantly, or I think is most important, we're going to talk about health and safety when dealing with mold. What precautions should you take when you're working with mold? I'll talk about personal protective equipment or PPE that you will need to ensure that you're health and safety as well as those who are working around you. So what is mold? Mold is everywhere. It's a ubiquitous thing that's found indoors and outdoors. They're part of our environment and actually they play an important role in our ecosystem. Molds exist to digest dead plants and animal matter. So they're like nature's little garbage disposals that digest and break down organic matter. So actually what's interesting about mold is it's not an animal, it's not a vegetable, and it's definitely not a mineral. It's in a class all by itself. It's in the kingdom of fungi or fungi. I'm not sure how to pronounce that. You decide. And whether it's called mold, fungi or fungi or mildew, it's all the same thing. What you see on your slide there. So that's mold growing in a peaches dish actually from just taking a sample outside in rural New Mexico, one of the driest places you can be. And you still can see that there's molds for us that can be activated, incubated, and made to grow even in the driest of climates. So it's everywhere. So what we're most concerned about as collection care professionals is what's called SAC fungi. A class of slime mold, I know, really appetizing, right? I hope you all aren't eating lunch. So the canidia from these molds, like aspergillus, which you see on your slide there, and penicillium, which is actually where penicillin comes from. This canidia are released into the air, and the canidia, or spores, you can call them that as well, are carried by wind, water and other living beings. And they are asexual, which means they can reproduce all by themselves without needing to be fertilized, which is why they can grow in abundance everywhere. And so that's why removal of mold spores, in other words, cleaning, is so important. If there aren't any spores there, the mold can't spread. So I just list a couple of examples of kinds of mold aspergillus, which is the slide you see there. By the way, molds can be very pretty under the microscope, especially when you stain them and you look at them under the microscope as you see there. Aspergillus is a pretty common species of mold. Penicillium is where we actually get penicillin and antibiotic from, and it's also the mold that grows on blue cheese. And then there's the evil stachybotress, otherwise known as the toxic black mold that you've probably heard about in hysterical newscasts or on the internet. So as I, to continue, the Canidia and spores are specifically designed for survival. They will only grow and propagate where they have a chance of survival, which means they need the right food and the right environment. The thing about spores or Canidia, they have really thick cell walls that must be penetrated in order to fully kill them. So dormant spores can survive extreme environments. That can be freezing. That can be really dry conditions and really hot conditions, et cetera. So dormant Canidia must remain viable, can remain viable for over 20 years just waiting for the right environment to germinate, which is why, again, removal is the best way to get rid of mold and prevent it from reproducing in the first place. That's why cleaning is so important. So what does mold look like? You've probably seen things like this. These are some books that were left by in a moist environment and mold was allowed to grow. So when it's active, mold can look can look sort of soft, spidery, squishy, fuzzy, velvety. It has a surface texture often that's like wispy cotton. And especially under our microscope, you can see this. And what you're seeing is what's called the mycelium. They're thin branches of high-fee that are the vegetative state of the mold. So that highly branched mycelium that's forming are present to help in the decomposition process that the mold is performing. So it's actively digesting whatever food source it has glommed on to. So that's what you're seeing. That's what's happening when you're seeing that kind of mold on objects. It's feasting away at the organic materials. So if mold can be active and inactive. So your active mold is what I previously described. It's sort of that squishy, spongy, fluffy sort of look. And inactive mold tends to be dry and powdery and dusty. And that's the desiccated spores and high-fee that you're seeing there. It's important that you get rid of both kinds as both are a risk to your collections and to your health and to the health of your staff and your patrons. So mold comes in a variety of fashion colors. And color actually is not indicative to what kind of species it is. In other words, if you happen to see mold that's colored black, it doesn't mean that it's inherently toxic. It doesn't mean that it's stackibatris. It just means that mold happens to emit a black or a dark gray color. And most mold I've seen over the years in collections range from anything from white to green to gray. And this lovely example here has a wide variety of colors. And, incidentally, the colors that you're seeing that the mold is leaving behind on objects is sometimes it's called melanin. Like the same material that creates like the darkness of your skin. It's left behind by the spores to help protect the mold from rival molds, UV light, temperature extremes, and free radicals. So it's actually some used as a shield. It's not just for fashion anymore. So where can you find mold? So mold, as I mentioned before, mold needs the correct food, usually an organic source and environment to thrive. So here's where the 10 agents of deterioration come in. Mold needs water or high relative humidity and pollutants to germinate. High temperatures can help mold to thrive, but it is not necessary for mold to grow. So, I mean, a perfect example is food can go moldy in your refrigerator and it's certainly not high temperatures in there. And when I say pollutants, what I'm referring to mostly is dust and dirt. Surfaces that are dusty and dirty are where mold's going to grow first. So seeing where the mold has come from in its original context is often very helpful in identifying mold. So in the example I'm showing you here, we see that mold is growing only on the surface of the box where dust and dirt would have gathered over the years. Dust and dirt can contain molds for us, but it also can contain food for mold spores, like dead skin cells that have been slopped off us humans. And when moisture is added to the mix, we have germination. Here's another example about where mold might grow. It can be selective in where it's going to germinate. So here we see it growing on a starch-filled cloth that was used to assemble the pamphlet binder. It is also only growing on the exposed part of the book, the part that was exposed to the air. So in this particular example, this mold outbreak was caused due to mold growth inside of an air handler which was spinning mold spores out into the library. So it was in line of fire with the air handler and the air spouting out of the supply vent. And also it had a ready source of organic food in the starch-filled cloth that was exposed to the air from that part of the book sticking out of the shelf. You'll often see also mold growth on water damage materials in closed containers that can seal in moisture. This is a really good example. This is what has been called I think a magnetic photos album. The kind that have adhesive on the pages and you just stick the photographs and then put the plastic to protect the surface of the photos. So the plastic sheeting was a great way to seal in the moisture and then it allowed the mold to grow in there because it had a nice moist environment in which to grow. So what does mold do to collections? And as I mentioned, mold exists in the world to break down organics, usually dead plants, dead animals, that sort of thing. So when it's forming organic materials, it's breaking down and digesting organic materials, just like it would leaf debris in the woods that it would find. So when it starts to germinate on organic materials like paper, it will break down and actually digest the object. So here's an example I'm showing at this corner that got moisture damage and mold damage where the mold actually digested the paper. So mold can actually weaken and actually break down paper and other organic materials even to the point where there is loss as in this example here. Here's another example. So this is a paper sleeve from an acetate record again left in a damp environment and you can see the little holes, discoloration and tide lining they had water it had probably dust and dirt there it also had the organic material of the paper, everything was ready and perfect environment for the mold to thrive, grow and eat away at the paper. You can also mold can also do some staining and discoloration damage as well. This is a horrific example of mold growing on a pastel drawing and it actually was recovered, the conservator who worked on this was able to actually remove the mold to reveal the painting again. But this is a really extreme example of what kind of mold what kind of damage mold can do to our collections. There probably was some residual mold damage underneath but if they caught it in time it might not have digested much of the paper we can hope. So what is not mold? So here's one that happens a lot, especially where I work. People call me and they say, oh, we have mold on our books and a lot of the times I look at the pictures or I'll go into the collections and see the items and I find that it's actually not mold. It's what's called fatty spew it can be spelled S-P-U-E, it can be spelled S-W-U, I'm not sure of the spelling but I can tell you what it is. So it's often found on leather objects that have been exposed to the air. Often seen on the spine of books leather items actually anything made of leather and the thing about it that makes it very distinctive for mold is that it has a very definitive crystalline looking structure that rises to the surface of the leather and actually this next slide you're going to see it a lot better. It's going to look like little crystalline snowflakes, they look like tiny snowflakes or ice crystals. So what's happening conservators theorize is that a lot of leather materials have been treated over the years with different types of oils. Yes, it is also called fatty bloom or leather bloom, that is another name for it. Thank you, Amanda. And what's happening is oils and other things have been used over the years to treat leather materials and they think that that's what's happening. When air somehow is exposed to, the leather item is exposed to air, it is somehow coming out as this sort of efflorescent crystalline structure because if you actually touch it, it feels like wax. It feels like, yeah, it feels like wax and it's absolutely harmless. So all you need to do is remove it with a soft cloth and then you need to house the object to protect it from the air and it shouldn't return. But it actually won't hurt the object and it won't hurt you. So that's the good news. So what are some early signs that you might have a mold problem? Moisture sources is an obvious one. Mold starts to grow, excuse me, around 48 to 72 hours after an incident involving high moisture and on hot humid days and when there's been floods or leaking or anything like that. The presence of insects is often also another indicator. Some pests like silverfish and book lice, which are really really tiny. You're seeing, this picture you're seeing of this book is at very high magnification. It's millimeters big. They eat mold as a food source and they're often attracted to moisture and wet areas, especially silverfish, millipedes, any sort of high insect activity is an indicator. And there's that telltale musty odor that we're all familiar with. It smells damp, musty and earthy. It smells like a closed up basement essentially. And incidentally what you're smelling are the volatile organic compounds that the mold is releasing as it multiplies and grows. Yuck, yes. So if you do think that you have a mold problem, it's really important to do a thorough inspection in the space to see where that smells coming from. Especially if you've had a water incident, if you're noticing a lot more insects or pests in an area, it's really good to look around and see where this might be coming from. We sometimes call the microenvironments, where there's environments in small tight spaces where moisture may have been trapped and you don't even know what's happening. Behind shelves, especially where air circulation is prevented, basement floor storage and cardboard boxes is another one. Damp microenvironments do the location of water, like if you're near it's locations near sinks, near bathrooms. Anything where there might be condensation, window sills, where there are no leaks or places where post-water incidents where the drying did not take place immediately. You may have dried it 48 to 72 hours later and you find out there's actually mold growing here because there was enough time for the mold to actually propagate. So what's important for mold prevention is reducing and removing moisture. That's a huge part of making sure that mold doesn't have the chance to germinate. So what helps is not storing collections in damp areas, especially the basement or places that you know tend to leak or near bathrooms or things like that. You want to keep your relative humidity as low as you can. 55% RH and as low as 30% in that range is what we like to see for collection storage unless it's something that's particularly sensitive to particular relative humidities, then you might have to create a microenvironment to protect that object. But for general generally speaking 30 to 50, 55% RH is what we like to see. And it doesn't have to be a flat line. It can be, you know, soft changes or gradual changes I should say within that range is acceptable. You want to ensure air circulation around collections. Again it's that microenvironment where there's still moist air that gets trapped. It's a great environment for mold to grow and respond quickly to water damage. You want to make sure that if there is a water incident in your space that you clean up the water as soon as possible. So one thing to know about a lot of collections, especially organic collections is materials can hold a lot more water. Hygroscopic materials can hold a lot more water than one would suspect paper especially. So this is a really great image of showing that. It's an image from a water emergency in the Australian National University's Chifley Library. When books absorb water they swell and increase in size causing fun sculptures like this to appear on your shelves. So it's basically restricting the books couldn't go anywhere as they absorb water so they kind of push themselves up into that ridge-like structure. So it's important to recognize that you may not see any standing water but the object may have absorbed the moisture itself. Other tips for mold prevention. Regularly changing air handling, air handler filters is really important and cleaning your duct work if you've had a major outbreak. I usually look to have air handler filters changed quarterly or seasonally. That usually works pretty well unless you have an active problem. Isolate and examine incoming collections. This is really important to prevent potential mold infestations but it's also important in case you might have a collection coming in that could have an insect infestation as well. So it's good to have a separate space in your cultural institution and that space can be a room, that space can be a cabinet where you have new collections to come in that can be observed over time to make sure that there isn't any sort of active mold or insect infestation. And what this course is all about. Regular housekeeping to make sure you keep your shelves and other surfaces free of dust. If you have a clean environment, the dormant mold spores will be removed with regular dusting and cleaning and not giving them the chance to activate and germinate. So that's what we really are looking to do. Swiffer cloths, Swiffer brand cloths and microfiber cloths were great for dusting including the ones the swifters that have looked like their feather dusters. Those work really well. Heptafiltered vacuums are also recommended because that means the mold will be kept inside the vacuum and not be spit out of the back of the vacuum or all over the room. And it's really the only type of vacuum you should use especially to clean mold. So let me talk a little bit about the health hazards surrounding mold. And I have this underlined all molds pose a health risk. All of them. And I say that because it's not necessarily dependent on the mold, but more dependent on the person exposed to the mold. Some people are just naturally more at risk than others. So usually the range for sensitivity to mold can be anything from a sensitizer like it makes your eyes itchy or your nose can run which it can then become an allergen and then later can become toxic. And so it is truly person dependent more than mold dependent. So those who might be more at risk for mold issues would be those with compromised immune systems. Anybody who has an existing respiratory illness or asthma, anyone who's allergic to mold mushrooms, people who are allergic to penicillin because that's made from mold, things like that. So it's best to assume that all mold is a health risk. So that way you will always protect yourself and others. And as I mentioned before, there are some molds that are just inherently toxic like Stachybatras, the black mold. The only way you'll know what kind of mold you're dealing with is to have them tested. But the one thing about Stachybatras that I can tell you is it is a toxic variant of mold but it usually grows on construction materials, especially sheet rock. So it's not something you're going to necessarily find in your collections. I'm not saying never would, but it's highly unlikely. And the only way you can know if your mold you're dealing with is toxic is to get all of the mold tested and that can be taking many samples and be expensive and time consuming. That's sort of why I tell people it's just best to assume that all mold is a health risk because then you just take proper precautions with protective personal equipment rather than spending tens of money on identifying your mold. It's just not something that is necessarily going to help you in the long run unless you have a really stubborn long-term problem that you cannot remedy. Then that might be warranted but certainly not right off the bat. So what can you do about mold? So like a large outbreak, say like a room full of books you're going to want to call in the big guns and that would be a conservator who can then recommend what next steps you can take. I wouldn't immediately call a disaster recovery company without the advice of a conservator because disaster companies often don't know what to do with cultural heritage objects. They're mostly used to dealing with people's couches and rugs, things that are generally replaceable in most cases. And insurance, again if it's a large outbreak, insurance may be able to cover it depending upon what the ultimate cause of the outbreak was and what your policy will cover. So now would be a good time to check that collections insurance policy to see what it covers. But these are going to be the five steps one should take in response to a mold outbreak, whether it be a small outbreak or a large outbreak. We've got, we want to confine the outbreak. We want to stop the growth of the mold. We want to kill the active mold growth if we can. Remove the mold from the object of the space and then we want to take steps to prevent reinfestation. So before you do anything the first thing you have to do is protect yourself. This is super, super important. So this is a sampling of the kinds of equipment, professional protective equipment that you should have on hand. Just in my image here we're going to be dealing with even just a water emergency or anything like that. A lot of this would be helpful too. Gloves, you can have nitrile for people who are allergic to latex for handling collections. Masks, you can have full or half face respirators which require fit testing. Or you can have N95 particular respirators which are disposable respirators that you can purchase. Unvented goggles to prevent any mold spores from getting into your eyes. Protective clothing, you can have Tyvek Kovarals like the example in the picture there so they kind of look like space aliens. Or you can do at least at a minimum aprons or lab coats. And people often have told me in a disaster situation that a bonnet or a cap to protect your hair from carrying the mold home mostly is a good idea as well. So if you have any sort of respiratory ailment even asthma before you wear an N95 particular respirator or any sort of mass that's going to restrict your breathing restrict your breathing, not exactly restrict your airflow you want to talk to a doctor to make sure that you're able to wear it safely. But now I'm going to go into my little bit about what's a dust mask what's a medical phase mask and what's a respirator. This is something I have to do a lot and it's something I see that's a mistake people make often and they're doing things that are not protecting themselves and I want to make sure that everyone understands how important it is to protect your respiratory health when dealing with mold. So what you're seeing here are two examples of masks I've seen that people wear when they're doing mold recovery solvent work, all sorts of other things neither of these are useful for those applications. Dust masks like the woman on your left in the green shirt does not provide a good enough seal and it doesn't filter out small enough particles of mold so it's not going to protect you it'll protect you a little bit but not enough and medical masks like the woman on the right in the blue that's actually to prevent you from spreading germs to others and not the reverse. So definitely don't use these. Instead use this. So a couple key points that you're going to want to look for in order to know what is a respirator versus a dust mask or a medical phase mask. The respirator will often have the information written right on it as I've indicated with the circle there it says I think it's a NOSHA N95 that it says there and it has two straps that's a really a really big a good indicator that this is a respirator and here I will show you my pet peeve my biggest pet peeve with people wearing respirators and I see them all the time in these articles and different coverage when people are covering disasters these people are wearing N95 respirators besides the fact that they don't fit them very well they're only using one strap you can see the other strap is dangling from them dangling from like their chins so if you so I really mean it is important that you use both straps please use both straps do this as somebody is laughing because yes I get really annoyed by this because it's you're wearing something you have like like you've almost got it like you understand that you need to protect yourself but you didn't quite get the whole memo it's like no in actually to create that seal that works well to protect you from the mold you need to wear both straps so please wear both straps thank you that has been my public service announcement for the day so back to dealing with the mold so first you want to confine the outbreak so for smaller incidents you can isolate affected affected objects if the items are moldy but not wet you can place them in zip top style bags and if they're wet wrap them in wax or butcher paper stick and move the collections to a space that's not affected by mold ah yes so I see I'm sorry just to go back I see a question or a comment by someone says that a doctor recommends a doctor whose name I'm not familiar with recommends that masks be especially fitted for you especially if you're on disaster response teams that is true in that case if it's something that's part of your day to day job I would definitely recommend getting fit tested by a certified industrial high genus I'm thinking of times when it's not something that's part of your regular job or an emergency incident where you have to go into a space and it's better than nothing you have something that's protecting you actually something I forgot to add to my list of recommended readings and such as there's a particular disposable respirator that fits more faces than others very well so I'm going to need to if I can ask Susan to send that link to you all I will um dig that up and make sure that you all get that particular style of mask I find it works very well when I have to fit folks when they're working on different in different spaces here in the lab I find it fits a lot of different face shapes so I will add that I'll post the link for the masks and the handouts Thank you Susan! Yay! I wrote myself a note hopefully I'll remember okay so back to confining the outbreak ah Dr. Trinkley's ah the Shakora Foundation cool okay now I know who Dr. Trinkley is awesome yes actually that's one of the websites I used to create this presentation so yay thank you now I've learned a thing thank you for telling me who that is alright so for smaller incidents there's this for larger incidents you want to isolate the area overall you can use thick sheet plastic and duct tape to isolate the space to ensure the mold doesn't spread to other areas and this is something also that a disaster recovery group excuse me company might do for you they can actually create these isolated areas with like zipper entrances that work really well for containments and you want to create negative pressure so that includes shutting down any air handling vents that might return air from that area ah large sheet magnets actually work really well to cover air ducts if you can't get it to shut off it at least will keep it from getting sucked up into the air handler so that's something that's a good tip to have for that so you want to stop the growth so for small incidents you can actually you can freeze dry or it's also called freezer dry so what the object of the game with that is to make the mold go dormant so you want to reduce the moisture content in the object and in the mold itself essentially what we're doing is removing one of the components that makes the mold active which is the moisture so you know how you wrap things that go in the freezer to prevent freezer burn well in here we're actually trying to make freezer burn happen in a way because freezer burn is actually when moisture is being pulled out of the food and it dries up so if you're doing books for example you don't want to wrap them tightly in tin foil or anything like that when you put them in the freezer you want the books to get freezer burn if that makes sense for other things other collection items like wooden objects that sort of thing I'm a book and paper conservator so that may not be the best method for all types of collections so you want to check with protocols on how to freeze other objects safely because materials are going to behave differently one of the links I put in to the resources is a link to museumpest.net which is the integrated pest management working group that talks about different things freezing is easy in Alaska we just set it outside actually yeah you probably could do that does it get to be minus 10 to minus 40 Fahrenheit out there though because you need to be really cold yes oh my gosh really it doesn't get that cold in Connecticut okay then yeah and if you're in Alaska put it outside just make sure that you can put it outside and make sure what kind of precautions you need to take to make sure that you're not going to damage your collection item because there are a lot of things that shouldn't be frozen even if there is a mold outbreak so there's a link that I've added that should tell you what things you can and cannot freeze yes that's really cold my goodness so yes the colder the freezer the better the equipment and also in addition the equipment should have the capacity to freeze very quickly and as I mentioned the temperatures must be around minus 10 to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit you know in Alaska to facilitate drying and at these very cold temperatures mold will be killed due to ice crystals that form inside the spore and burst the cell wall of the spore so you can do a double whammy it may actually kill the mold and make it go dormant and kill it so to continue the advantage for freeze dry or freezer dry it's not expensive it's good for damp paper based objects and it buys time you can leave it in the freezer for a long time in order to determine what next steps you need to take the only drag is it actually takes a long time to ensure that the mold has gone dormant and ideally has been killed four months is the minimum we tell people to leave things in the freezer and as I mentioned it's not suitable for all objects so you definitely want to check with a conservator before you go and freeze the object and with some types of paper if it's damp the paper might stick together especially coated papers like you find in art books so for large insinuances what works really well is again we are trying to remove the moisture from the space so dehumidification in place works really well again object of the game is to make the mold go dormant by removing moisture so it can't it can't germinate you don't have to move your collections if you do this kind of thing where you have created a containment and add dehumidifiers to the space it works really well and yes it's basically hyped up air drying essentially sped up air drying I guess would be a better way of putting it and also you're taking you're taking moisture out so it's not really hyped up air drying never mind I didn't say that so if this is a water incident as well as mold this method won't stop inks from bleeding coated paper could stick and you may have some distortion of objects but you can also for large incidents if you can't do the dehumidification in place you can also do large scale vendor freezing where you pack out have a vendor pack out the materials and put them in and put them in large scale freezers you can secure a vendor or a company with access to large freezers to take in the collections and freeze the items again buys you time to make decisions and if you leave them there long enough it will actually make the mold go dormant provided you are able to leave it there that long and actually able to afford to pay to keep the items there that long so kill the mold in order to kill the mold you can do this for small or large incidents as I mentioned in the stop the growth slides freezing at cold enough temperatures will kill active mold spores so what happens as I mentioned what happens is that the water inside of the cell forms ice crystals which cause the cell walls to burst and thus killing the spore so this only works when the mold is active as inactive mold doesn't have enough water content to form ice crystals so it won't do you any good if the stuff is already dormant but freezing is great as I've mentioned because it stops mold growth and it buys time for deciding what you need to do next however freezing can be problematic for many collection items a list of materials that should not be frozen are included in the resources there's a link to low temperature treatment options for insect infestations which also includes a list of items that shouldn't be frozen but there will be other stipulations especially with water soaked collections such as wood or any sort of composite object I highly recommend talking to an objects conservator before going and freezing composite objects wooden objects anything that isn't a book or flat paper and photographs are also something that should be consulted about as well so one of the best options for really large for large incidences is vacuum freeze drying what's awesome about this particular method is that it sublimates the moisture out of the collections so you don't get a whole lot of distortion because the materials are frozen and then there's a lot of pressure that's applied to the chamber and then the materials are frozen so that the ice turns instantly into a gas and evaporates off so it never gets to that water stage where you end up with bleeding inks or coated paper to stick it's a really great method it has to be done by a vendor and once that vendor is done with the vacuum freeze drying portion of things they can also clean the materials so that you're removing all the dormant and dead mold spores from the objects it works great for large outbreaks in libraries and archives I've used it many times for water incidences in a variety of in a variety of institutions and it's a really great thing that works really well it doesn't have to be terribly expensive it sort of depends on the volume and I'd have to look up what the average cost was last I checked and I can't recall at the top of my head so that's something I can look up if anyone is interested in knowing and here's the caveat killing mold, what doesn't work there's a lot of different things that people have touted as things that would work for killing mold so I'm going to be here to dispel the myth of some of these household methods so sunlight often people say will kill mold the thing about the sun is it's probably either drying out the mold because it's removing the moisture basically desiccating the object or it could be the ultraviolet light from the sun that's killing the mold and as you probably learned from Gretchen's lecture about the 10 agents of deterioration light is one enemy of collections as it causes fading and discoloration so it's something we really don't actually want to use so if you remember the mold colors we saw in previous slides that pigmentation is there for some types of mold to help it survive things like UV light and while UV ultraviolet light will kill some types of mold it's not going to be a cure all for all molds so unless you're going to test the mold to find out what kind of what kind of test to find out what kind of mold it is you're just better off not using the sun Lysol so Lysol kills lots of bacteria and viruses but it does not kill mold it's a fungistat it only inhibits mold growth and besides you shouldn't be spraying Lysol on your collections though people have asked me before about things and no please don't spray Lysol on your collections Bleach there's in all varieties whether it's the chlorinated variety or the oxidative or hydrogen peroxide variety chlorinated bleach does kill mold but some molds actually are resistant to it again it's not something that you want to use to clean your collections you can use it in your bathroom and you can use it to bleach your sheets but don't use it to clean collections and alcohol so alcohols on their own straight alcohols aren't not going to kill mold in fact there are some solvents including some alcohols that actually reactivate certain molds so moral of the story is don't use any chemicals to clean collections okay you got that great that's awesome okay now that we've killed the mold or made it go to sleep it's time to remove it so as I've mentioned throughout the lecture multiple times removal of mold is key to stopping mold growth and to keep incidents from reoccurring so the inactive mold that will need to be removed from collections to ensure they're safe to use again as well as to prevent reinfestation so once molded is inactive it can be carefully cleaned off collection materials either using a soft brush to direct the mold into the nozzle of the vacuum or through a screen or cheese cloth they also make vacuums that have variable suction so what you can do is determine how much suction is being pulled on the vacuum and you can have these little tools attached that are called micro tools you can attach it to the trunk I guess that's the trunk or the hose excuse me of the vacuum and you can use that to clean collections the one I'm using here I'm using the technique where in the picture where I'm sweeping the mold into the HEPAVAC nozzle as I'm cleaning the mold off of the artwork on paper so for non porous materials vulcanized rubber sponges work very well and I've put a link in your other resources to where you can get those kinds of sponges they work really well to clean mold and ideally you should be doing this kind of work in a fume hood or in an isolated space with negative air pressure which is what I'm doing here in this particular picture you can also do it outside on a still sunny day try to do it in the shade so you're not bleaching out your collections to reduce the risk and spread of mold throughout the building and especially you should always assume that there's a health hazard around mold and make sure you wear your personal protective equipment and as you've seen in previous slides mold can do physical damage to collections so any in-house cleaning should be done carefully by staff wearing personal protective equipment and a knowledge of someone who knows how to carefully handle materials and knows about careful handling techniques for fragile things and unfortunately in a lot of cases we can't expect miracles especially when you look at the residual color components as some molds leave when mold feeds it often secretes these different pigments and some as I mentioned some as a defense mechanism to block light and other colors come forth as an influence of whatever they're digesting so mold staining is really tricky and if it's something that's really defacing to an object I would definitely consult a conservator about determining how they can reduce that mold staining so it's not as defacing in some cases if it's a modern book or something that's actually replaceable you may consider replacement as a viable option for some materials depending on the damage and how extensive it is okay, so for removing mold I'm just going to have a slide, caveat slide about disaster recovery companies if you're working with a disaster recovery company don't assume that they always know what's best for collections a lot of times as I mentioned I think in a previous slide disaster recovery companies are used to working with home furnishings they aren't necessarily used to working with irreplaceable collection museum object kind of things they'll want your business so they'll try to gain your trust it's really important that you ask a lot of questions and if you aren't sure about their answers you check with a conservator or another collection specialist who would know the answer to that or be able to verify you the name of the company alone is not enough to assume reputation there are a lot of different name brand disaster recovery companies out there what the thing about them is they're all independently owned and operated while they're under one umbrella of one company they may have their own procedures that they've brought from another company they've worked for those particular techniques because that's what they know and it's not necessarily just because the company overall believes that there's a certain way that we should be doing particular things like mold remediation not everyone is going to follow those practices you need to ask a lot of questions asking what they're planning on doing what methods they're using they'll often talk about things like deodorizing collections which you don't want certain chemical treatments there's a lot of other extras and offers they will add on top just don't assume that they know when they say it's safe for collections don't assume that they know and if you need to get advice you can ask a conservator for free by calling the AICNHR collections emergency hotline we will answer I'm one of the people who staffs that hotline and I have a lot of knowledgeable colleagues who do the same and we are really good about making sure we get answers for people if it's not necessarily be right away we definitely consult all of our colleagues in the National Heritage Responders Group to make sure that we can get a right answer for you so you definitely feel free to call that if you're in the middle of a situation where you're needing to get answers about what a disaster recovery company is promising I also did a webinar that's been taped a year or two ago about working with disaster recovery companies and I've linked it in the resources if you're interested in more information about that so for preventing reinfestation you need to clean the whole space and that's cleaning with a hepa vacuum a soot sponge or the vulcanized rubber sponge that I mentioned and if necessary you can wipe down using other inert or wipe down shelving or other things that are metal and not collections you can use a solution of one cup of bleach per one gallon of water to clean and you want to dry it thoroughly after you've wiped it down you want to replace any carpet padding, furniture, wall board that was moldy repair or replace any equipment or plumbing that may have caused the problem there are a lot of different choices for data loggers out there that are really helpful for tracking your temperature and relative humidity in spaces and it's a really great way to keep track of what the conditions are in your space and if you can catch things early enough in terms of rising relative humidity that sort of thing it's really really helpful one particular data logger that I like is the PEM2 from Image Permanence Institute they have excellent analytical software called the Climate Notebook that is really wonderful in making sure that you there are many kinds of issues, collections, care webinars and environmental monitoring and data loggers that's excellent so yes I encourage you to go check that out if you would like to go data loggers shopping yes thanks Susan in summary mold needs are organics and moisture to survive and thrive mold can be active or inactive depending on the environment protect yourself from mold personal protective equipment is a must and it says the four steps to mold at response but it's really five isolate the outbreak stop the growth kill the mold or at least make it go dormant remove the mold and prevent reinfestation and that my friends is the end of my class lecture I see there are some questions in the parking lot so I'm happy to answer that and anything else thank you so much so the first question is mine what type of freezers can be used for freezing materials can someone just you know take materials and freeze them in their home freezers or you need to have a freezer that's dedicated what kinds of things should you so most of the time people usually buy chest freezers that can get cold enough you want to be able to get to those minus 10 to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit temperature to get the most benefit out of freezer drying so you can dependent you have to determine like your existing freezer to see if it actually can get that cold I don't know if freezers that are connected to refrigerators actually can get that cold I think it's usually a chest freezer there's also if people are interested and there's a link in our resources on the Connecting to Collections Care website to a a resource from the National Park Service on cold storage and freezing as a conserver ground it's more than a conserver ground excellent yeah I'll also post that link in the handy okay and Lexi Echelman said what if you have an object that's too large to free how can you kill that mold? that is a good question something like that I would think that you would probably want to consult a conservator that's in that particular specialty and so there are some solvent combinations that will actually kill mold that I haven't talked about here just because I don't need people mixing different things together to actually create solutions that they're going to use in our collections but conservators are knowledgeable in chemistry so they're able to actually utilize solvents like this to do that so there may be a solution that it would be solution literally figuratively to taking care of larger objects but I would consult a conservator okay Lexi she says but alcohol wouldn't work I think we used it so the thing about denatured alcohol is that they add different other components to make it not drinkable right so it's ethanol with methanol and other solvents that are added so that you don't think it's ever clear some of those other solvents actually can reactivate dormant mold so and this is partially why I'm telling people not to use particular chemicals because it's just not it's because you don't necessarily have the chemistry or experience to know what solvents are okay and what solvents may reactivate so yeah that's yeah so Amanda Richard says what about a powder coated bookshelf like book shelving can you just use the 50-50 bleach for that that's fine yeah and the regression is typing something about 90% alcohol for which you need a permit for this is it's interesting actually because we've been having this discussion about what type of ethanol or ethyl alcohol should be used in conservation land to kill mold I've heard 70% ethyl alcohol I've heard 90% from Gretchen I've heard that isopropyl alcohol more readily than ethyl alcohol so I'm actually going to be doing an article on this so that we can actually come to a conclusion at least by I'm gonna do a lot of information gathering to figure out what is actually a definitive a definitive answer yes it is expensive I just buy ever clear if you're gonna need if you need like it's gonna need a permit and all that jazz yeah I know what when I was in grad school we used to be able to buy pure alcohol in the state store in in Pennsylvania but we needed a special permit and I know you can't buy it and I know that even as recently as 2014 they were using they were buying ethyl alcohol like 70% ethyl alcohol I think in the drug store is that Superstorm Sandy Harvey it was one of the they were using buying it at the drug store and now you can't even get that anymore and that was only like five years ago so right right so are there any other questions people are thinking that if they have any other questions I just want to go over on again about the assignment so on Tara's assignment this week is a quiz so you can do the quiz and if you pass the quiz then you'll get a pass on that I know a lot of people are still working on the last week's assignment and that's fine you have until November 8th to get everything done but please make sure that you put the assignment in the week where they belong otherwise we have a problem with it but it's a problem that's solvable I just rather not and with your assignments for last week if you can collect all your images and stuff into one document and make a reduced size pdf and you can post it or you can post it as a word document depending on the size and if you have trouble with them let me know and I'll try and help solve it but making a reduced size pdf seems to have solved a lot of people's problems so try that and remember that in order to get your credly badge for this you need to listen to all the webinars and you have to listen to them in order so and you need to do all these and have them in by November 8th okay so it doesn't look like there are any other questions so I think we're done you guys get out of class early last week yeah I I went a couple of people are typing okay they're just saying thank you you're welcome thank you for telling me who the head of the Shakura Foundation is Sharon Shakura Foundation is Sharon yeah we'll see if there are any more questions so Tara I just I want to go back to this tricky thing so if you had if you have a home freezer but a home locker freezer that would work if you can get cold enough that should work okay and does it matter if it has food in it yeah what I'm asking is do you need a dedicated I think that would be best um yeah and what about how to problem could you go to your local grocery store or Costco or someplace with a large freezer and ask them if they will provide you with some space temporary if you have an emergency plan you should already have a list of vendors that would be able to provide these kinds of resources so that's something that you can if you want to go back to your emergency plan that's something you don't have that would be something that you can add to so you have that option you have that option right okay so update your emergency plan yeah and Gretchen says I would avoid food places because of yeah I'm pretty sure that they would probably be running the other way yeah right right okay so I think that's it next week is our last session in this series and we will have um we'll have Paul um oh my gosh anyways we're going to have this great fellow yeah Paul storage thank you um and he will he will be here he's from Minnesota he's terrific he works with all over the state of Minnesota and I think you'll really like him and so just keep working on your stuff if you have problems let us know and thank you Tara