 another C2C Care webinar. My name is Robin Bauer-Kilgo. I am the C2C Care Coordinator and I'm coming in from you just outside Washington, D.C. in Silver Spring, Maryland. I'm gonna be doing just a couple of quick intro slides and then we'll be handing this off to our presenter today. So I'm gonna go ahead and share our screen. Okay, as I said, you're here today for our C2C Care webinar. Forget the best, good and better approaches to preservation. We'll be running from one to 230 Eastern today. Again, my name is Robin Bauer-Kilgo. I am the C2C Care Coordinator and you just saw Mike Morneau. He's our Senior Producer at Learning Times. At any point, if you have any questions when it comes to the technical side of the house, feel free to talk to us in the chat. This is our home on the web, ConnectingToCollections.org. That is our home on the web. There you will find all of our resources, including an archive of our webinars, an archive of our courses. Also curated resources, which are really useful for those of you asking questions when it comes to collections care. Also a link to our online community, which is supported by a wonderful group of volunteers who if you have a question when it comes to collections care, you can post a question. We have a group of wonderful people who will then take a look at your question and get you some really good resources when it comes to collections care. So I encourage you to go to that website if you have any question. We also have two places that we are online when it comes to social media. That is our Facebook page and our Twitter page. So if you're on either of those venues, I encourage you to go join us or follow us where appropriate. As Mike said, we are using Zoom webinar today. So there are two ways you can communicate with us. One is via the chat. You guys are doing a good job at that just by saying hello or where you're located. So that's appreciated. The other spot is the Q&A. On that box, you can ask questions of our presenter today. We do encourage that questions go in the Q&A. It's a little easier to track. The chat box becomes a little bit of a stream of consciousness so you can lose questions in there. So if you have a question, please put it in the Q&A box and we will try to get to it at the end of today's program. Two upcoming programming notes when it comes to C2C Care. We have another free webinar happening on November 4th. It's a tie-in with the annual Ask a Conservator Day. That's also happening that day. It's happening from 1 to 2 p.m. Eastern. That program is called Old Wives Tales and Urban Legends. Basically, we have a panelist of conservatives who are gonna come forth and either debunk or talk a little bit about some collections, old wives tales that you might actually have heard about or heard about in your community. We also have a form on the website for the registration that if you have heard something funky in your time in a museum world and you wanna get their take on it when it comes to collections care, we will discuss it beforehand. This is a preview of some of the things that some of us have heard of, which there might be some truth to. So I'm not gonna completely debunk them there. Are people using bread when it comes to cleaning artwork? The use of mayonnaise on marble, which has been an interesting one that we've heard about. So if you hear of anything like that that you think you might want to see debated by a group of a panelist or just talk about, I encourage you to sign up for that webinar. It should be a fun time. Another thing that's actually starting this week is our next course for C2C Care. It's all about keeping collections safe in storage. On that is a five webinar series based on a book that was published out in 2019, the preventative conservation book that talks all about different storage types when it comes to collection type. I would encourage you to sign up for that course. It is a paid course because it is a five webinar series but it should be really interesting if it comes to, you're looking at different storage situations within your museum. Another benefit of signing up for that course is if you sign up now and you're a participant in the live program, you can actually get $20 off that seminal publication that we can use and it's about $75. Retail, it's usually $95. So you get a good little deal on that book if you're interested. So again, go to our website and you'll see some more information on signing up for that course. So now I'm gonna go ahead and introduce our presenter today. Her name is Deanna Figa. She is Director of Preservation Services at CCAHA. She's gonna be talking to us today about different approaches you can come to take to collections care. So Deanna, feel free to take over whenever you're ready and we'll see you at the end for the Q&A. Great, thank you Robin and Mike. Let me go ahead and share my screen. All right, that should be good. And then just so I do not distract myself by looking at myself, I'm going to turn off my camera. I'll turn it back on when we get to the Q&A. So all right. So thanks again for having me, Robin and C2CC. As Robin mentioned, my name's Deanna Figa. I'm the Director of Preservation Services at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts. I'll be telling you a little bit more about my organization in just a moment. But I am coming to you from just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And today we are going to be discussing, I'm gonna put this in the air quotes, best practices in preservation. It's a loaded term. We'll talk a little more in a sec. But we are not actually concerned about getting you to a place where you're following those best practices to a perfect T. What we are interested in is taking best practices ideas and making them actually usable and practical for smaller organizations. A best practice is no good if it's not realistic. And too often in the organizations that I work with, I've heard folks say things along the lines of, if I can't meet this unrealistic level that has been set through this best practice, it's not worth trying at all. And that is absolutely not the case. So just because you can't necessarily meet the same standards as the most well-resourced fancy pants institutions does not mean that you are being a bad steward of your collections. In my book, as long as you are on your way and making incremental changes, looking at what is good and what might be a little better, you are being a good steward of your collection and thus doing kind of the best practice that you can do. So we're here to reframe this idea of best practices. In case anyone is not familiar with us, a quick note about my organization, the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts. We are a nonprofit, we're based in Philadelphia, but we work all over the country. We're a conservation lab and preservation services facility. Our conservators specialize in paper-based items, including books, photographs, works on paper and historic paper predecessors, such as parchment and papyrus. CCAHA also offers digitization services, fundraising assistance, housing and framing for works on paper and more. As I mentioned, we're based in Philadelphia, but we work with organizations and clients all around the country and a bit internationally as well. You can find more about us at our website, which is ccaha.org. My department, Preservation Services, we are really kind of the education and outreach wing of the center. We are the team who is out in the field working directly with organizations on things like preservation needs assessments, emergency plans, et cetera. And we also are the primary team that does outreach through educational programs like I'm here with you today. So what are best practices anyway? Basically, best practices are a set of standards for the care of collections that are in the public trust. They aren't rules or laws, but suggestions of care based on knowledge of what can harm collections. But there's really a big difference between what might be considered the field-wide best practices and what could be best practices for your institution. First, I wanna recognize that finding feasible solutions to preservation problems that fit within your budget, time and staffing limits is an ongoing issue. And unfortunately, although I wish I were, I'm not here to offer magical one-size-fits-all solutions. However, what we can do today is talk about how we approach preservation often with organizations that have limited resources in terms of staff, funding or time to pursue best practices in a more practical way. Again, from our perspective, best practices can often seem like unachievable goals, somewhat of a behemoth that keeps organizations from making tiny steps forward because it seems so impossible. So rather than present impossible standards, we're instead going to look at preservation as a series of benchmarks. Reaching each benchmark can be broken into smaller tasks. Applying this to collections care, best practices aren't rules or laws, but suggestions of care based on the knowledge of what can harm collections. Best practices can apply to all areas of collections work from the materials you use to enclose and store your collections to your environmental management and organizational policies. It's important to recognize that finding solutions to preservation problems is not something that can be solved with a one-size-fits-all solution. So we have to work to find ways to reach feasible practical solutions for your organization. Now, I know that we're always kind of thinking in terms of the good, better, best framework, but I have kind of reframed that as getting started good and better. I don't really advocate for forgetting about the best goals entirely. Best practices represent research and dialogue in our field, and as such, they should regularly be reviewed and revised as the conversation continues. But while it's important to recognize what a best practice is for the purposes of actually implementing change and action, we can kind of go ahead and tuck that in our best back pocket. Instead, let's look at a preservation as a series of benchmarks that can be broken into smaller tasks or incremental steps. And getting to each step can be considered a success. So using this model, we will work our way up the staircase or ladder or whatever upward metaphor you'd like to use. And the first step here being getting started. This is the minimal level of care necessary for responsible stewardship. Really, it's what do you need to do to get started on caring for your collections. That said, getting started might be the initial step, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily easy or inexpensive, but it is just where you have to start. The next step is good, and that's of course a little bit better than the getting started step, but still with room for improvement. And then the third step is better. And in this model, that means we are doing as well as we can right now with the resources we have available. We are moving away from the best idea, acknowledging that there will almost always be room for improvement. And that's also true for institutions of lots of resources. Even they will have areas in which they could do better. In my role at the Conservation Center, we work with organizations and collections of all shapes and sizes. And I will tell you without hesitation, I have never worked with an organization that is doing 100% of everything right. There's always something that can be some room for improvement. So today we will go through some ideas using this model to think about achieving preservation through small benchmarks. And I hope that what we'll talk about will encourage you all to approach preservation in a more practical way and maybe think a little differently about the idea of best practices in your daily work. So this is just an outline of what we will look at. We'll dig a little deeper into these first three topics which are more object focused. So that's housing and enclosures, storage space and environmental management. And then we'll move to the bigger picture institutional sections of policy development and planning and grants and funding. And even though we won't spend a huge amount of time on those last two categories, they are of course extremely important. So we'll kick things off with housing and enclosures. In a perfect world, maybe all of our storage areas would look like this image on the left. All of the materials would be housed in uniform boxes that are made of high quality materials with interior packing that is customized to each object and with everything nicely labeled. But of course, this is not what most storage areas look like and that is just fine. As long as we're focused on taking small steps forward and making our way up the ladder, we are doing a good job for our collections. So in the getting started phase with housing, we just want to have items in boxes or some kind of primary enclosure. Almost anything is better than nothing. We'll talk about this in a few places today, but enclosures do all sorts of good things. They add a barrier layer against forces that can harm our collections like water, dust, fluctuations and temperature and relative humidity and pests. Enclosures also keep objects from moving around or falling off shelves. They can protect the object from the shelf itself and they can keep objects from bumping into and damaging each other. So what kind of options might you have as you're getting started? Well, cardboard boxes as many cats like to demonstrate will do in a pinch. You can also have objects wrapped in plastic sheeting, bubble wrap or packing blankets. These should not be thought of as long-term solutions though, because there is a concern about the damage that might come from using these less than ideal materials, but they would give you a basic level of protection in the short-term. Clear plastic bins are another great solution. Sterilite or rubber-made tubs or bins are fairly stable and inert and often a lot cheaper than the quality archival boxes. You do want to make sure that you aren't creating a microclimate inside of any enclosure, especially if you know or suspect you may have active issues like insects or mold. It's good on one hand to use lids or close the top flaps on boxes because that adds more protection and helps to limit overflowing. But if you are concerned about high relative humidity or insects, you can leave bins unsealed to allow some air flow. Again, especially when you're using things like standard regular cardboard boxes, ideally you should think about that as a temporary solution. You don't want to have objects in regular cardboard forever. The cardboard will sooner rather than later begin to become very acidic and may cause damage to the artifacts inside or the box itself might break down and collapse which creates more problems. However, these materials can be great for temporary storage while you plan and budget for moving on up to your next step. And with any material and any style of enclosure, it is important to monitor your collections on a regular basis. This will hopefully help you catch any issues in an early stage when you can still do something about it. As you probably know, if you've purchased anything from boxes to shelving to any other supplies for your collections, there are a lot of choices out there. To narrow the field a bit and help us approach the good benchmark, it can help to look at the term archival. I know I just used it myself and in professional preservation work, the word archival is often used to denote materials that are chemically stable and will not produce harmful by-products. However, that term itself is not officially regulated and so it carries no true technical meaning in the commercial world. It's a term that is widely used in advertising for preservation and art supplies and it's often misleading. So rather than that, it's important to be an informed consumer. Knowing what a few other manufacturing terms mean can be a lot more valuable than relying on the catch-all of archival. To very quickly go through this list with some brief definitions and there is definitely a lot more that can be found about this in some other places. The first item, the first term is lignin-free. Lignin is a substance found in all vascular plants. So in trees, lignin binds the cellulose fibers together and as we know, a lot of paper is made from trees. Lignin does break down and become acidic over time. Anything made of wood like most paper made since the 19th century or made of plants like baskets or textiles has the potential to become acidic as their lignin breaks down. If something is marked lignin-free, it means that the lignin was removed in the manufacturing process and so the material will not become acidic over time. In the same vein, the term acid-free refers to material that was pH neutral at the time it was made. If you think back to chemistry class, the pH scale runs from zero, very acidic to 14, very alkaline with around seven being considered neutral. Being marked acid-free does not mean that a material will not become acidic over time because it doesn't tell us whether or not the material has lignin in it. So acid-free means that the material was tested and determined to have a neutral pH at the time it was made. So you really wanna ideally look for acid-free and lignin-free. One convenient way you can check the acidity of a box or folder you're using is what's known as a pH testing pen. These can be obtained very inexpensively, usually for under $10 and you can use them to draw a little line on the housing material you're curious about, pick a discrete spot to test and the color will change depending on the acidity or lack thereof. The next term is buffered and depending on what types of materials, what types of artifacts and collections you're storing, you may actually want to look for buffered or unbuffered. I'll break that down more in a second, but just to explain what that means, buffered materials have had an alkaline reserve, usually around 2% or 3% calcium carbonate added during the manufacture. So this is the buffer which gives the housing material an alkaline pH. So this is not only acid-free, it's not only neutral, it is actively alkaline. The alkaline reserve works to counteract that lignin breakdown and the acid that may develop in paper products and also protects against acidic pollutants in the environment. However, like acid-free items, this added alkaline reserve can be depleted over time and the housing material may still become acidic in the future. So buffered materials will still need to be replaced at some point. They just extend the lifetime that the housing materials are useful. So when and when should we not use buffered materials? Generally, the advice is to avoid using buffered products with objects that have protein-based materials like silk or wool textiles as it causes other chemical reactions that we don't want. If you're in doubt about what to use, it is safe to go with unbuffered materials. So that is perfectly fine. This is not one of the kind of top things to look for. We're just kind of going over what the terms are. We'll go through... I know I spent a lot of time on those first three. We'll go through the other ones a little more quickly. The photographic activity test or PAT is an important standard for housing photographs. This is used to routinely test papers, adhesives, inks, glass and framing components that may come in contact with photographic materials. Products which have passed the PAT will generally have this labeled in the material specification. And it is really ideal that if you're housing photographs, the materials you're using to house them have that designation. And then lastly, you can see what we call the three P's of plastics. There are many types of clear plastic enclosures. They all look essentially similar to the naked eye. So this is why it's important to know the composition of any clear plastic sleeves. You'll be using to store materials. The three P's up on here, these are the okay ones, the good ones. So to ensure that you're using stable good quality enclosures that will not harm photos, documents and other paper-based materials, look for either polyester, polyethylene or polypropylene. So thanks for bearing with me through this slide. It's a lot, I know, but these are some of the most often used in most things in boxes, but we have become informed consumers. We know the exact terminology we're looking for and we're making systematic purchases of supplies, being mindful of those terms we just talked about and choosing higher quality products whenever we can. In reality, it can be difficult and costly to use all quality materials all the time. And so it's not always a practical goal. So not everything has to be of the best quality, but the materials in direct contact with an artifact should be when you can manage it. So this might be an instance where prioritization, collections prioritization comes in handy. You know, what are the most important, possibly vulnerable artifacts within your collection that you wanna be the most careful to store in the most quality materials? I'm so sorry, I just caught up with the chat and noticed that my audio cut out for a bit. So I'm not sure exactly what y'all missed, but the as Robin indicated- It's okay, everything is good. Okay, all right, 10 seconds at most. Okay, good. And as Robin mentioned, my presentation is available. I made a PDF of it that y'all can have. And if there are any pieces that you wanna contact me directly about, I'm more than happy to follow up on that. So back to better being smart about supplies. You don't have to order everything from the specialized archival supply vendors either. Other places may offer good quality supplies. So that's why being an informed consumer, checking the product descriptions, and even possibly contacting the manufacturer if something is not stated or unclear can be really important. Keep in mind as well that for many suppliers, price points often drop as the number in an order increases. So you may wanna see if other organizations in your area would like to join forces in placing an order. And I also finally want to mention the inclusive vendor list that we've developed at the Conservation Center, which might be of interest as you're thinking about where to spend your organization's money. So this list is very much a work in progress, but we hope that it will help raise awareness for small businesses in the field, particularly those that are BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and women owned and or operated, as well as businesses that offer sustainable products. Another step in the better category, you may be taking the interior packing up another level by using your intentionally purchased supplies to create custom housing solutions. You could be either retrofitting the interiors of pre-made boxes to nicely cushion and support your artifacts, or even making your own boxes to provide a customized home for an object. A really excellent resource for inspiration and information on how to create custom housing is this link on the screen here, Stash C, which stands for storage techniques for art, science, and history collections. So take a look at their website for a lot of really great ideas about customized storage and more tips and tricks about lower costs, but still appropriate materials for storage as well. There are a lot of other resources available online to guide you in selecting materials and supplies and creating enclosures. I'm not gonna go through this list one by one by any means, but if and when you check out the PDF of this presentation, these are just some other good places to look. All right, so we made it through the actual housing component, the actual, the objects are hopefully in some container on the shelf. Now we're going to expand out a little bit and look at the space itself. As I said earlier, I work with a lot of different organizations of all shapes and sizes in just about every place across the country. And I can tell you hardly any organization has ever said, we have too much space. So if you are struggling with this issue, you are definitely not alone. The Getting Started step here is one of those examples of the first step, not always being the easiest, but try not to feel overwhelmed by this list and remember to think about how you can break things down into those smaller tasks. It is very difficult to do any sort of space planning without really knowing what you have. When you're getting started here, you wanna have a good handle on the specific needs of the collections and what is available to you in terms of both furniture and space. Pulling this information together requires time, which of course is another valuable resource but is so crucial to the success of your planning and results. So this is essentially taking an audit of your needs and your available resources. For collections, having something like a strong collections development policy can help determine if there are items in your collection that fall outside your collecting scope and may be therefore candidates for removal or deaccessioning. Of course, deaccessioning should not be your primary or only way to make space, but it's certainly something to keep in mind. You always wanna be using your resources, including space wisely. And it's also important to consider some of the other factors listed here as they may affect how and where collections should be stored. There might not be a whole lot you can do right away to tackle all of this, but you can reach the Getting Started benchmark by knowing your collections and what kind of shelving and space is available to you. Don't feel ashamed if you have a storage space that looks like the image on the left or something close to it. If you don't or if you never have, pat yourself or your organization on the back because many places do. And the left and right hand images are before and after images at the same space at the Wharton Eshwick Museum and Malvern, Pennsylvania. Another way to approach storage spaces is to take it one room or closet at a time. This museum was overwhelmed with the thought of comprehensive space planning, so decided instead to move in small steps, starting with this very closet. They looked at all of the collections in the closet and determined which pieces fit into the collecting scope. They did happen to have a lot of non-collection materials in the area, so they were able to discard a lot. And that's another important Getting Started tip. If it's not part of the collection, ideally get it out of collection storage. It may be a challenge, but it's necessary if at all possible to find another spot for things like decorations or old office furniture that is just taking up space in collection storage. But back to this example, the museum made sure everything was housed properly following many of the steps that we have already talked about, and then they were able to use this space more appropriately. Of course, this required thought, staff time, and elbow grease, but in terms of other costs, it wasn't really an expensive project. The museum used discarded boxes from a neighboring historical site. They had help from interns and volunteers from a local museum studies program, and the project was led by their own staff. There are definitely still some issues here. The right-hand image is not perfect. Boxes are still sitting on the floor, for example, and it's a very tight space, but overall this is a large improvement and a fantastic job. While there's absolutely nothing wrong with going room by room or another smaller way that is doable for your site, there are also resources out there that can guide you through the storage organization process with a bird's-eye view. One of those resources is REORG, which is a partnership between the International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property and the Canadian Conservation Institute. REORG is a method for planning and implementing a storage reorganization project, and it includes a self-evaluation of your storage spaces and assists you in coming up with a logical approach to reorganization. REORG really takes you step-by-step through the process and is a great and completely free resource. It's gonna be more relevant to certain types of collections and organizations than others, but certainly it's free, so certainly doesn't hurt to at least check it out if you are beginning on a reorganization effort. In the getting started step of storage, it's about evaluating what you have and what is available to you. When we move up to the good benchmark, it might be adapting storage furniture that is already on hand to meet your needs and to fit into the spaces you have. You still wanna make sure you're going about this in a way that is good for the collection. In the image on the left, we see a not-so-great adaptation of available storage furniture. It's less the locker itself than the way those items are filling it. There could be a good way to use this locker for collections, maybe even stacking boxes on one on top of another, for example, but not a pile of books that looks to be approximately four feet tall. On the right, this is a better example of adaptation. It's not terribly visible on the screen, but just to kind of orient you to what's actually going on here. This institution took some old library bookshelves, the kind of standard library shelving that's a bit shallow and pushed them back to back with one another so they could be used to house oversized portfolios. Everything is stacked soundly, not too high, and with like-sized books supporting each other or larger sizes on the bottom. And virtually nothing is leaning or at an angle or even overhanging the shelves. So you can see everything more easily as well which helps with access. And not having to handle multiple items to get to the one you need is definitely a win. So it's a good use of some old furniture. It's not perfect, there are probably things that this place could be doing differently as well, but it's a very good resource light adaptation of what they had. You can do this same thing with historic furniture that might also be possibly even on display within, for example, a historic house museum. These again are photos from the Wharton Escherich Museum. Wharton Escherich, the man was an artist and woodworker and there are some really unique storage items around his house, which is now the museum. Since space is limited, it would be a shame to leave these spaces empty so the staff at the museum made responsible use of the furniture for storage. They made sure to use a safe buffer or barrier label, excuse me, barrier layer between the collections stored in the wooden cabinets and the cabinets themselves. When dealing with wood, which has lignin in it and can be highly acidic, it's important to keep that acid away from the artifacts. So they lined the wooden drawers and cabinet and basically used what normally would have just been exhibit space for collection storage. The next step up from adapting what you already have would be creating or purchasing what you need. The image on the left shows some lovely hanging screens in Cooperstown at the Baseball Hall of Fame. In the center image, you can see some cool rolled textile storage at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art. This step certainly doesn't mean that you have to buy this intensive of a level of hanging screens and fancy compact shelving units. But here again, you can look at hardware stores and elsewhere to see what might be slightly less expensive and still of good quality for storage. The image on the right shows a cart that the Philadelphia Athenaeum created to help safely navigate their very narrow storage aisles with the large architectural blueprints they have. All right, we are going to move on to the next topic. I see that I've gotten a couple of questions. I'm gonna try and I should have time to get to all the questions. I'm gonna try and just get through the content and answer the questions at the end. So please don't hesitate to keep answering, excuse me, keep asking questions in the Q&A box, but I just wanna make sure that we have ample time to just get through the lecture piece and then I will get to these questions at the end. And if I don't end up having time for all of the questions, I'm definitely more than happy to follow up afterwards. So sit tight. Environmental management. And for our purposes, this includes everything. Temperature, relative humidity, light, pests, this is obviously a really big topic and we'll just raise the surface today with some smaller benchmarks in mind. We're probably all at least somewhat familiar with the best practices advanced for environmental management or the climate of mixed collections. This includes maintaining temperatures between 59 to 77 degrees and 45 to 55% relative humidity. For light levels, this means that UV radiation is filtered and eliminated from light sources, that visible light is kept at recommended levels and durations for the type of objects on view. And pest-wise means that your organization has an active integrated pest management plan using a holistic approach and controlled measures to prevent, reduce, or eliminate pests in your collections and facility. Similarly to how we got started in our last section on space planning, it's important to know what you're dealing with in environmental conditions. So again, the first benchmark can simply be that. Monitoring your space and getting a baseline of data. For capturing temperature and relative humidity, this can include purchasing data loggers. Data loggers, as I'm sure many of us are familiar, are electronic devices that record temperature and relative humidity and transmit that information to a computer. There is a wide range of options for data loggers out there. We have put together another resource at CCAHA, which is a quick comparison chart of various types of data loggers, and that can be a helpful place to start your research. This, again, I've said it a couple of times in a couple of different ways, but I'll emphasize it again here. I've worked with so many organizations who are not doing any environmental monitoring at all because they think there's nothing they can do to change their situation. That might be true somewhat, at least in the near term, but even if, for example, mechanical climate control is limited or impossible in your collection space, monitoring is still important. Being armed with the data that can help you to better advocate to your board or management for improvements in climate control or even a new collection storage facility or the use of different storage facilities can just be so crucial. For many grant applications, having this information will be helped to support your request. And you may even be surprised when after you start a monitoring program to find that some areas of your building have a more stable climate than others that you would not necessarily have just felt anecdotally and therefore would be better places to store collections. Light monitoring is a little bit trickier but a little easier to tell just to the naked eye where and when you may have too much light in your buildings. So here again, capturing and writing down that information will be beneficial and help you to make decisions. As far as tools that can help you monitor, you can purchase things like the textile fading cards seen on the left. They're called blue wool standards or blue scales. You can leave them out to see how light might be affecting your artifacts. You can either have two, one of which is a control card that's kept in darkness and the other is used in the area you're monitoring or you can cover one half of the one card with a barrier like aluminum foil that blocks the light and creates the control side. So those are great. Those are a specialized tool. I absolutely recommend them. They're usable. They're easy enough to read. You know what fades just as quickly as this specialized tool, colored construction paper. So you can use colored construction paper cut into strips and placed around your storage area. Again, keeping one side in darkness by covering it in foil. A few weeks later, take them out and compare. You may see that some areas naturally stay darker than others and are therefore better for storage. And in any areas where you're seeing noticeable fading, remember that light damage is cumulative and irreversible. So make sure your artifacts are covered and protected from that light as much as possible. The same thing goes with pests. It's most helpful to know which insects are problems for you before you try to do anything about it. So monitoring pests is often something that institutions can contract out to pest control vendors. And that's great. That's part of the better step that we'll get to in a minute. But really doing pest monitoring yourself is not hard or expensive and it can be a really helpful first step for getting a handle on your situation before you pay for a contracted service. And really ideally internal monitoring should continue even after you have a service in place. Many archival supply vendors sell full pest monitoring kits like the one on the right. A kit like this makes it easy and would have you set for a while but you could also build your own kit using this as a guideline. Something like the sticky blunder traps pictured on the left are really great at placing throughout your storage spaces. Remember to monitor your traps and change them out either quarterly or as needed. Which include that as needed includes whenever you capture any insects after you've made a note of it or snapped a photo of what was caught and noted where. Once you know what kinds of pests you have and where and why they might be getting into your space then you can start taking more targeted action. And another thing here, another key getting started steps again for pest control is to keep things in boxes. Remember that boxes will give pests one more layer to have to get through before they reach the artifacts and start causing real damage. Boxes also block light and help protect against fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity. So are applicable to these other environmental management aspects as well. So where you can box it up and you'll get this first step of preservation frost off. Oops, went too far. So the preservation impact of a stable environment cannot be overstated. Extremes and fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity can cause irreversible damage and many materials. Keeping things stable can actually be considered somewhat more important than staying at a particular set point or within a very narrow range. So some of the greatest damage from temperature and relative humidity comes from when they're wildly changing back and forth over long stretches of time. So we're better off spending our efforts keeping things stable. You'd be surprised at what is possible with just a fan to circulate air. Using data loggers, you can see what might be the best times of day to turn off and on fans to keep things stable. Stand alone dehumidifiers and humidifiers, depending on your needs are also quite helpful. And if you're an area where, you know, maybe particularly in winter months or if you're in a drier area out west and you're dealing with drier relative humidity all year round, a really low tech way to bring up the RH in a room without a humidifier is to put bowls of water near baseboard vents to allow moisture to evaporate and raise the RH. It might sound a little scary or sketchy to have a bowl of water sitting out around your collections but having really dry conditions is also not good for collections. The key is without any measures, we want to, excuse me, with any measures, we want to actively monitor what you are doing in making sure the fans are secure, not blowing directly on artifacts, make sure the dehumidifiers are emptied when needed or really ideally automatically draining. As always, keep an eye on things. For light exposure, the best offense is a good defense. Block the light however you can. This can be as simple as adding curtains to windows as you see here, but if it's storage or another space that's not seen by the public, you can use whatever you have, a piece of board will do. Adding UV filtering to windows and bulbs is actually not that expensive but the film can be tricky to install on windows, so just keep that in mind. And the film does break down over time and will need to be replaced. So often eight to 10 years is a good time after film has been installed to make sure that you're monitoring it and watching for signs of cracking and aging. It might just be easier to block off a window entirely with a secure but still removable cover. If that's not an option, you can still reduce exposure by yet again, covering the artifacts themselves, placing them in a box or enclosure or if they're too big for that, you can drape them with a muslin sheet. Also remember the basics, keep shades and curtains closed in inactive spaces and turn off the lights when not in use. Block what you can is also a great approach for pests. Make sure your windows and doors are well sealed, repair broken windows and replace damaged insulation promptly and keep windows and doors closed and locked. This has mutual benefits as well. This will not only help to keep out pests but can also benefit temperature and humidity regulation and will improve security. Also, once you know what kinds of pests are getting into your building from that first step, you can plot out how to specifically block those pests. Maybe they're coming in at a certain part of your building that you can shore up and you can use traps that work best for that particular type of invader. Pest infestations are expensive so it's best to not have them in the first place. And now we're on to the better. For temperature and relative humidity, unfortunately there are no real cheap solutions here. Nothing can really replace having a good, thorough HVAC system. This type of cost is a perfect example of why it's advisable for an institution to, one, have a cyclical maintenance plan that helps you plan and budget for repairs and upgrades and two, to create something like a sinking fund or savings account and have a reserve of funds. You can use those funds for big expenditures like this or for an emergency, which is a different topic, but still applicable. On any system, whether old or new, doing upkeep is really important. Change filters regularly, quarterly or as indicated and use the correct type of filters for your system. Make sure the system is serviced at least on an annual basis. Get a service contract in place so that you don't have to scramble to identify a vendor when you have a malfunction or breakdown. It may not be the most glamorous of things to talk about, but it's a big achievement for the museum world to have a new upgraded HVAC system like the one on the screen here. This is a new HVAC unit that was installed in 2021 at a museum in Washington state. They were able to make this upgrade through funding generated from memberships, donations, shop sales and other activities. So something like this is relatable for many visitors and it reminds folks that your site has ongoing operational needs that they can help support. For light, a really achievable goal for the better category is actually switching to LED lighting. That's not gonna help with windows of course, but LEDs emits little to no heat or UV. They're more efficient and energy usage and the bulbs last longer than other types of bulbs. So you'll spend less in replacement. The traditional warning is that there is more cost upfront to make the switch to LEDs, but it really is an investment that will pay off in the long run. So in addition to the preservation angle, you can usually make a good argument on the cost savings angle of LEDs to the board or management. And then to bring this section full circle, as we mentioned earlier, having a contract in place with a pest management company is really a great thing to do, but it has to be done correctly. In this better step, you would have a contract with a pest company that is familiar with cultural collecting organizations and with your site. Unfortunately, it's common for institutions to not really communicate with their contractors about what they're finding, what that means and what treatments are being used. So they don't always get a full understanding of the issues. So speak with your pest control rep regularly about what pests the company finds at your site. Make sure that the treatments they're using will not harm your collections, staff and grounds. Pest control vendors can set up a system for inspections, outside spraying and bait or traps that don't use harmful chemicals. But the key is to not let this become a set it and forget it part of your operations. It should be an active part of your collections care and your integrated pest management efforts. And I have to say, these images show the best kind of pests to have in a collection, dead ones, which are in the collection in the Smithsonian. All right, so as I mentioned, the next two sections are just briefer, but I think it's important to look at those kind of bigger picture holistic issues facing the organization overall. Moving on to institutional management and the things we'll talk about in here are policies and preservation related planning. So really the best practices here are that we would regularly conduct assessments of collections care issues. And we would have all collections related policies in writing formally approved by the governing body of the institution and subject to regular review and updates. So what else can be done if you're not quite there yet? Having an assessment done is a really excellent getting started measure because assessments will do just that, help you get started. Assessments can help you identify and prioritize tasks, provide resources and guide you in the steps needed to make that work happen. Some assessments are free or have low costs and you can often get grant funding for preservation needs or risk assessments. Many assessments have outside assessors involved and others are in somewhat of a self-guided format. So I'm not gonna go through each one of these in a lot of detail, but definitely some of these are, well, all of them certainly are worth checking out. I would say the best kind of getting started types of assessments are the CAP assessments that FAIC offers, those are for organizations that have a historic building as well as a collection stored within. So you get both a building assessment and a collections assessment. The preservation needs assessments that we do at the conservation center are just collections focused, but definitely contact me if you're interested in learning more about free or inexpensive services that we offer as well. When you're starting small with policy development, you can first look at what you're currently doing. Chances are you've already got some policies and plans in action. For example, you might be doing housekeeping on a regular basis, but you just don't have a written policy in place. Policies are important for consistency. Just write down what you are doing, even if it's not formally adopted or approved. Having some record of the way that you actually do things is really helpful for training and preserving institutional memory as well as future policy development. Here again, there are tools out there to help you. There are several resources for emergency planning. Many of you might be familiar with the pocket response plan for the council of state archivists, which is a template that you can fill out with information to help your site in the event of a disaster or emergency. There's also D-Plan, which is an online disaster planning tool from the Northeast Document Conservation Center. And CCAHA is right in the final phases of developing and being ready to launch an excellent resource that will guide sites in creating a collections management policy. It's slated to launch by the end of this year, so please keep an eye on our website and social media for updates. Also, we definitely encourage organizations to work together on policy development. It helps to have friends and colleagues who are in the same boat, so you can share tips and resources for getting your document ducks in a row. You don't have to reinvent the wheel here either, borrow from other policies that use language, ideas, and structures you like, but for any document, of course, always make sure it stays focused on your site and is tailored to your mission and collection. For a better step with policies, ideally an organization would have in place the most significant policy and planning documents for the type of site it is, whether that's a library collection, museum, archive, et cetera. The documents you see listed here come from the American Alliance of Museums. They have designated these five items as core documents because they are fundamental for professional museum operations. But I think these essentially can be considered core documents for sites that are not museums in addition as well. They cover a lot of ground and give you really important guidelines and support into your daily work. And then the final section today, that wonderful stuff that for better or for worse makes the world go round money. Funding for preservation is another massive topic and we're only gonna take a very quick look at a few angles, thinking again about how to make incremental improvements. So best practice here would be that your department or organization has a dedicated budget for preservation, including supplies, training and conservation treatment, and also that you're regularly applying for grant funding to support collections care initiatives. Getting rolling can be a challenge here. You may have only one choice to get started and that's to work within the budget that you already have. Having a dedicated line item for preservation funding is fantastic, but I totally recognize that might be easier said than done. However, it is definitely something that can be worth advocating for. A preservation budget, whether that's a line item or a dedicated fund or account is well looked upon by funders and does increase the value of preservation institution-wide. And having that regularly allocated funding stream can go a long way to ensuring the long-term health of your collection. So it's something that is worth fighting for. Another great step at the getting started stage is to be ready with your wish list. Have a running list of supplies, equipment, training opportunities and other resources you might need for collections care and prioritize things so that if money ever falls in your lap, you're prepared. Funding opportunities from donors and friends of the organization can happen suddenly and having your list at the ready will save time. And the same goes for grant funding. Sometimes grants will pop up that have relatively short timelines. So keep your wish list at the ready. One strategy that I think can be really effective is for a site to have their wish list broken down by cost levels and specific types of items that could be funded with a brief description of what the items would do for the organization. So this makes it help easier to pair a donation amount with items that are most helpful. And it clearly shows a donor that you have thought and intent behind the request. For a good step, and this is mostly referring to grant funding but can also apply to individual donors and other civic groups. Consider looking locally for funding sources. Often smaller foundations and other local bodies like chambers of commerce or historic preservation groups will prefer to support organizations within their city or region. The images here show some porch repairs that happened at Historic Sugar Town in Melbourne, Pennsylvania. Using funds from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museums Commission which is our state's historical organization. Sometimes these local grant opportunities may be less complex and less competitive in comparison to national programs. So if you have not ever applied for a grant before you might consider starting by looking on the local level. And that said, don't be afraid to go for the big national awards. Even if you're coming from a small organization these funders also want to help you. There are certain grant categories that are specifically designed for smaller or mid-sized organizations particularly the NEH Preservation Assistance Grants and the IMLS Inspire Grants. So you don't have to worry that you're competing against mega museums and libraries. In particular, in my job I've worked with many organizations through those NEH Preservation Assistance Grants. The, I just saw over the past week or so the applications are open now. I believe they're due in January and they fund projects for up to $10,000 and with no matching funds required on your part. So it's a really fantastic opportunity. So that is my whirlwind presentation. I'm going to leave this up here for just a second to, so you can grab my contact info. And I see that I got a number of questions in the Q&A. So I'm gonna go ahead and just look through these. Okay, so. People have been busy, so it's been good. Okay, good. So yeah, I think we have 20 minutes. So I think I should be able to get to most of these unless any of them are like super redundant with one another. But please feel free to continue popping questions in there. Okay, so if we have to use wooden shelves for books what would you suggest lining them with? Main two options would either be one of those the plastic films that I mentioned. Mylar is kind of the common commercial term that's really common in preservation. You can line a shelf with Mylar or you can line a shelf with acid-free, lignin-free paper using cardstock or something a little more sturdy and heavy will help ensure that it doesn't tear and bunch up when you're taking stuff on and off the shelves. But here is another kind of somewhat, I don't know, blasphemous preservation thing that I'm going to tell you. Historic wood probably stopped off guessing. Like wood, like if you have wooden shelves that were not constructed within say the past 30 years it's probably not going to do a huge amount of damage to collections if it comes in contact with. So I mean, that would even be like lining your wooden shelves that would be your, I'm bumping you right on up to the better step. So, certainly with newer shelving units you don't want to go into a purchase buying wooden shelves but it's maybe not as much of a concern as it's kind of made out to be. The next question is, is it better to keep books and boxes or okay to put on shelves? I would actually advocate that it's better to place books on shelves. They're going to be a lot more accessible which if they're not frequently used that may or may not be an issue but just storing smaller books vertically well supported on a shelf or storing oversized books lying horizontally well supported on a shelf and not stacked too high. That's actually, it's better for access for the books and it's better for there's less risk of them kind of jostling around. Often when books are placed in boxes they're placed in stacks in the boxes and that's not necessarily great for the books over time either. So yeah, I mean, I know that goes somewhat against my whole get things in boxes but you can get books in individual custom boxes, you know, boxes sized to the book itself for that extra layer of protection but that's one where I would say, I don't know that I've ever worked with an organization where every single one of their books is in a custom box and that's more of a prioritization thing for if you have books that are more fragile or more significant to your collection, maybe consider individually boxing some of those. And then another question when you're lining antique furniture for storage do you use glue or tax and how do you reconcile that? I'm always so afraid to use or make holes in my antique furniture. I would not actually use anything to affix the liner. I would so in the two examples like a sheet of Mylar or a sheet of card stock it's just laying on top of the shelf or on the surface of the drawer you're not actually affixing that. That way, you know, the added benefit there is then if and when you ever need to replace that liner it's gonna be a lot easier to remove and replace as well if it's not adhering down. I got a question that I am going to just tell you right now I know I cannot answer because it's not an area that I know about but I'm happy to look into it and follow up. So the person, if you wanna shoot me an email the person who asked about storing mercury glass and plaster casts or their molds I would love to look into that and give you a good answer but I can't help you right now. So please reach out to me separately. That's also a really good question for the community the CDC care community to ask that because there's probably gonna be a specialist out there somewhere who has dealt with that so I would encourage you to do that as well. Yeah, I changed my mind but reach out to the community because that's while I can look it up and look into it as Robin mentioned someone there can probably help you. Some museums carry out an object valuation ranking in order to establish priorities in the administration of deposits. Do you relate to the value of the object or collection when making the deposit reorganization plan? I'm not sure if you're referring to some of the tools that I mentioned that have where you can kind of play around with storage space planning and reorganization planning to be completely honest I don't actually know within if that's what you're referring to I don't actually know if within how within Reorg those types of value questions are handled. So you might wanna just look into that tool a little spend a little time with it and see I don't know offhand. Any suggestions in the vein of bowls of water when you don't have vents near the floor? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, if you are in a space that is regularly very, very dry. I mean, I would say even regularly your relative humidity in a storage space is under 30%. You could even try just having a bowl of water sitting kind of in an unobtrusive place not near collections, not directly adjacent to collections and ideally not somewhere that it's going to get jostled. It just having it there might help. I think the idea of placing it near the vents and dispersing the water vapor throughout the room is the idea behind that. But just adding that to a space might help if you're in the situation where your RH is so low that it's kind of like anything at all costs to bring it up. That would be something really interesting to try to test with monitoring. If you do that, if you're sitting a bowl of water in a space and you're monitoring and you find that it doesn't change the RH at all, then unfortunately that might not be even a low resource solution. Let's see. What are the treatments for pests that don't harm the collections? So that's actually, that's a very, it's gonna depend based on the type of pests. So what, I'm gonna kind of answer that by giving like a non-answer, which is when organizations, often when you hire just like a commercial pest eradication company, they're using what are called indiscriminate pesticides or insecticides. They're using chemicals that have been proven to kill like just about everything. That is exactly what you want to avoid. So if and when you have a pest infestation, there may be situations where you have to use certain processes that are not just blocking off your points of entry, you may have to use chemical processes at some point depending on the level and scale of the infestation and the type of insect you're dealing with. But what you want to do is you want to treat the problem specifically and directly. And so that's why when I was talking about working with pest management vendors who know about cultural, historic cultural collecting organizations, those would know, okay, you have a termite problem. This is exactly what we can do to treat a termite problem. And maybe it has these benefits and drawbacks for the building or the collections, but this is exactly what we're going to do to go in and treat this termite problem. So I think answering the question that way rather than listing off a lot of specific solutions is probably what I would think is the more effective way of kind of thinking about that. Oh, okay. Sorry, I'm kind of skipping around to make sure I can get to relatively straightforward questions. Under institutional management regarding key types of documents and policies, is it typical that institutions have their own code of ethics or does that refer to adopting an appropriate professional code of ethics, e.g. SAA's core value statement and code of ethics? Yes, the latter. I don't, I mean, if there are very specific ethical considerations within your organization by all means codify that, but I'm more referring to, yes, kind of making the statement and the decision that to support those already established professional association statements of ethics. So, yeah, thanks for that. Suggestions for storing moldy books or objects if you don't have enough room to separate them from the rest of the collection. Okay, two suggestions there. My top suggestion would be to actually try to get them into a freezer if at all possible, because that is going to, it's not going to kill the mold, you still have to deal with getting rid of the mold after you take them out of the freezer, but it is going to completely arrest any potential ongoing mold growth, especially if your storage environment is conducive for mold growth. So if you store moldy things within a storage space that is at the right slash wrong temperature and relative humidity combination, the mold unfortunately will just continue growing and will potentially spread. So ideally you would get the things, even if you don't have a separate storage space, you could, if you have access to a freezer, you could store them in a freezer. It doesn't have to be anything highly specialized, a standard kind of chest freezer would do. Even a food freezer would absolutely do in a pinch as long as it's not also used for food, of course, at that time. Second to that, I would say if you absolutely have to store them in the same place, you have zero access to a freezer, store them in plastic bags. This is one case where, yes, maybe the plastic bag is gonna create a micro environment, but if the book or object is already moldy, at least you're protecting the rest of the things from it. Before, just real quick, before you put the books in the freezer, what would you recommend people place the books in? Because you're not, you're just sliding the book into the freezer, right? You're putting something around there. Yes, yes, yeah. You're placing them in, I mean, ideally in a box, you can interleave, like place, if you're placing multiple books in a box, you can put sheets of wax paper between them in the box. And this is actually a case where you want things packed like fairly tightly within the box, so they're not just kind of rattling and shifting around in there. All right, I'm realizing I'm not gonna get to all of these, so I can definitely, please follow up with me later if you... We'll definitely download the questions for you to follow up on later. The one I wanted to hit, because it's so different than what I was taught back in the day, was the range that is considered an acceptable fluctuation in temperature. Now, I know when I went to school a bazillion years ago in the O's, it was basically, we had this real tight range, right? I mean, it was plus or minus five is what you were aiming for. And it's different now. It's at least, it's when people are saying, there is some fluctuation. What have you heard about that issue with the fluctuation of temperature? Yeah, so I'm trying to think of a like concise way. There will always be, I mean, not in like the most highly designed and specced out custom HVAC storage space. There will always be some fluctuation within spaces. And one thing that I'll say to just kind of reiterate on a point that I've made many times throughout this presentation is that is yet another thing that boxes and enclosures can really help with. They have like a dampening or buffering effect on any fluctuations that might be happening in the space. It's going to take longer. I mean, it may eventually, depending on how long the, you know, how much of a fluctuation and how long over a period of time it's lasting, it may reach through the walls of the box inside the box to the object within. But having things in a box are also going to buy you time. What I, I think the figure that was listed in the best practices or ultimate standards for environment is like between 59 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit, which I think, I mean, that's much wider than like a five plus or minus five degree range. I think, you know, those are kind of the outer ends of at a relatively stable, relative humidity. If you're within between 59 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit, there are not going to be other severe damages to the collection. You're probably not going to have to deal with mold growth. You're probably not going to have to deal with things that shouldn't freeze freezing, obviously. So, you know, really, really extreme swings are when the temperature within a storage space is swinging 20 degrees in the course of a day if you have a total HVAC failure or if you have a, you know, heating failure in the winter. So those, those really severe swings are what you have to look out for. And it's very much temperature and relative humidity going hand in hand because it's very much like the problem that severe fluctuations in temperature, excuse me, the reason that severe fluctuations in temperature can be a problem is because of the water content of organic materials like paper and other materials that make up a lot of our collections. They're going to expand and contract and that is going to cause stress and that's where the problems often come from. So. Yeah, I mean, it's been interesting because like I said, that was like a key thing that was drilled into my head when I was going through school was, you know, you had to keep these tight controls. And I think that we've realized exactly what you said that there is going to be some fluctuation. Fluctuation is kind of normal, you know what I mean? And it's really, it's really just making sure there's not wild swings within a short period of time. That's the key thing you're looking for, for sure. Well, I have us almost at time. So I want to thank you so much, Gianni, for this presentation. This was wonderful. And it really showed us some ways that, again, everyone, you know, when we were prepping for this, I always say that, you know, there's no one's perfect, right? Everyone has things that you have to compromise on. You have to do the best you can with your budget, with your supplies, your materials. And I think your presentation just really, you know, firmed up that idea. So it's greatly appreciated for you taking the time to talk to us today. Absolutely. And please, anyone feel free to reach out to me. Email is definitely going to get to me faster than calling because I am not always in the office to get my calls. Some of the other questions in the Q&A that were about materials other than paper-based materials, I would definitely recommend sending those to the community. Because like I said, I'm always happy to look stuff up. But what is right at the top of my knowledge is going to be much more books and paper and photos. So. Right. Still, I mean, that's a lot of knowledge. So we appreciate that big time for you taking the time today. Well, thanks again to everyone. Thank you to FAIC. This is an IMLS grant program. So thank you to IMLS. Thank you to our producers at Learning Time. I did put links to the resources and to the survey in the chat. So you can also keep an eye out for an email on the survey link tomorrow. And we do hope you'll sign up for our November webinar, which should be pretty exciting. And if you have any crazy legends you've heard about, please put them through the forum on the registration page. And don't forget, we have that course starting later this week. So if you're interested in storage, be encouraged you to sign up for that course. So thank you again, Gownie. And we will see you all in November. Have a great month.