 Or on emergencies and I'm going to move this off to the side and make it a little bit smaller Feel free to Sign in at the chat and also if you have any questions let them know we'll be watching for them and We'll just go through this and we'll start with Susan Duel in a minute so Well Today Webinar is for Mayday, but the Mayday logo is gone Mike. Where is it? but today is Mayday and it is sponsored by the FAIC with With sponsorship from the polygon group and we're glad that you're here Yes, that's right Brad Mayday Mayday the logo is gone I'm Yeah, so we all hope that you're doing other things for Mayday besides watching this webinar It's a day set aside for cultural institutions to Celebrate and to work on their emergency preparedness In the connecting to collections care. We have a community website. That's where you can find a Lot of resources you can find recordings of past webinars you can find You can if you're a registered member you can post questions and have answers and And also the there's a calendar that will let you know what's upcoming and we're on Facebook and we're on Twitter And you can always contact me at this email address and If you have anything good bad or indifferent to say Okay, so today We are Our webinar is called after disasters salvage and recovery for small to mid-sized museums and libraries and Our presenter is Susan Duel who's a art conservator. She's And a collections consultant. She's been actively involved in the American Institute for conservation Conservation collections emergency response team or cert and she's on the member She's on the board of the AIC emergency committee and the AIC cert working group she worked on both Hurricanes Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012-13 and she continues to work for FEMA the federal emergency management team as a specialist archives consultant for government collections in New Orleans to recover damages from Katrina which as you will notice almost 10 years ago and She does lectures and workshops for organizations of all Sizes so Susan if you're ready, we'll start great Okay, welcome everybody and Let me just say one thing if you put questions in the chat box. I'll grab them and So that Susan gets them and we're going to be putting in polls From time to time so you can pay attention to that Okay, so Susan take it away Mike, can you advance the first slide? There we go. Thank you for joining the webinar today. I'm excited We have participants from all over the world and I'd like to welcome everyone Today's talk is an overview of steps needed in the recovery of collections in event of a disaster but planning preparation and prevention are key and Their importance can't be stressed enough. So here are two excellent sources of information on Connecting to collections Care website under the resources tab you can scroll down the page to the emergency response Links and there's a number of wonderful web links on there and there's also a number of talks archived On disaster preparation and prevention there's also many international Sources available and you can start by looking at the American Institute for Conservation, which has also international links As Susan said, I'm a collections emergency Responder in my work and I'm an active volunteer for the American Institute for Conservation's collection emergency response team AIC cert We provide free disaster response to cultural collections in the United States nationwide and 24 hours a day and we have a hotline telephone service. You can also call in 24 hours a day Cert is made up of volunteer conservators registrars librarians and curators and it's supported by many of our close colleagues. I'm also volunteer on the FAIC emergency committee which has an education and outreach mission and For the cert working group which supports all cert services So let's begin All disasters are different The top slide illustrates an almost unnoticeable disaster Until you get up close and you can see a layer of soot on everything that was from a furnace puff back It doesn't look like a big deal, but it was on every single surface of a 51 room mansion In the slides below you can see the effects of hurricane Sandy which resulted in areas of significant devastation So regardless of type and size all disasters have an impact on collections finances schedules and people So while all disasters are different, there's standardized steps that will help create a more successful outcome To start the most important steps are to abate or stop the disaster and make sure you and everyone else is safe I want to stress that we're not first responders and emergency services should always be called immediately However, if you are first on the scene you need to call emergency services First and then only if you are safe stop the source of disaster Meaning turn off gas lines and water pipes The steps on this slide overlap one another and a certain amount of flexibility is needed to accomplish each step For example, the needs will change as the disaster subsides and salvage is underway Continual reassessment is needed and changes in Response actions may need to be altered as the recovery progresses It's really important to understand that there may be only progressive improvements from the disaster till the end of your recovery Before salvage starts, it's a good idea to be prepared instead of rushing in take time to gather all of your resources Start by implementing your phone tree to get the best available help While the team is gathering someone should be accessing inventory lists insurance information and anything else that will be useful in tracking and salvaging the collection Hopefully you will have put together this kind of information and the supplies in your preservation planning and preparation phase At the beginning of a disaster you need to assemble your response team and supplies You should consider all your local resources and be creative about locating people and supplies Here are some suggestions of places you can access for help This talk will be archived So if you don't have time to take notes you'll be able to get it on the Connecting to Collections Care website next week So while you're collecting all of your supplies, it's extremely important to gather appropriate and an adequate number of personal protective equipment known as PPE PPE should be available in advance Especially since as responders we found that it's often difficult to find and purchase supplies, especially in a large disaster I've been in many situations where people are careless or cavalier and when I was much younger and in experience I suffered from a lung infection from mold exposure when I opened a contaminated time capsule I hope that you'll learn from my mistake where your PPE and remind your friends to wear theirs In disaster response of any size, you'll see a certain amount of chaos until you get control of the situation an incident action plan or IAP is needed to direct salvage and response an IAP can be written or verbal although written is preferred and This plan provides structure by outlining incident goals strategies tactics logistics communications and safety and This plan will should allow for continuity of operations in your organization Which means that hopefully your museum or library can stay open while you're undergoing salvage Another feature of an IAP is that it should be at adapted as the incident evolves So who writes this plan? the incident command system or ICS as it's known describes the staffing needed in incident response These people are responsible for writing implementing and updating the IAP the incident Plan the system is based on FEMA the federal emergency management agencies system and it can be very complicated This is a very simplified version. I found works for small cultural institutions So especially in large-scale disasters, everything is happening at once and there's overlapping needs tasks and priorities and The chain of command provides a structure and using the IAP they can complete a successful operation Because there's overlapping needs tasks and priorities Incident command is used to standardize things like position titles and responsibilities reporting structures financial management and Communications which would be both internal among the staffing and external to people like the press So it's really important to understand the chain of command in each person's responsibility in a disaster The person chosen for the position is the best person available Whoever is most skilled at carrying out the responsibilities of that position So for example, it's not necessarily the director of your institution who becomes an incident commander The director may not be as prepared to run a salvage operation as a conservator or a building manager Also, a person can be replaced if someone more skilled or less tired becomes available So it's really important to understand both the capabilities and the personalities of the people who are involved in a salvage experience Some people are better as directors and other people are better as workers Some people are naturally calm and capable in a stressful situation, but others just may not be These traits can be tapped into to successfully staff various positions in ICS This is a very big subject and there's an excellent talk on the 2014 Connecting to Collection Care Archives by David Carmichael and it's called the Supercharged Management System You can also take a training course and get a certificate from FEMA on ICS and that's listed on the resources for this webinar So as I said, it's important to understand the responsibilities and the personalities involved and Mental health is a really important part of successful response Both for the people who are suffering in a disaster and for the responders People have to be in good mental and physical condition to carry out a disaster response Especially in large disasters that have a prolonged recovery It's really important to be sympathetic with others and with yourself It's a very stressful situation. Even small disasters will cause a certain level of stress It's typical that responders feel as if they've not they're not doing enough and they can't do enough So good supervision from the incident commander down and And a buddy system watching out for each other are very useful Steps to protect people from becoming overstressed or tired Human safety and well-being is your biggest concern You have to make sure that entry into a site is safe and you should follow first responders The chain of command and employ good teamwork So this is a good time to answer some questions about IAP and ICS Are other actions needed to begin a salvage operation? I'm not seeing those questions from Susan just yet So we're just going to move on and I can answer those questions at the end of the session When you're entering a site, there's so many potential dangers more than I could possibly list Live electrical wires and water is a common and significant danger In many disasters, you have to find your way into a site and getting into a major disaster like Katrina was incredibly difficult There were no roads and there were no meaningful road signs on the left I'm following a National Guard plowed in Gulfport, Mississippi In smaller disasters, there may be no electricity making it difficult to find walking paths It's very helpful to have a person off-site who can guide you and tell you what's open or perhaps lead you On a path that gets you access to the site, but that only works if you have a phone service This would be one of the communications people at a command center where ICS may be located Paper maps and diagrams are very useful and should be part of your pre-disaster preparation Cell phones may work and they may not work an interesting point is that some phones have mapping capabilities through satellite service Even without working cell towers, but I think you have to download maps in advance Once you have access to the building the next step is to secure the affected building or room You want to dry the area or building if it's wet as soon as possible Using fans and dehumidifiers Securing the building is a job for first responders and then engineers and contracted response company crews Perhaps buildings and grounds crews and then when it's safe state the staff can go in and the emergency response crew and Now after all your preparations are in place or are actively being undertaken you can start to salvage your collections Salvage is a nautical term which means to rescue at sea in salvage the idea is to take affected collections out of the disaster environment quickly and While it's really good to work quickly. This is a time where you often see a certain level of chaos and adrenaline in the workers It's important to impose order to avoid additional damage and loss which is part of your reason for the incident action plan Collections control systems help minimize chaos Controls are overseen by the person in incident command who's responsible for security and registration So written documentation will help you find what you have maintain collections avoid theft provide records for insurance and can be used to rebuild collections documentation By the way, you could use computer tablets or your telephone, but I prefer pencil and paper which will always work Pencils don't run out of battery power I've included a copy of this form with the resources So documentation should include photographing everything in the incident environment and the collections conditions You want to label everything to maintain order including packaging boxes shelving and rooms Physically removing collections is called the packout Packout may be done by staff Volunteers and vendor staff all all of whom may have varying levels of sensitivity and understanding And this is a good time to keep in mind what I said earlier about being aware of both capabilities and personality types So in packout, you'll likely be moving single items and box items if things are stable Dolly's and carts are great if you have clear walking paths Impacking out large-scale events. It's important to have trucks available to pack out collections to another site Vendors like trucking companies and freeze-dry companies may be unavailable in large-scale disasters and having a contact with them Prior to a disaster is part of disaster planning and prevention So when you're doing pack out you need locations to both Store and work on collections These spaces can be separate or they can be in the same space On the left a rental truck was used for storage and then unframing which was a terrific intermediate step Although the lack of climate control, especially since it was raining And the expense of renting the truck, but it wasn't great for the long-term In smaller disasters indoor rooms can be used with concern to keep your distance from disaster conditions And you could use gyms classrooms and garages, which all make great work areas All spaces need ventilation light electricity or generators and security Especially if you're working outdoors security may be a significant issue And if something needs to be stored outdoors at night, you will definitely need staff to watch over that space Well, you will need a storage facility or facilities at some point during your salvage and recovery storage needs to be safe secure and accessible and Ideally climate controlled so semi containers pods and self storage units are commonly used pods now come with Cooling equipment on them, but keep in mind that you may not be able to truck pods in and Also, many potential storage sites may not be climate controlled They're poorly situated like in floodplains, which is why they're inexpensive or they may be in high crime areas Costs can also be a consideration and it's a good idea to explore if there's other local institutions or local businesses That can help out. Of course, this is done better. It's better done prior to the disaster So we're going to talk about what you take out first. How do you know what to rescue? triage is a medical term as I'm used to design degrees of urgency to the wounded What to rescue first can be a really difficult question Every collection will have a different prize item and every disaster will will result in different types and levels of damage and the requirements and urgency of response Your system of triage the what you choose to rescue first will be unique to your collection and to that specific incident This slide is an excellent example Do you choose to rescue fragile photographs which are also by the way very moldy or do you rescue a handmade wooden boat? Photographs are very sensitive to moisture and mold, but perhaps they can be duplicated electronically The handmade wooden boat is structurally much more sound, but it is also the most important item in this collection So what do you think? There's no one right answer. Sorry for the trick question So how do you know what to rescue first? This list may help you with very broad guidelines But you can see unaffected collections at the bottom of the list are on both high priority and low priority lists Unaffected collections may be on the lower priority list because they're stable and not in any immediate danger However, they may be on the high priority list because you don't want them to become contaminated or suffer from other secondary problems So in triage, I think it's really important to think both about the vulnerability of the object or collection And its value and I have the word value in quotes Value can be considered in three ways It can be the object's artistic or historic content or value It can be its financial value or replace ability And it can be what I call it sentimental value, which is its relative importance of the item within the collection Or the collecting institution's mission So in the last slide the boat happened to be more important than the photographs So when you're making these decisions a great resource of information is the heritage preservation salvage wheel One side of the wheel has critical stages of disaster response such as stabilizing the environment and assessing Damage the other side of the wheel has practical information on salvaging specific types of collections You can buy this information online Through a lot of different sources and the emergency response phone app is a free app you can get and it's excellent It's very well done. It's a little bit brief, but I highly recommend it. I have it on my telephone a priority in salvage is to avoid secondary problems For example, additional breakage may occur if you lift piece of furniture and you're unaware that glue is weakened Or papers stick together like you see at the bottom photograph And another example of secondary problems is cross contamination For example rust stains can be transferred to a white cotton dress like you see in the middle slide So mold deserves its own slide Mold is everywhere and in warm humid and stagnant conditions. It will grow It's easily broadcast through air handling systems or natural air flow and on your clothes And it will contaminate everything mold feeds on organic materials making collections a favorable host Mold is easily detected by smell and by sight And if you have a mold outbreak or anything you suspect as a mold break isolate that material Consult a conservator and in large events you might need an industrial hygienist Isolating the material means wrapping an individual item in paper preferably Not plastic until you've had a chance to talk to a conservator. You don't want to trap moisture in You can also close off entire rooms or sections of buildings if you detect mold There are tests that are supposed to measure the presence and density of mold outbreaks But frankly that doesn't really matter that measurement isn't important because once mold is present in a collection It will remain a perpetual issue The best actions are to avoid outbreaks And control future growth by providing cool and dry conditions So does anyone have any questions about documentation pack out workspace and triage? I see Laurie has asked whether I use a write-in-the-rain paper and Laurie That's a great question if I had access to it I would carry it with me But a lot of times I'm working very quickly and I'm carrying or with me materials or salvaging office materials from anywhere that I can and Elizabeth is asking if there Would be conditions in a loan agreement that may affect the priority of an item for salvage And that's a really great question I think on my list loan agreements are Excuse me loan Borrowed items are higher on the list for salvaging Okay, so I'm going to move forward in the talk And we're going to talk about sources of disaster There are many sources of disaster and of course there's many different resulting damages Since we only have a short time today I'm going to talk about salvage from fires and floods which are common the most commonly occurring problems and require immediate response If you're prone to earthquakes Biological hazards or in an area of civil unrest you can find additional resources with this talk and on the connecting to collections website But fire and especially water are common in all types of disaster And I think it's good to talk about those particular subjects As you can see there's many potential sources of fire and the Cummings Museum fire Was a cause during a re-roofing project There are many components to a fire each contributing potential damages and hazards Really use safety precautions since fires release hazardous materials PCBs Toxic chemicals and asbestos are just a very few of the health and safety issues you should be aware of Flaming fires burn faster and so result in a dry ash residue Slow fires of course burn slower Resulting in an oily soot and there's a similar oily soot deposit that results from many furnace malfunctions because furnaces furnaces are petroleum Fired so fire chemistry and recovery are fascinating and complicated topics and you can find information from the National Fire Protection Association that's NFP a the National Fire Protection Association Who has codes standards and training? so heat and flames cause physical and chemical changes and Obviously cause irreparable damages and often total loss Charring shrinking cracking and distortions are common So fire damage is compounded by firefighting With both water and fire extinguishers with water There's a very rapid increase of relative humidity and also steam and that Causes both stress and compromises the physical structure of many materials The steam and the water will open pores which absorbs so it ash and odors into the objects There's a lot of different kinds of extinguishers But to make a general statement dry chemical extinguishers discharge of fine powder that can be deposited in textured and porous surfaces and in a combination with a humid environment That powder can form a film that's very difficult to remove especially over time So it also creates significant physical and chemical problems It's acidic and abrasive and can be easily embedded into surfaces by walking on them or by handling the object Like mold it can be broadcast by air flow both natural and through mechanical systems and it can be tracked on your shoes and clothes So after a fire of course the very first thing you need to do is determine it's safe to enter Once it's safe to enter you're going to start evacuating collections and clean systematically You start by determining the least invasive walking path and that means keeping all the extra people out of a building You want as few people to walk in as possible When you choose a walking path, you're going to prepare it by rolling up rocks perhaps and laying down brown paper Or something that's safe to walk in You start cleaning the rooms each room from the ceiling down Starting with the most remote room and working towards the outside of the building as Each room is cleaned you want to seal it off and you'll seal the doorways with plastic and tape So that so it does not re-enter the space When you're cleaning up after a fire you must be careful about handling and cleaning techniques Remember you don't want to cause secondary problems It's really important to consult conservators about cleaning and by the time you're allowed into To enter a fire damaged area. You should have had time to contact a conservator Each step of cleaning requires testing to determine the safest approach for soot reduction And a conservator will be able to tell you what could be washed in a washer Dry cleaned or what could be safely vacuumed or wiped up For example a conservator will test to determine if you can clean with claws or flyer fire cleanup sponges so soot I really want to stress that soot cleanups are often very difficult and It's an example of potential secondary problems when you're cleaning because wiping the soot can drive the soot or scrub it Into a surface and disrupt original media and get the soot deeper into pour so that it can't be cleaned So there's a lot of things that conservators can help you with Cutting sponges into small pieces and blotting with an upward motion may be a preferred way of using the sponge And the sponge you see here is a vulcanized natural rubber sponge that's available at most paint and hardware stores Acknowledging that this is such a brief talk I encourage you to find a conservator and I'd also at this point like to invite my Conservator colleagues to start writing in useful tips as we move through the next part of this talk So odors a very big problem after fires and an effective and inexpensive solution is to put objects in Enclosures with odor absorbing materials This is only useful when dealing with a few objects because it's labor intensive Providing good airflow and exchange may be the only alternative for buildings You'll need to consult with professionals about your options Then I suggest working with conservators to help guide you in making choices about using various products charcoal and zeolite are excellent natural and inexpensive deodorizers Zeolite, which is a naturally occurring mineral may have a slight advantage as it won't discolor objects like charcoal can And you should avoid ozone treatments heat treatments and perfumed products, which are commonly offered by commercial companies They will deteriorate organic materials and irritate people and can also cause increased rates of deterioration So now we're going to talk about water and water damage as I said earlier Water is a common problem in most types of disaster and you can see there's a lot of sources of water damage whether it's weather or Mechanical I happen to see that a lot of you are in geographic areas that are prone to extreme weather conditions I'm going to go back a slide. I'm sorry. So Water damage can be direct from weather and plumbing and I answered one job where the disaster was water seeping from a sprinkler system and The water seeped into a basement level Storage collection storage area, but in fact the real problem turned out to be that frogs had infiltrated the room through the sump pump Anyway waters this common common secondary problem like from firefighting and pipe breaks during earthquakes as You can see water causes many types of damages as liquids will compromise most structures and alter many media Water damage can deposit contaminants and promote secondary problems like mold and rust We weren't completely sure of everything that we were walking in in the subterranean water under New York City after hurricane Sandy So water damage materials must be handled with great care and Very quickly since they usually need to be moved away from a disaster situation as soon as possible Sensitive structures like certain papers and photograph emulsions will lose their strength and integrity very quickly when they're wet Supplies are very important and I encourage everyone to be prepared in advance And if not be creative with what you have available bedsheets and towels from home and secondhand stores paper towels tape and wood palettes from grocery stores Plastic sheeting plastic bags, especially the zip lockable bags tubs boxes of all types and sheets of plastic and Acrylic and plywood from hardware suppliers are just a few ideas of good supports So as a first step you'll be moving items to a staging area away from the disaster and into areas that they can be dried There are a number of different kinds of drying options Freezing is a good thing For many items with few exceptions since freezing will stop mold growth and stop further distortions Giving you time to make decisions about next steps in salvage Paper-based materials photographs books and parchment skins should all be wrapped labeled and then they can be frozen almost indefinitely Make sure you label the outside of the packages Keep in mind that you may need a lot of freezer space consistent electricity and you cannot share Freezers used to dry materials with your food. That's a very important health consideration Freeze drying is considered one of the best options for drying many types of water damaged materials And it's especially useful when drying large quantities of wet collections materials So for those inclined towards science on a very simplified version of what freeze drying is the Wet materials are dried by a process called sublimation. The wet materials are frozen and That ice phase goes directly into a vapor phase without turning into a liquid a Vacuum is applied inside of the chamber so that the moisture is drawn out from the wet collection material and Collects on a condenser So drying time can be accomplished often in less than two weeks freeze drying is not recommended for some materials and Some photographic materials are especially sensitive You cannot use freeze drying for films glass plates daguerre types tin types and magnetic tapes When you look into freeze drying contracts freeze drying may seem like a very expensive alternative But I want to point out that in the end freeze drying because it causes less distortion and less disruption of media There will be less repairs needed after drying and so it will lessen the cost of Post-disaster conservation So air drying is probably one of the easiest and most direct responses Hopefully your conditions are well below 68 degrees Fahrenheit or 20 degrees Celsius and much lower than 55 percent humidity if You come into a situation with freestanding water You want to vacuum it up with wet dry vacuum cleaners as quickly as possible and use fans and dehumidifiers By the way fans can be used in outside workspaces If you use freestanding equipment like fans and dehumidifiers make sure you tend to them You want to empty the reservoirs in dehumidifiers and watch all the electric Horts and outlets to make sure you don't have additional secondary problems If you're working indoors It's best to extract moisture out of the building and if you're having a large disaster disaster Response companies have large equipment to evacuate humidity out of entire buildings But if you don't have access to that company you can open your windows Of course unless there's gusting rainstorms or the humidity is lower inside the building than outside If you are working outside protect your drying area from rain and high winds Air drying is low cost and easy to do but it takes a lot of room and a lot of labor There's potential for mold growth and there's a lot of potential for physical distortion and other problems and Of course there may be more cost in conservation treatment than items that are freeze dried But if this is your only option It's probably the best option and will give you time to sort through materials and make another assessment of your priorities so now's a good time to take some questions and I see somebody is asking how serious is the freeze thaw damage when using ordinary freezers and Actually if it's controlled Thawing after it really shouldn't cause much problems at all You do bring up an interesting question about freeze thaw cycles however, if you for example are in a fire where it's very cold outside and you're bringing the objects in and out of Environmental conditions that are cold and warm. So for example, if you have an object that gets wet and then frozen The freezing will expand the joints Let's say on a chair and defrosting will release that joint So you need to be very cautious of freeze thaw cycles so I'd like to talk about drawing specific materials and Acknowledging again that this is such a brief talk. I really suggest that you do some advanced research and find your local conservators There's excellent written information on the AIC website under publications and resources tab here and In a disaster you can call AIC cert in the United States If you're in other countries, you can call your local museums and by all means you should call your colleagues and create a Cooperative group hopefully in advance of a disaster So in this section, this is a terrific time for my conservation colleagues to type in tips and information sources As I talk about individual types of items So we'll start by talking about paintings Salvaging and drying paintings will vary depending on if they are oil or acrylic Or if they're on canvas wood or other supports As with most wet items you want to touch them as little as possible Handling paintings by their outer edges and drying them face up or vertically Without their surfaces touching paintings You can see on the left are drying in the courtyard of an artist studio building in New York City after Hurricane Sandy and Then on the right side of your screen That's a dot drying tent that was made from plastic and has a dehumidifier inside And that's at the cultural recovery center in Brooklyn That was started by AIC cert So while they're drying paintings to be carefully misted with diluted alcohol which controls drying and limits mold growth But please do not use Lysol bleach Vodka or other commercial products that may deposit harmful residues all of which we saw being used after Hurricane Sandy so you may want to release fabric from the stretcher corners to promote drying or You may not want to do that because it's important to maintain tension on both the fabric and paint Paintings on wood may need clamping and constraints to keep them from warping or cracking and acrylic painting should not be allowed to freeze Composite paintings like collages may need special attention I hope you can see all the variables that need to be considered and a conservator will help you control those damages protect the Painting and avoid additional expense for repairs So it's impossible to make generalizations about salvaging three-dimensional objects There's too many types of objects and too many conditioned variables Think of the different properties of something like a soft leather moccasin compared to a metal sculpture You can imagine they react very differently to being wet especially When items are composite like metal buttons on historic costumes Contemporary collage constructions that those can create especially difficult conditions Ethnobrex excuse me ethnographic materials can be problematic since they're often made from multiple sensitive components like feathers and leather and mud and Also of great concern are natural history collections that may emit arsenic lead and other poisons when wet So washing mud off of many objects is easier before drying But some metals and smooth surfaces can tolerate dried mud dried mud may have to be scraped off which can be damaging to some surfaces and If you're rinsing things like books you want to make sure that they're rinse With the books closed so that you don't drive mud and other contaminants into the interior of the book and another tip is Small bits of broken pottery for example can be collected into ziplock Lock lock. Excuse me zip lock of bull bags There's a lot of types of non-print and electronic media and with these materials It's best to call professional vendors as soon as possible They these specialists can address specific collection materials and their issues But let me remind you do not return turn on your equipment Drying small electronics and rice can work although it may take some time If you're on site you want to rinse media when possible to avoid depositing contaminants and prepare for drying or sending to vendors for processing It's really important to keep identification information like labels and boxes with the media because of course they fall off Or fall apart when wet, but you could use strings rubber bands or put the label inside of the zip lockable bag with the Media Well, and again, there's a lot of types of photo processes Many photographic types will not survive immersions Although film-based materials like negatives can be more stable than photographs. These can be rinsed and air-dried Photographs should be handled as little as possible and nothing should touch the surface including fingers Photos can be dried face up or hanging So to name just a few of the more sensitive photographic types would be amber types tin types lantern slides deteriorated nitrate and safety films deteriorated or unhardened gelatin prints and most colored materials more stable in water With caution is daguerreotypes salted paper prints albumen prints platinum prints and cyanotype, which is blue prints So books are a type of sub collection that can be triaged Books that are rare unique or financially valuable should be salvaged first Contemporary commercial and easily easily replaceable books can be salvaged later Books are best frozen or freeze-dried And if air drying is the best or only option they can be dried fanned open hung on a clothesline if they're structurally stable and watch out for dissolved glues or they could be closed Dried clothes with blotters or other absorbent interleaving as long as you change the interleaving often And that can be blotters or paper towels or sheets of fabric With this technique drying the book closed you may also be able to add weight to minimize distortion But you have to watch these items carefully because mold will want to grow inside the book if it remains damp So paper and textiles are considered very sensitive and vulnerable since their structures like photographs are easily weakened and stained by water contaminants high humidity mud and mold An interesting point can be made with Print collections because like books if multiples exist in the collection It may be possible that you can salvage only one or you may have to choose to only salvage one out of a collection If they're the same image or you may choose to sacrifice multiples of an item if it can be replaced by purchasing another copy Air dry paper face up Preferably without touching one another and do not blot without talking to a conservator since this might disrupt the media As they dry some flat paper objects can be pressed between blotter in order to keep them flat But be very careful that you don't have surfaces that will stick for example You don't want to press photographs with emulsion as the emulsion will stick to the interleaving paper Three-dimensional textiles should be padded and the padding changed often So after salvage what happens the disaster is over and now you have to recover Recovery should be seen as making progressive steps towards improvement and resolution This is a time when many organizations and individuals feel that they've not done enough It's a time when you have to come to terms with the aftermath of the disaster Decisions must be made about repairing rebuilding deaccessioning and replacing your collections recovery is a long-term process and The collections needs must be assessed and reassessed through the whole process of salvage But especially as recovery the next phase which is recovery begins you have to determine the best course of action and Hopefully still run your organization while also finding additional resources To recover from a disaster you'll need increased staff or contracted staff Workspace and funding on top of your regular operating costs We won't have time to talk about funding today, but there's excellent funding resources listed on many of our professional websites So professional conservators can assist you you can find highly skilled conservators in the United States You can look on the AIC website. There's a tab at the top of your Screen of find a conservator and the AIC has many international organizations listed And there's also many international. I'm sorry many international organizations are listed on the AIC website and People who have training and expertise in disaster preparation prevention and recovery so today is May Day and this is when the Society of American Archivists Created this day in 2006 and following year heritage preservation heritage emergency National Task Force and SAA expanded the concept to include all kinds of collecting institutions and historic preservation activities The Foundation of AIC has announced that heritage preservation programs will now be transitioned to AIC and All activities related to disaster preparedness and response will now be part of the FAIC mission Activities hosted by FAIC for May Day are sponsored by the Polygon Group So I truly hope that you don't need us But here's the contact information for AIC cert and for myself and That's the end of my slide presentation and I see so many good questions coming up now is a great time to answer some questions Okay, I'm going to step in here and I'm going to ask your quest Bring up all these questions because there are a lot of them so they get covered so I'm Helen Balinski in Wilmington, Delaware asked what do you think of the ERS apps? and Which you recommended actually I did yes, and you can find those free on your app store Yeah, okay, and Do you have any samples of of a contract with a disaster response company and how would you choose one? I think that you probably are best to contact your local response companies I happen to see that we have somebody on from Belford in our audience who might like to answer that question Of course, there's standard contracts that can be customized to meet your needs And a lot of it will be based on the size of your collection and your needs And relative risks based on your geography. I Really suggest in all areas of preparation prevention and writing contracts and creating relationships that you work with your other local institutions in Major cities there are groups called the Alliance for Response Those are groups that will also Help an event of an emergency and many of those people have contractual agreements. They'd be happy to share with you And Susan when do you say to a company that might come in? I don't think that's the right thing to do I Remember working with this small museum that got in an emergency response people who said oh, yeah We'll use hydrogen peroxide and I had to step in and say absolutely not Well, I think it's one of the benefits of having a I see cert available on the phone 24 hours a day I think it's always better to question Procedures if it's a non-conservative person as guardians and custodians of your collection. I prefer that you question Solutions that seem invasive I think that the fact that you all are participating in the class means that you're very interested in this and I Think applying common sense is probably the best answer And we had a question earlier about if it was helpful to have your insurance company involved in making your on Your emergency plan That's a really interesting question, and I think it's a whole separate webinar to talk about insurance companies Excuse me, we're gonna have a webinar on insurance in October. That's terrific Um, I will answer a slightly different question. I hope is useful. Um, most organizations I work with are underfunded Excuse me underinsured and they often don't have itemized lists that Indicate the value of their more precious items And so it's important that you have somewhat current appraisals and appraisals should be done by outside appraisal experts Who are unbiased and not associated with a commercial venture like a gallery or an auction house? those Values are based on Replaceability of an object should it be lost and then those can go on a schedule with your insurance company So more than anything else I suggest that you review your insurance policy and at least understand what you do have and decide if it's a priority to raise your coverage um There is a question about are you answered that one about freezers There were several questions about what are the most useful supplies in a response kit and But the question is what do people most often miss I? Personally can't stress personal protective equipment enough you not only need One of everything you should carry multiples of everything if you're using N95 or N100 masks for your face Which is somewhat less preferable than a respirator But if you're using those you'll need to change them several times a day and you go through boxes of gloves in big disaster, so that's really important and secondly, I would say Inventory control issues like paper pencil and computer tablets if you have them and supplies to carry Wrap and transport materials are most important And let me see here Um Can I interrupt I see that Melanie answered from Belfort about the contracts and she says she assumes that most other Restoration companies have similar deal Where they have a priority response contract, and so that's great. You might want to start exploring what your options are Yeah, now there were several questions about Um That they're vendors who deal with electronic media after just a disaster. Do you have any experience with them? You know, I personally don't have experience with them And I do know that there's terrific information on the Society of America the archivist website Yes And one person asked how does freeze drying relate to clothing collections? Oh, I think a lot of textiles can be freeze-dried and they also can be frozen Hmm and what about Um Zurbix which is something that Becky Fiffield recommended. I hope I didn't Mispronounce your name back Issue says Zurbix reusable drying material may also be an option Some other people asked about kitty litter Great. Well, so I of course that's a great material a lot of times In a disaster, you're not going to have access to high-quality materials and that could be considered expensive Keep in mind a lot of this has to do with the size of your disaster You may be lucky and have a conservation lab in your museum And they will have a box or two of blotter, but in large-scale disasters You'll have to use whatever materials you have at hand. So Zurbix is terrific, but I find using Felt fabric felt sheets cotton sheets are really great having rolls of plastic are inexpensive and condensed So you can when you unroll the commercial Rolls of plastic they expand very large. I am I'll be honest and tell you in Hurricane Sandy We did a lot of dumpster diving and for you those of you who don't know what that means We would climb into Trash receptacles looking for lumber and boxes that we could use because we were working in such a hurry Yeah, the other question to answer. I'm sorry. I see a lot of questions about odor absorbing and cat litter and Like that and so Cat litter is an interesting Type of material because there's so many different kinds and you have to look at the packaging clay cat litters can be very powdery and Difficult to work with and with moisture can form a film on the objects Some cat litters of course have perfumes that you want to avoid Some are crystalline which can be very good for absorbing moisture, but are somewhat abrasive and Some contain zeolite which can be very advantageous So charcoal and zeolite are actually pretty easy to find you can often buy activated charcoal in very small quantities in drugstores in larger quantities in hardware stores and Zeolite is a product. That's becoming more common. It's something that I prefer Because it acts as a molecular trap and it will absorb not only the odor But some of the harmful gaseous components of a fire Another way I wanted to say about odor. I'm sorry for interrupting Another thing I want to say about odor is that you can sometimes Feel like you're you've solved the problem and the odor smell will come back in high humidity conditions Yes Um, and there's a question if we have basement storage, would you recommend storing objects a certain fight off the floor? Would this be Well, you know conservators recommend everything is stored in areas that are not basements or addicts But a lot of times that's not an option when I Started they told everyone to have objects four inches off the floor then after some of my earlier Disasters it was six inches and then after working in Louisiana We say somewhere between 10 and 12 inches is not unheard of Another option is to store materials that are more stable at lower levels if you're in a flood-prone area And you can put stable and inorganic materials on lower shelves. That is very useful yes, um, I know that I One of the small museums I worked with had Met with their fire department and they went through the entire museum was the house museum and they explained to the Fireman what was valuable to them? Not necessarily monetarily valuable and they did have a fire and when the director got there She found that the fireman had removed all this furniture That was made by a man in town that was priceless to them and had Arranged it on the lawn away from the fire hoses So that's a really valuable thing to have the fireman and the police come in and Know where things are in your collection that need to be saved. I Love that idea Susan and I can't recommend that enough for part of your prevention another easy suggestion is to take Reflectors like you could buy at bicycle stores They come in different colors and you can attach them to shelving units or doors that have more important things in them So they're easy to find in the dark mm-hmm Yeah, there are a lot of questions about or a lot of suggestions to form an alliance Before an emergency happens so people can work together Let's see and I I know that there have been a lot of A different alliance groups formed in different region of regions There There are in one place that you can look in your area in the United States is our groups called the alliance for response in internationally Those groups are starting to form And I think that some of it is just being aware of the individual that is Driving the response actions in their country Yes, right And you know oftentimes it really is Really important to think about what is valuable to you in case there's a disaster if you haven't thought about it Think about it now and Think about how you get it out It's it's some You know a lot of times people don't think about these things until they've had a disaster And that's unfortunate. I think it's important to know what your most valuable object is When I was responding to Hurricane Katrina one museum director had salvaged her most important paintings and her computer hard drives her paintings were driven, I think by her husband to Texas from Biloxi and the computer hard drives were taken home by Individual staff members and that turned out to be the key to collections management and eventually to replacing her collections Yeah There was a small museum here in New Mexico that had a big flood and the director didn't know what to do and so she Gave the collection to people in the town You know, they just came to the door and she'd say please take this and and Then she called me and So we we wrote an ad for the paper a couple of weeks later and asked people to return the collection And they did they got back all but one thing But that was you know, they had no plan they had no and That solved their problem, but that's not something you want to do on a regular basis I see there are a lot of people putting in suggestions for Alliance for response and other emergency alliance groups And Let me just check and see if there are any other questions. I don't see any other questions. Do you have any? From from your work with Hurricane Sandy and after Katrina Are there any things that you think people should? Keep in mind as they prepare well, I think It's of course the most important thing is preparation and prevention I Think I'd like to really stress safety and security and Make sure that if you can have Equipment available or be prepared to find that equipment I actually have been reading the questions and comments on the side and I see Wendy Jessup Mentioned of course using wax paper and you can find such simple solutions if you think about it in advance So for supplies having a closet is really great But you also need to know other Locations you can go to get those supplies and the other thing I like to stress is a sense of cooperative Community you need to know who your colleagues are in your area If you don't have any colleagues because you're isolated you need to know who's available to help you with a sensitive recovery So sister Institutions are really great, but hopefully they'll also be Institutions or organizations that are slightly outside of your disaster area in event of a large disaster And just like Susan said, it's I think it's a reality that sometimes objects have to be taken home with people in really small organizations and managing Collections control is is very important and finally in the end I think as I said, it's really important to be kind to yourself and to your colleagues Disaster recovery is exhausting and it is a really long-term process and Requires a lot of work to assess your situation and to maintain your energy and not feel defeated in the immediate action of salvage and feel really good about the success you've had at the end of your recovery process Yes, and so I think we're pretty much done with questions and if you don't have any other words so of Wisdom here, I think we're gonna end but thank you everyone. We'll post this on This oh Wendy Jessup has a very good thing that if you have an emergency Closet, it should have some breakable seal on it but also you want to make sure that the emergency closet doesn't become a Place to Find extra stuff when you need it so that when you have an emergency There's nothing in the emergency supply Closet and I want to ask everyone if you can take a few minutes and fill out the The evaluation that would be very helpful to me and to us as we move forward and I'll get this Recording posted in the next few days and so thank you very much and thank you to everyone that put in tips and Thank you Susan Thank you everyone for joining into the webinar. Happy May Day. Yes Okay