 We're going to turn this over to Deb. So welcome Deb. This is Deb Van Horn. Unmute yourself. I'll unmute you. Okay. Can everybody hear me? Hi. I'm Deb Van Horn. I'm the registrar at the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfurt, Kentucky. And I am currently the chair of the Southeastern Registrar's Association. Part of the reason I'm here today is that I'm also the editor on a book called Basic Condition Reporting that the Southeastern Registrar's Association put out last year. Basically, my background with condition reporting started early on in my career. I have worked in a historic house museum, in natural history museums, in a general museum, and now in a history museum. So I have actually done a lot of condition reporting on a lot of different types of collections. So hopefully today I'll be able to answer any questions you have. But we're going to start off today with going through what a condition report is and why we do it, and then we're going to get more into the how to do a condition report. Now again, this is just going to be the basics of condition reporting. There's a lot of material out there, and we are going to go through some of those resources later on. So let's get started. So first of all, what we're going to talk about is what a condition report is. So it is going to be something that tells you what the condition is on a specific day and time. And it is something that is going to examine a specific piece and look at that piece for stability, for inherent vice to see if there's something in your environment that is causing a problem for that piece. Sometimes our environmental conditions in our storage areas creates micro-environments, and that can actually cause problems that you may not see every day when you're opening up that cabinet, but when you look at condition reports over time, you may see what's going on with that piece. So we're going to go ahead and do a little quiz here. So what we're going to do is take a little quiz on what do condition reports do. Why should we do them? So if everybody would go ahead and vote, the choices are in that poll, and then you can also see them on the slide over here. So we'll take a look and see what everybody's got to say. So it looks like everybody got this one, or most people did. The condition report really does a lot of things. It can help you with insurance values, which a lot of people don't think about, because a lot of times your insurance company wants to know what basically the problems were before whatever incident you had. It can help you out with things like loans. So it can tell you if there is something going on where, say, something happened to your piece in transit. So you can take a look at things like that. It really can tell you if something's stable enough to go out on exhibit. A lot of times you'll see places have just something with a condition of good or fair. That may not tell you as much as something else later on where you have a little more detail. So what we're going to go into today is how to create those reports that give you that detail that you may need for some of these things. So we're going to go ahead and do another little quiz here about why should we do a condition report. Or when should we do it rather? So let's see what everybody's saying. Again, everybody's voting from pretty much all of the above, which is really what it is. When you have an item and you touch it, if you're doing an inventory, if you're first cataloging it when it first comes into your museum, if it's going out on loan, if it's coming back, if you're pulling it for a researcher, it doesn't matter. Basically any time you touch that item, you should probably be doing a condition report. So again, this is just going to reiterate things going out on loan, things coming back, things going for exhibit. The most important though I think is probably that first time when you're cataloging, going through and getting a good baseline condition report so that people in the future know what condition it came in at. When you're pulling it again, like I said, for researchers, another one is before a piece is sent to the conservator. The conservator will normally do their own condition report when it gets there. A lot of times they will provide that to you, but it also helps to know what you were seeing before it goes out so that you can have an informed conversation with the conservator. Doing inventory. Now, are all of these condition reports done the same way? No, not necessarily. For example, if you're doing something for an inventory and you're doing it very quickly, you may just hit the highlights of what the main problems are for damage versus if you're doing something going out for loan and you want to make sure you know what its condition was going out and coming back in, you may do a more detailed report. So really the basic is, is the best practice is if you touch it, just go ahead and check it. So that doesn't matter if you're just pulling it out for an education program, if you're pulling it out for a loan, if you're pulling it out for any, any different thing that you could do. Just if you touch it, go ahead and check it. Now that check, again, it can just be checking it against that baseline report to see if there's any changes. Or it could be you doing a full condition report where you're taking photos and you're doing a lot of notes on what you're seeing. So what we're going to get into now is we're going to get into the how to do a condition report. Now everybody has their own methods, but there are some basics that we all need to know. One of the things is materials that you may need to get started. So here I've just got a few examples. Like for example, a support board that can go under the object to help you move it. We have over here some measuring tools that can be a measuring tape, it can be a ruler, anything that can help you, number one, measure the size of the area of damage. So for example, if you have a tear, you want to know how long that is, because in the future that may get worse. Or you may just be wanting to demonstrate where it is on the item. So weights and padding materials are really helpful because number one, the padding materials can be supports. But number two, if you have something like a work of art on paper that maybe is curling up or has been rolled for years, you may need those weights to hold it down. So now camera is one of the things I find to be one of the most important things. Now it doesn't have to be a digital camera like this point and shoot I've got on the slide. It also doesn't have to be, you know, a fancy DSLR camera. Really the camera can be anything that's going to help you record that. It can be something as simple as the camera on your cell phone. Almost everybody has that right now. So it's something that's an easy tool. Other things are just gloves. For all things with basic handling, you know, use your right materials, whether it's gloves. Here I've got both nitrile and cotton shown. I know most people prefer nitrile but there are people that still do prefer the cotton gloves out there. So that's why I included them. We have brushes and probes here. Brushes and probes can be helpful because especially if you're looking at something where there's a little bit of dirt, is it something that it's accreted to the surface? Is it something that can be brushed away easily? Is it something where you're trying to determine you can use a probe to quickly look and see what's going on there? Also, magnification tools. Right here I've got a jeweler's loop and a magnifying glass, but this can also be you using that camera to focus in and see what's going on. Sometimes having that extra bit of magnification can help. Now these are not the only tools. Things like magnets, things like flashlights, UV lights, all sorts of things can be used. Different types of light can help you see different things that you might not be seeing with your naked eye. There's a great list of these items in museum registration methods. You really can go ahead and start there or in basic condition reporting, or there's a few websites that have lists of these items too. Go ahead and get some of these basic items together in the toolkit that you can use. Really, for getting started, the first thing I usually recommend is that you either go to your database. You'll see several of you are saying you used PassPerfect, but almost every collections management software has a condition reporting module now. So if you have a condition report that is in the computer already, you can go ahead and take a look at that. If not, go back to your files, see if there's a hard copy of a paper form. Sometimes those paper forms haven't been entered into the computer, so going back to your file to check anyway may help you out. The other thing is to have something, whether you're using a database or whether you're using a form to do the condition report, what you're going to want to do is fill out certain fields of basic information, such as who is doing the report, when the report was done, your object ID number. I really always start with that object ID number because if that sheet gets separated from the file for some reason, you can always re-associate it. The date of the report can help you do things like go and see when the last report was done and what the change in time has been. So those are a couple things to really just help you get started. So now we're going to talk about examining the piece. There's a lot of different ways of doing this. As you can see down there at the bottom, I have shown a grid system. This grid system is really good if you're dealing with things like paintings, quilts, works of art on paper. It's not as helpful though if you're dealing with large three-dimensional pieces such as a sculpture or a car, but there are ways of dealing with those as well. So what we're going to take a look at first is using this grid system. So here we are, we've got a painting here that what I've done is I've just gone ahead and taken a photo of it and then in my computer I've laid the grid over it. So that's an easy way of doing this. If you don't want to be going back and forth to your computer or you don't have a tablet that you can do this with at the site, what you can also do is take little things like take markers and put it out to the side of the piece. Sometimes what I've used in the past is used colored paper clips off to the side of the piece to kind of show me where those grid lines would be. And then you go back in and you can use that grid to describe where the damage is. So in this case as you can see there is an area where the paper is torn and there's a loss of paper on that section. So when you put the grid over and here I'm overlaying the sections of the grid now, those sections can help you describe where it is. Now the abbreviations here on the top mean top left, top center, top right, center, center left, center, center right. And then at the bottom it's bottom left, bottom center, bottom right. Now those areas can help you describe to somebody where the damage is. That doesn't mean that you should just ignore measuring up to the pieces or taking measurements of what size the damage is because those things will also help somebody in the future determine if the damage has gotten worse. It'll also help them determine if they're looking at the same tear that you're looking at. Now when you get to a three-dimensional piece, say like this headdress, a lot of times it's easier to designate a starting point. Now you can do that again on a picture or that can be done by actually starting with a description of where you're doing this. This can be a paragraph, it can be a sentence. You can be looking at something like a sculpture and describe which side is the front. That way somebody who's following you knows where you're measuring from or knows exactly what you're seeing because if they're looking at the piece from the opposite side and you're saying it's five inches up and on the right side, well they may be looking on what you're viewing as the right side. It may be their left side if they're looking at the piece from the other side. So just some hints with designating the starting point. If you can use terms that are already in people's nomenclature, like a lot of times people will say things like proper left for the left side of an outfit when they're wearing it. So if you can use that proper left or proper right, or if you can say things like it's on the viewer's left or the viewer's right, just to indicate to the people what you're talking about and make it very clear to those who are following you, it'll help make your condition report a little bit clearer. Another thing you can do is use common terms. Like if you're using something like a car, most people know the driver's side versus the passenger's side. So if there's a common term like that, go ahead and use that as your description, and use that as where your starting point is. Say I'm starting with the driver's side door when you're starting with that and then people will know what you're talking about. So the whole point of this is making sure that somebody that's following you can actually find out where you started, so that they're looking at that same starting point again and going and looking and finding the same things you were seeing. So we're going to play a little game now, and this is going to be done through some quizzes and polls like we were doing before. So we're calling this name that condition. What we're going to do is we're going to look at a series of photos of some items with condition issues, and what we're going to do is decide if it's excellent, good, fair, or poor. So for the purposes of this exercise, what we're going to do is say that excellent is going to be something that's like new or new in the package, something where you're not seeing any visible damage. For this, we're going to say good is something with minor damage, but you can go ahead and put it out on exhibit. It can be displayed. It can be loaned. Fair is going to have minor to moderate damage, but there are some issues. It may prevent it from being displayed, but it may not. And then poor, we're going to look at it as something that's unstable. It needs to be considered for conservation or deaccession. So let's go ahead and get started with this, and I'd like to see what you guys have to say on some of these pictures. So our first one is this spinning wheel. So let's go ahead and see what the votes are. Okay, so we've got about 60% of you are saying that it's in good condition, but we've got 15% saying excellent and 20% saying fair. Only a few people are saying poor. So that's about what I would say to you is it's either in good or fair. I'd probably lean towards fair on this, but I've seen a closer image of this piece. So I know some of the issues going on that you guys probably can't see from the image. So we're going to go to our next one. Our next one is a toiletry set. Now, can we get the next poll? So here we go. So yeah, this one was a fairly easy one. Most of you have that it's poor. We're seeing about 70% of you are saying it's poor, whereas about 30% are saying it's in fair condition. I'm going to be honest, this one I would go with poor as well. This was a piece made out of celluloid that the celluloid actually was disintegrating and damaging other pieces in there. So it actually was causing some issues. So let's take a look at our next one. So can we get the poll for that? So what about this doll? So yeah, most of you are saying good, but there's a fair amount that are saying either excellent or fair. So as you can see, there's differences in what everybody is saying. We've got a couple more of these to look at. So our next one, what about this dress? Let's see if we can get the poll up for this one. All right, so again, most of you are saying good, but we've got a good selection of people that are saying it's fair condition. And we have a few saying either poor or excellent too. I think we've got one or two more of these. What about this jacket? Let's get the next slide up for this. So right away, you guys are jumping right to poor. I actually, when I first looked at this piece, I agreed with you. Surprisingly, that cleaned up fairly quickly. This was actually caused by a microclimate and where it was being stored. So it is definitely fixable. I'm seeing somebody say that's a comment in a comment over there. It is fixable, but it does look poor when you first see it. So this is our last one. Let's get that last quiz up here. So we've got a number of people saying fair. About 50% of you are saying fair on this one. About 30% saying poor and about 13% saying good. Now, this is a piece came out of an archaeological site. So it's got some issues that were caused by being in the ground. It's fairly stable though, but it does have some breaks and some areas of loss. So I wouldn't say fair as well. Now, the reason that I'm actually putting these pictures up here is to go just and show how subjective the terms are. So as you can see, there were some of these pieces that some of you said it was excellent. Some of you said it was good. Some of you on some of the pieces said it was poor while others said it was good or fair. This is why the description is actually the most important part of your condition report. For example, I was working with one of my curators at one point. He is far more knowledgeable about firearms than I am. We both looked at the same rifle. I said it was in good condition and he said it was in poor condition. Sometimes your knowledge of the materials can cause you to grade it higher or lower on those good, fair, poor ratings. And this is why those terms really aren't very helpful. So basically the description is what we're going to look at. So one of the things I want to go in there and talk to you about is ways to note this on a condition report form or in your database. For those of you who are using databases, even if you can't mark it up in the database, you can mark up the image and then upload it to your database. So these tips and tricks will work either way. So using things like a symbol, like an arrow to point something out. So this is that same spinning wheel. The arrow is now pointing to where there's actually some Scotch tape on there. But you can also go ahead and use numbers or letters to actually point out where the damage is on the piece. And then that will actually help somebody else out. When they're looking for it, they can match the damage that you're talking about in your description right up to what they're seeing on the piece. Another thing is a lot of people will sit there and write their condition reports in a paragraph and have a narrative. What I found over the years, particularly for things that are going out on loan, that you need to get your points across to the other party very quickly. It's sometimes easier just to bullet point it. You can actually put, in that case, the area that the damage is in. So if you're using that grid system, for example, you can take the upper left and then bullet point underneath it, the damage that you're seeing. You can use those bullet points to number it and then number it and match it up to the photos or drawings. The other thing you can do is take close-ups of the damage. So there, in this picture, you're seeing that same damage where I had the tape that was on that spinning wheel. This will help somebody know what I'm talking about. They can see the overall, but then they can see that close-up and they're seeing what you see. In cases of things like mold or rust or some other types of damage like spalling, that can actually show people if it's gotten worse. So describing what's happening to a piece, if you don't know the term, photograph it or draw it. For example, here, I'm just showing you on the photo where you can draw and use those numbers again. But if you're not sure what it is, use that number, point out where it is on the piece, and then go ahead and do a description of it. If you say it's a green stain that I don't know what it's from, well, somebody that's coming after you may know what caused that green stain. But the fact that you described it, described maybe the size of it, the color, things like that will make it easier for them to see. Another thing is, again, using those common terms, just like I was saying with the driver side, passenger side, if there's a common term that you know for a piece, like say on the rifle, if you're talking about the stock versus the barrel, things like that, that somebody can go back, they can look up fairly easily, those common terms will help out. Another thing is using landmarks. When I'm talking about landmarks, I'm going to show you with this piece. These letters on this piece can actually be used as a landmark to describe where the damage is. So you can actually say that there is a chip out of the piece next to the letter B, or to the right of the letter B. It's right under the number nine. Things like that will actually help somebody out. So this is just an example of a condition report form. This is just a general one that has been used here for years if you're doing a condition report in the gallery. A lot of times now we actually do this on a tablet or take a camera with us, but having these forms that again show your object ID number, show what the object is, where it's located, who did the report, those things will help out in the future so they know if it's being done while it's on exhibit, or they know that the report was done in storage and they'll tell you what you're seeing. So what we're going to go into now is a description of some of the common damage types, and I'm going to show you some photos of what those types are. The ones that I'm calling common damage types are things that you'll see on different types of materials. It doesn't necessarily matter if you're looking at a piece of ceramic or if you're looking at a piece of metal. The term is the same because the type of damage is the same. So things like a loss is just generally where something's missing. So as you can see here you've got a loss on basketry, but you also have one on photograph and on furniture. So it's just a section where something is missing. Scratches, again, that's just from one thing being dragged across the surface of another. You can find scratches on most types of material. So using a term like scratch is going to be something that's very descriptive to people. Tear, a lot of times where we're going to see this is in paper or fabric. Again, it's just what you normally think of as a tear. It's just where it's been ripped. Creasing, you're going to see creasing in paper and fabrics. It's just going to be a heavy line that's left from where it's folded. Accretions, sometimes people will call this accretions. Sometimes you'll say that there's a splatter of paint on something, but accretion can be anything that is accumulated on the surface of another piece. It can be something like paint, but it can also be something like dirt that's stuck on the surface, or for those of you who deal with exhibits a lot, if something's been on exhibit for years and you've got museum wax that doesn't want to come off easily, things like that can be described as an accretion. Now pest damage, this is the one that we all hope we don't find in our collections, but inevitably you will find something at some point. So in this case, what you're looking at are holes that are in the pieces where, in this case I believe it's for both of them mice have actually gotten into the collection and chewed a hole into something. But pest damage can also be things like powdering that you're seeing from powder post beetles. It can be different things like these holes. There's a lot of different things that you're going to see. And then we do have types of damage that can be more specific to material types. Now these a lot of times people may not know what you're seeing. So if you don't know a term for it, describe it. There are some great visual dictionaries. I've got one in the resource handout where you can go online and look for what your damage type is and then actually go and put that in. But if you don't know where to find that, just go ahead and describe it. But here are some examples that are more specific. So with things like basketry you do get a distortion sometimes for the pieces gotten shaped. Sometimes this is from storage. Sometimes this can actually be caused by humidity where things have been contracting at different rates. Basketry you also have modifications and repairs and use wear that you'll see a lot of times. A lot of times that is done historically. It's not something that's a new repair. But you do want to record it in your condition reports so somebody else knows that that's not something new. This is one with glass that we see a lot. It's called iridescence. This is where actually your glass will take on this rainbow hue. It's actually decomposition of the surface. So it's an interesting effect to see but it is actually some damage on the piece. Red rot is one that you see a lot of times with leather. Red rot, I mean you will know it with the powdering on the leather. It does turn kind of a red brown color. But this is a term that if you're dealing with leather a lot you do want to learn. So wood. On the right there you've got a bloom. Almost everybody has seen these at one point or another. The bloom is caused by water getting into the surface of the wood. So think about it as when you leave that coffee cup or that glass on the table and it gets a ring on it. That's what you're looking at with a bloom. But if you don't know that term, if you can't remember it, telling them that it is a ring on the wood that is caused by water getting on the wood surface, that helps somebody. Lifting is a term also. You'll see this a lot with veneered surfaces where the veneers lifted away from the body of the piece. So sometimes these terms you will find in your collections management databases. Sometimes they're not there though and so it's helpful to have that vocabulary just to actually be able to explain what's going on. So metals of course we've got things like rusting and denting that you'll see. You also see tarnish depending on the type of metal. This example, these two are exactly the same age. These two julep cups, they're also from the same collection. One has been out on exhibit more recently and has been cleaned. You'll see the tarnish on the one on the right where the one on the left doesn't have it. Paintings, you'll see a lot of times crackling. It's also known as cracklature and things like that in the paint. It's good to note but using a term like crackling, people are going to notice those fine cracks that are going through the surface. You also may however see blisters and this is where paint has actually come off of the canvas and so you can actually see it being lifted off. This would be important to note in your condition report because this can actually become where the paint actually comes off the painting later. Paper, honestly the one that is seen most often with paper that you don't see with other materials is foxing which is the brown spotting on the book on the right side. It can be caused by iron particles that's actually in the paper from the process of making the paper. So there's not much you can do to prevent that but it can also be caused by things like mold and with things like mold that may be preventable by changing the climate which it's stored in. So this one we're not going to do really as a quiz but what I want you to do is actually take a look at this book. So there is an acid burn from the paper. It's a acidic paper causing that discoloration. It's actually off-gassing and burning into the piece. But there's some other things going on with this piece too. For example, you do have tear and accretion. So right here the paper is actually adhered to that picture in the middle of the book and so when somebody tried to open it up they tore the paper left behind the remnants on the picture. So that's why always be careful when you're handling those things. That was actually a fairly new piece of damage that was caused by the donor right before they brought it in. So other things we're seeing again the tears, staining, accretions. There's other things going on with this as well. This book was really falling apart. Photographs can get brittle over time and they can actually lose areas of the photograph both of the emulsion and of the paper. So keeping an eye on the photos and seeing just what type of condition they're in can be important. So plastics. The one on the left here is a great example of why you need to be careful when you're numbering pieces in your collection. Certain types of plastic will actually react with the Acryloid B72 or some of the other labeling solutions that we use. In this case it caused blistering on the piece. So number one you can't really read the number on that piece anymore because of that. But number two the solution is actually damaging the piece. So in this case there may have been other ways that you could have numbered that like putting a tag on it. But sometimes you don't know exactly how the plastic is going to react so the best thing to do is to actually do a spot test. Now spalling which is the example on the right, that is actually something that is inherent to some of the plastics over time. They harden, deteriorate and little pieces will actually come off. So textiles. Most people who have worked with textiles are probably familiar with the term shattering. But if you're not you can actually go ahead and learn about this. It's chemically treated silks over time will actually deteriorate and they tear as they're deteriorating. It gives this look if you see it that does look like it's been shattered. So that's what they're usually referring to when you hear shattering referred to with textiles. So again this isn't going to come up as a quiz but I want you to take a look at this piece and just see some things that you might be looking at. That may be obvious here but other times you're going to have to take a closer look. With this piece the things that I saw right away were this water staining down at the bottom. So it's also known as a tide line. You'll see that a lot when something has come into contact with water. We also have acid burn from where this had been framed before and the matte board was actually acidic. So that's what that discoloration that's almost in a straight line is from. Tears and areas of loss and then other staining that we're seeing as well. So I've seen a couple of you bringing up condition reporting. I know I mentioned tablets. There are a couple condition reporting apps that are on the market right now. Depending on what type of tablet you have may depend on what type you want. Also depending on what your budget is. These apps they can be great help. They have the vocabulary right in there. They can take the picture, put it into a really pretty report for you. But sometimes they can also be costly. So it's something that when you get into the digital condition reporting if you're looking at using those apps take a look at the different packages that they offer because sometimes they'll give you a rate for a year. Sometimes they'll give you a rate where you can buy a set and then you can get more later on. If it's something where you work with other places you may be able to actually work together, buy a package together and have a sign in that you can use. You don't need a condition reporting app though to create a digital condition report. You can mark up that photo. There are a lot of apps that you can buy for tablets whether it's an iPad or whether it's a PC based. Basically what you can do is use those apps. Even just use a paint program in there to mark up a photo that you've taken. If you go through you can do that. You can save it in a PDF editor and you can save it and put it into your database just like you would upload a photo. Some of the databases it's easier to upload your condition report into than others. I know the one I use, I use PassPerfect. You can't upload it as a PDF. You could upload it as a JPEG of the report though. This is what I'm talking about when I'm talking about marking up your photo. You can either do it where you're using circles or arrows, things like that. Or you can take a photo like this and actually mark it up with numbers that correspond with your report. If you're doing the digital condition reporting there's ways to do it. There's ways to do it inexpensively. You're just going to have to take some time and look into those different options and see what works best with your database. I'm going to give you a couple samples of different types of reports now. Just what I'm thinking is important on those different reports. What makes them different from each other. What we're going to look at are ones for loan, inventory, damage, and cataloging. I was looking for an example of a conservation report. The ones that I had for my conservator were fairly long and didn't fit onto the slide very well. Work with a conservator and ask them they'll be happy to share an example of that. For the loan, the important thing to remember is that it should be done by the lender before it goes out and a borrower should do one when they get it. You should also do one when it comes back. You want to make sure that you're seeing the damage that is there so that you know if something happens in transit. Things happen even if you're using an art ship or pieces can get dropped. Something shifts in the truck and damage can happen. We all like to think it won't happen but it does. Having those reports done before it goes out and after it comes back can actually give you an idea and then it really can help you go and make a claim if you need to for insurance. In this case, it's a loan report. One of the things I make sure I note on these is is it an outgoing or an incoming report? The reason that that's important is if you just say loan report, then nobody knows except for maybe by the date when it was done. Then you can also go ahead like I said in bullet point, make it very easy to see. But do also take detailed pictures. Most of your databases will save these conditioned photos and you can actually look at those photos both when the piece is going out and when it comes back to see if there's something that's changed. So inventory reports, I can tell you we're in the middle of a wall to wall inventory right now. There is no way I would get my inventory done if I was having to do a full condition report on every piece. If you're inventorying a small collection, that may be possible. But one thing that can be done to make it really fast is go ahead and look at the previous report, see if there's any change. If there's not, go ahead and just copy and paste it real quick. If not, do one to three bullet points. Just go ahead, take a look at what the major damage is, take a photo of it, put it in your database and move on. That will help you keep your inventory going, but it will also keep going on your inventory. It will also get you that condition so that you can look and see if there is change over time. I'll be honest, my inventory right now, some of our pieces never had a condition report, so that one to three bullet points is what it has in the computer right now. So that's going to be our baseline from now on. So the inventory report, like I said, it's very short, very efficient, but it can be helpful in the future. Conservation, like I said, this is going to be written by your conservator or conservation assistant. Usually they're going to do a detailed report before the work's done so that you know exactly what's happening with the piece, and then they'll give you a treatment report at the end. Don't hesitate to go ahead and put that in your database as well, because that way it's very easy to go ahead and find out if you have change from when that conservation was done. Damage reports, these are the ones we hate to do. Nobody wants to do a damage report, let's be honest. Damage reports usually happen after something happens like somebody's dropped a piece or something's happened like something happened to your building and you now have damage to items in your collection because of that damage to the building. So the things to remember is make sure you include what happened, when it happened, how did this damage happen to this piece. And then go ahead and then record what you're seeing. I hate to admit this, but we had some damage in our building a couple years ago, and a brick actually fell out of the wall. It hit a table and the table was really badly damaged. It was in several pieces. When we took it to the conservator, I wasn't even convinced something could be done. But we had a very detailed condition report that was done, and if you saw that condition report versus what that table looks like today, you would never know that that table was the same piece. So with the damage report, like I said, make sure you have information on how it was damaged, what happened, what damage occurred. You want to make sure that that's recorded for the future. This will also help you out when you go to file that insurance claim because they're going to ask you for things that are details of that incident. And if you have it in that condition report, you can just give them the condition report. Also take detailed images of the damage. Unfortunately, this is a painting that got damaged while we were moving it during the inventory. It was torn. We did get this to the conservator. Fortunately, because of the type of incident and how we recorded it, insurance did pay for that. So just make sure that you do record both visually and in detail with your description what's going on. Now, cataloging report, cataloging condition report, a lot of times this is going to be your baseline. This is what's happening when you first get the piece into your collection. You want to go ahead and do that baseline so that you can check whether you're checking once a year, once every five years. Sometimes that will depend on the size of your collection. But having that baseline and knowing exactly when condition it was when it came into your collection can help you determine what's going on with the piece in the future. So I usually recommend that this one be really detailed. So you want to go ahead and have as much information. This one's an example of where they've actually used the paragraph form instead of the bullet point. This particular person liked using the narrative. There's nothing wrong with that. Like I said, the bullet points just sometimes help, especially with those loan ones, so that you know exactly, so that's easy to read for the next person. So the cataloging report, again, here's that same piece. Go ahead and make sure that you match it up like where I had put the numbers on this before. If he had numbered in the report, we could go ahead and match those things up. So now we're going to talk a little bit about resources. There are a lot of resources out there to help you with condition reporting. Those resources can be books, they can be websites, they can be things like listservs. Don't hesitate to get out there and look for them. For books, these are just a few of the things that I have on my bookshelf that help me with condition reporting. As I said, museum registration methods has a section in there that's just on basic condition reporting. The book, Basic Condition Reporting, actually divides things down to material types, so that can be helpful too. CCI Notes has a lot of information that's in there that can help you describe damage that's going on. Some websites where I was talking about visual dictionaries, the Australian Institute for Conservation of Cultural Materials has a wonderful visual glossary on there. You can actually go and look at different damage types. If you're not sure what to call something, this is an awesome resource. You can go look at pictures and go see. But if you're just looking for terms to use this other glossary for paintings, that's what the Fine Arts Conservancy is also a great one. It actually describes some things, but it gives you the terms there as well. Now, there's a lot of places that do have forms out there that'll share them. RCAAM does have forms on their website, as does ASLH. You kind of have to hunt for them a little bit, but they are there. Also, the Southeastern Registrar's Association, if you're a member, there is a form swap in the member's area. You can actually get in there and download condition reporting forms that you can use. There are other places too. Don't hesitate to ask. Use things like the RCAM listserv, ask people. Most people in our field are happy to share, no matter what. We'll give you the form. Give you a starting place. Don't hesitate. I think we're ready to get into the question period. I know you guys have had a lot going in that comment section. It's a little hard to keep up with, but Susan's been keeping them for me over here in the parking lot. Let me see if I can get over there and see if we can answer some of these for you. Sure, that'd be great. We have, first of all, there was a discussion. D. Stubbsley was really active. She said good, fair, and etc. are basically useless, way too subjective. Totally agree. The question was, what do you use instead? I'll be honest, I still use good, fair, poor, excellent, but I go ahead and use the description. That one word isn't going to tell you a lot. As I was trying to demonstrate with those quizzes on there, with those pictures, two people will have very different ideas of what good, fair, and poor is. It really is something where you should not rely on that word. Having a condition report that has a name, a date, and good is absolutely useless. Having these descriptions is what you want to do. D. points out that something in poor condition could be perfectly stable or easily repair. It can be. I was just having to come up with definitions for that game. One of the questions was, what types of materials should the weights be made of? There was another question about, where do you get them? I think that's in the resources. I don't know if I put it in the resources, but the thing is, most archival suppliers will have some sort of weight. You can also make your own though. You can take stockinette or cotton batting, or cotton, not cotton batting, or cotton and actually fill it with polybeads, and those will actually make weights. You can sew them shut, and it's a very easy way to make it. What happens with a report once it's completed? One collection management system, my research has an app for a touchpad for easy record keeping. What are the people doing with their log forms? There's actually quite a discussion about that, and you covered it too, but you may have more to say about it. Honestly, if I write it down on paper, I still keep the piece of paper in the accession file, just so that I have that backup, but usually what I try to do is record that information in the condition module of my database, and if I can, I go ahead and upload a scan of the original. It depends on the database. Some are really user friendly with this. As I said, I use PassPerfect. I've been bugging PassPerfect for a while to create their own condition reporting app, because I think it would make my life easier, but honestly, there are ways of doing it, as I was saying, where you can create a PDF. If your database allows you to upload a PDF, you can put that in the database. You can also take a laptop into the gallery with you, go ahead and put the information straight into the database. You don't have to have that paper form. There's a lot of different ways of doing it, but just making sure that that information stays with the collection either by putting it into your database or putting it into your accession file so that somebody can find it in the future. Okay. Is it correct to say proper left, right when referring to direction from the perspective of the object rather than from the viewer? Right. Usually it's used when you're talking about things like clothing that you're wearing. So proper left and proper right would be the person who's wearing its left and right. That's why I also tend to use viewer's left, viewer's right. A lot of times when I'm explaining this, say to an intern or a volunteer, that proper left and proper right can be very confusing for them. But if you say, okay, you are the person viewing the piece, so just make a statement at the top that it's the viewer's left or the viewer's right. You know exactly which left and right it is. So just having that description of what you're talking about is really what I was getting at. Does anyone have a policy for keeping physical reports in addition to digitized reports? I've been printing, reporting, scanning, saving PDFs like mentioned above. I often think I should keep them a hard copy, but I don't. Should I prioritize the hard copy as well? I can give an example of that. I recently have been asked about condition reports that I did 30 years ago, and the institution doesn't have them, so they're coming to me and ribs and drabs to get my reports. I'm impressed that you've gotten them from 30 years ago. I'll be honest, a lot of times these days, I'm with whoever made the comment. I do a lot of the condition reporting straight into the database or straight into a tablet, so we may not have that physical paper report. I've gone both ways on it. I had supervisor at one point that said, why do you need to keep all this paper? I can be honest, that inventory I'm doing, every piece of paper has become really helpful now. I can understand both perspectives. If I actually do the report on paper, I keep the paper though. It does last longer. If you have a data loss, you're not going to actually lose the report. You'll actually have that physical report still. It can always be put back in the database if you have the paper report, if you have that data loss. Having it in the file is very helpful, but I will say with time constraints, a lot of us don't do that. There's a whole active discussion going on right now about databases and paper in the chat box. It's true paper does last longer, but databases are more searchable, and you need to keep a record off your site. I'm looking at what Dee's saying. I can relate to you. My museum is close to yours in age. There is a great deal to be said for having that paper trail, but I can tell you we've had periods where there's great record keeping and periods where there's terrible record keeping, and sometimes somebody made their own Excel spreadsheet and put all the information in that, and we've lost access to that. I access our record books, our early ones, all the time. I do like having that paper information, but I understand when people don't want to print every single sheet of paper, too. But if you do have a database crash like Harry's talking about right now, you want those paper copies. For the people that are asking, will you get access to this PowerPoint? Yes, I will post the PowerPoint with the recording. There's a question about accretions when is what's fly poop? Is it accretion or is it pest damage? It can be both. If it's kind of stuck to the surface, it's probably an accretion at this point. If the fly poop is there, though, you probably have some other pest issues that may be causing other damage that you should be checking for. My museum doesn't have conservators, so I do very, very few conservation steps unless I have older condition reports which can prove it was damaged since it got here. I think that conservation efforts need to take in mind the provenance of the piece. It does. Honestly, I don't have a conservator on staff either. When I get a conservation report, I'm actually sending it out to the conservator or taking it to the conservator and they're doing it. Especially when you get to smaller museums, you're not going to have that conservator on staff. If you are lucky enough to have a conservation budget, you're going to want to prioritize what you're using it with. Sometimes that means you're going to have to go through the collection, look at the provenance, look at the condition reports, things like that, and use those to create that priority list. When you don't have a budget for it, you have to prioritize. Okay. How long did that plastic deterioration from the label take? I'm actually not sure. It was not from my museum. That was from somebody that sent it in when we did the basic condition reporting book. But it's such a good example of what can happen when you use some of those chemicals on the plastics that I had to include it. But I've seen things happen with plastics when I've done those test spots fairly quickly. You will see the bubbling as a reaction pretty quickly. I don't know how long, though, that particular one took. Yeah. There are a couple of questions about when you don't know the chemical composition of a plastic item, is it appropriate to refer to the item as being comprised of polyplastic or is there some other way that you can figure out what kind of plastic it is? Honestly, I'm not a plastics expert, so if I don't know, I just refer to it as plastic of an origin. I'll just say plastic, and in the description I'll go ahead and say it's a type of plastic and say that I don't know what it is. And did point out that the correct word is polymeric, so that there are lots of polymers that we work with plastics. Right. And then should a detailed conservation report be done for a working collection? We have a living history village and there are artifacts that are used and with the basic assumption that some damage will occur, but it's acceptable. I think that's where you get more into a tiered collection and I would still do condition reports on it periodically, just so you know when that damage is happening. With some of the tiered collections you may have some items that are being used hands on like that that are being given a lower standard of care, but the thing is you really do want to go ahead and take a look at those items periodically. I mean it doesn't need to be every year, it could be every five years with items that are being used, but you don't know what's happening with that piece if it is being damaged from the use, if it's something that needs to be deaccessioned because of that damage. Right. So I would still look at it periodically. Right. And there's a whole discussion right now in the chat box about identifying plastics and things that you can use to at least estimate what they might be. Right. Should... I would do a condition report mostly when notable damage occurs or infrequently. I'm the only collections person, so for me it's closer to once every two years for those pieces. What do you suggest? I've been in that situation where it's just me doing it and there's no way, especially if you have a sizable collection, that you're going to be able to get to every piece every year. That's where it's more the... what I was saying with the if you touch it, do a report. If you're touching it, you've got a few minutes to at least pull the old report out and take a look at it. If there's no change, just make a note on the bottom of the sheet that says it was checked again this date, no change. You can actually also, if it's in your database, just copy and paste it with the new date at that point. If there is change though from what you're seeing, it shouldn't take too long to record it at that point. Okay. Are there certain types of items you'd check more often than others? Honestly, ours tend to be driven a lot by exhibit here or by loans, but one of the things we do have a rotation where we check periodically are things like plastics that we know deteriorate at a higher rate. We also have some pieces that we know have had some problems in the past. There are some molds on it at one point. We know there's no way of getting every single mold score, so we go through and periodically check those to make sure that the mold is not blooming again. A lot of databases will have a maintenance record where you can do that, where you can set up reminders to go check those things. I've got over 100,000 items in my collection, every year. Depending on the size of your collection would be how often you would be able to check things. Yeah. There's a question here from Alan Morton about the Crudley badge. If you are live at this webinar, which means that you didn't check in 10 minutes before the end, and all four of the next webinars, then you're eligible for a Crudley badge. If you have to miss them or don't participate in them live, then I'm sorry that's not available, but the Crudley badge basically says you've had six hours of professional development, and at the end of the courses I will be contacting everyone who is eligible for a badge. And as I said too, if there are people who are in groups, please have somebody write down everyone that's there so that we can I know who's there, and I can keep track of that, and I'll contact you. And I'm always happy to have groups. Okay. And there's a lot of discussion about how do you decide what to do condition reports on. And honestly, as I was saying for us right now we're doing an inventory, so we are doing a quick condition report for every item as we touch it. But that's not always possible, sometimes it's going to be driven by what's going out on exhibition, what's going to be going out online, what you have a researcher coming in to look at, but the best thing is if you do have a practice for your inventory, even if you're just doing a check of 5% of your collection to see where it is each year, you can do at least a quick check of the condition while you're looking at the piece to make sure it's where it's supposed to be. I'm sorry. There's a really good question. What is the advice for a place where a small house museum where exhibit equals storage? I would just at that point set up a schedule even if it's on the day that you're closed to the public and you're in an area cleaning. Go ahead and do a condition report of a few items at a time. You can build these condition reports into other work you're doing. For example, if you're doing cataloging, go ahead and build it in. If you're doing an inventory, build it in. If you're cleaning, you can build it in. It doesn't have to take a lot of time to do these, but just making the time is a lot of times better for the collection. There are a couple of questions about inventories and I just want to say that we're going to have a fabulous inventory webinar on October 1st. That's the last of this program. There's a question from Los Alamos. I'll contact all the groups. You don't need to put them in here because I need to have your email. And I think we're getting a lot of chat but not many more questions. It's October 4th. Look in the on the homepage of the website and the date will be there. We have six historical log cabins connected together and I plan on deep cleaning the objects in them this winter with volunteers. Do you have any suggestions? If you're going to be getting in there and deep cleaning, what you might want to do is just create a form that they can while they're in their cleaning they can use that form. There's an example of a basic form in the handouts that you can download but you can get other ones where if it's a specific type of material, you can set it up where they can circle different damage types or check it off and say where they're saying it and just have them record that. Then you can get it into your database later. Just having that form to help them. Say thank you to your volunteers and give them training about what you want them to look at. Right. So I think that the questions are just about done. So is there any final words of wisdom you'd like to give us? We have about five more minutes. I could just say again, if you have the opportunity to do the reports, do them, they can be really helpful just creating either a baseline or they can be helpful showing you what's going on even in your storage sometimes like with that picture of that jacket. We had a microclimate. We didn't know we had. So actually going through and checking the things you'll find out more about your storage methods. You'll find out more about your collection and you'll be able to determine you know if you've got the best storage or the best exhibit or whatever space is for those pieces. You'll also be able to really protect the pieces more by knowing whether it should go out on exhibit or loan too. Rebecca we did a webinar last fall on labeling things which you might find helpful. And I think this is about it. I'm so glad to see so many people from the west. Yeah. So I think we're done. Thank you so much. This is fabulous. I'm really pleased to see everybody. And we'll see you next week with Angola Kipp from Germany and I think we're done. So thanks a lot. Well thank you everybody for coming today. We really enjoyed it. Yeah me too. And I'm really pleased to see that our other presenters are here. And don't forget the session of the evaluation. I really need to have this evaluation. So please before you go click on this link. Thank you very much. Thank you Mike. And we'll say goodbye. I'll leave this up for a while. All right. Thanks. You're welcome.