 All right, hello, everyone. We're going to go ahead and get started with today's program. Thank you all for joining us for today's webinar. This is the fifth in this eight-part series to complement your in-person training for the Miami Heritage Response Team. These programs are made possible through the generous grant funding support of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Today, we will continue our discussion of some material-specific salvage tips. The presenters on these material-specific programs are conservators who also serve as team members for the National Heritage Responders. Many of them have a variety of personal experiences responding to disasters, so we're fortunate to have their expert knowledge shared with us. After today's program, we'll take a break from materials and shift gears a little bit. We're going to be covering the topic of fundraising for disaster scenarios on the 30th of this month and then the topic of health and safety on the 13th of September. Again, a reminder that if you've missed any live programs, please make sure that you watch a recording of the missed session, and you should have completed watching all eight programs by Monday, October 16th, which is when we'll begin our final in-person training. Before we begin today's presentation, just a quick refresher of technical notes. On your screen, you'll see several boxes, including one labeled chat on the left-hand side. You can use the chat box to say hello, ask questions, share any information or links that you'd like. And if you post a question to the chat box, a reminder that you will receive a response from me. All questions will be noted, collected, and then I will verbally ask them of a presenter during a break. At the bottom of your screen, you'll see another files box, as you've seen in past presentations. Simply click on the name of the file to highlight it in blue, and then click on the Download File button to save a copy. Our presenter has generously put together some really excellent resources for today's topic, so I do encourage you all to make sure that you download those before the end of the session. And with that, I'm very pleased to introduce you all to our presenter, Margaret Geismuni. Meg has been providing a full range of services as a conservator, as well as a collections care and collections management consultant since 1979. Meg is available for both short-term and long-term projects, on-site and off-site. She completed her undergraduate and graduate coursework at the University of California, Davis, in textile science. During her academic career, Ms. Geismuni took courses that enabled her to fully understand the textiles from the molecule up to be able to most successfully preserve and conserve our textile and fiber heritage and legacy. She worked on the staff at the Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. She recently completed an on-site treatment work at the National Museum of Cudder. Meg belongs to the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists, a senior member, the American Institute for Conservation, a professional associate, and has been a member of the National Heritage Responders, formerly AIC CERT, since 2011. She was appointed to the City of Petalgluma Public Art Committee in March 2015, and Meg also co-taught an emergency planning and response workshop on the West Coast in January of 2012. And so with that, I'd like to turn things over to Meg for her presentation on textile salvage. Thanks, Meg. Thank you, Jess. Can everybody hear me OK? I'll let you fill that in in the chat box if I'm not coming across well. I want to let you all know how happy I am to be speaking with you today. I'd love to help and assist in this process. I'm happy to report that it is not rocket science. And so with that, we'll get going. I've been in private practice 38 years now, which is kind of mind blowing. But the things that I've learned is some things that should be what I say on a t-shirt. We have the ideal, and then we have reality. Ounce of prevention, pound of cure. And because of my particular background, I always have a fabric or fiber solution to every single problem that seems to arise in the museum collections field. And I have a feeling that a lot of you in your institutions also think that you should have a t-shirt that says, if it's not one thing, it's another. In your daily, and weekly, and monthly work in your institutions. So I think from your previous presentations and your in-person training, you've already learned that our job here is we're preserving both the people and the objects and the artifacts. And it is real obvious that people always come first. I realize that in an emergency especially, that people sometimes forget that people really are the most important part of it all and tend to rush into situations. And so with our training, we've learned that we just have to learn that we have to make sure it's safe for people first. And then we can help with the objects and the artifacts. So as we all know, the objects and the artifacts are made from organic inune organic media. And in my particular area of expertise, I work mostly with textiles, which are mostly two-dimensional. Of course, they really aren't. They really are three-dimensional, but mostly flat. And costumes, which are in Western European style costumes, three-dimensional structurally. And then the upholstery portion of upholstered furniture and also basketry and other things that are made out of fiber like felt. So as I've already mentioned, about two-dimensional structurally flat textiles. And then costume. And costume tends to be more tailored and shaped and tends to be more multiple layers, a front and a back, sleeves inserted, skirts gathered into a waistband, things like that. What's sort of interesting about textiles and costume is that they have a function. And this is sort of unique in collection types. They were used by and on living creatures, both humans and animals of all sorts. And they range in complexity from just literally a single layer of fabric to multiple layers that include not just textiles, but a wide variety of media. Of course, in the field of conservation, we have to keep in mind that the winkest link is the one that we really have to make sure that we are taking care of. And it's not always in my case, in our case, the textile and fiber component. It could be another thing. The other thing I also want to stress today is that we are learning from our mistakes, that there are improvements and breakthroughs in both the science and the technology, as witnessed by us having a webinar for heaven's sakes. I'm of an age where my first teaching workshops were with Kodak slide carousels and having to make sure that the slides weren't in upside down or that there was a spare bulb around, in case the slide machine burnt its bulb out. So in terms of us learning, so the good news is that we learned from our mistakes. And so things are not set in concrete. And what you learn from our webinars today might not be the same. We might have different recommendations in as little as two or three years or five years and definitely 10 years out. Jess, could you put up the first poll there for our listeners? So as you can see, I'm just going to have you do a quick poll here. What kind of items do you have in your collection that are textile and costume and fiber related? So I have some idea. So while she's doing that, I will go on to the next slide. And we can just sort of take a quick look at the. OK, as I suspected, it is how you say all over the map in terms of size. Oh, look at all that upholstered furniture. My goodness. And lots of textiles and costume accessories. Yep, you guys have what I would say would be the typical kinds of mix of textiles and costume possibilities in your collections. OK, I'm just going to go on. So basically, just I'm going to do a recap a little bit because I realize that not all of you are conservators have had previous experience in the care of objects and artifacts. So here are the bad boys in terms of the source of deterioration for objects and artifacts. We have inherent vice, physical mechanical stress, light, high temperature relative humidity. Of course, they are siblings. They go cousins go together in contamination. And in the case of disasters, all of these come into play in a very short time. And as is usual with chemistry and physics, there's a synergy among these sources of deterioration that accelerates the deterioration. And of course, because of our purpose in life, working in collection holding institutions, we want to slow down the deterioration. Once again, the disasters cannot just be a huge thing in a big region. It could be as simple as a blocked line and that just one storage box gets damaged or gets filled up with water and all the different forces of nature. Previous presenters you've listened to have mentioned that usually in the case of disasters, we're dealing with too much water. To recap in terms of what inherent vice means for things that are made out of fiber and fabric and textiles and costume, we basically have what it's made out of, how it's made, how it's used, and how it's previously changed. As here, you can see that there's three types of fibers that these things are made out of. And I've given you a brief list of the different types. And I won't spend a lot of time on this because we are talking about disaster. So this is just a little something for your information. And then in terms of the technology of creating the thread, the fabric, the colors, the creating of the costume or the textile, the cutting, the perforation, the use of bias. And then, of course, I've already mentioned this function aspect of textiles and costume worn in sickness and in health. It's walked in, walked on. And then there was the past cleaning and washing procedures and pest control before and after it was accessioned. In the case of costumes and on some of the larger things like rugs and tapestries, they've also been remodeled or restyled or resized. And this remodeling can be done sympathetically and non-sympathetically. So in a disaster situation, what we're dealing with is some of the natural fibers foibles are that they absorb and hold water easily. They are physically weaker when wet, even when they're new, and especially if they're aged now, which, of course, all of our collections are. And that mold and mildew love to digest and eat them. They also char or burn when exposed to high heat. Man-made fibers are basically fibers that are made from starting with the natural material as their starting point before they're created into fibers. And so they have a lot of the same foibles that natural fibers do, i.e., they absorb and hold water easily. Because they are chemically modified, they are much more physically weak when wet, especially when new, especially if aged, even weaker than natural fibers. They also mold and mildew easily or easily eaten up by those. And they char and burn when exposed to high heat. Synthetic fibers are fibers that begin basically, as I like to say, as dead dinosaurs. And so they're completely synthetic. And they do not absorb or hold water easily. Their strength is not affected when they're wet. And mold and mildew don't particularly care to digest them. They can't, basically. But if there's contamination present, whether it's food remnants or dirt or dust or sweat or oil, they'll feed on that instead. They will also melt when exposed to heat. And the heat that causes them to melt is usually lower than what will char or burn natural and man-made fibers. And then, of course, there are other things that costume and textiles are made with. And so if they're organic, they will then also absorb and hold water easily and also be mold and mildew munchies. If they're synthetic of some sort, like some of the early latexes and early plastics, they'll melt if exposed to heat. And also in a disaster situation, especially when there's large quantities of water on the loose, the dyes that were used to create and color these patterns on these textiles and fibers were not made to be fast in water, no matter what the pH of the water due to the early dye technology. And or because of environmental cultural restrictions, the culture did not have a large quantity of water. It was a desert situation. And they did not wash or rinse. They washed their textiles after they died and because they didn't have the water available. Also in a disaster area, these loose dye molecules will interact with any fiber molecule that they happen to come in contact with. And if it's a natural or a man-made fiber, they also have indiscriminate interaction. And so they start their own chemical interaction just because they're in close contact with each other. And of course, light-colored fabrics become transparent or translucent when wet. And this sometimes can cause some visual effects that are disconcerting, but go away once the object, the textile dries. And of course, if we do have something that is made with mixed media, each of those mixed media has a differing response to being exposed to huge quantities of water or small quantities of water. And then their drying process is different. And some of the times, this mixed media is not easily seen. Sometimes it's in the inner part. So here's just a quick image of a ecclesiastical vestment that had a beautiful silk brocade on the outside. But it had been stiffened with an inner lining of a jute fabric. And so when this was exposed to water, and you can see that the tide line here, let's see if I can get this to move. Here we go. You can actually see the tide line from water exposure. The silk fabric was just disintegrated. But the jute fabric survived the immersion process. And then we have other fabric foibles where we have literally a very loosely woven fabric that when it was exposed to water, it just unraveled because it was so much more slippery. There was also a problem with the seam allowance being too small, too narrow. And so it just literally unraveled away from the seam. Here you can see this translucent white fabric. And you can actually see the seam allowance through because of the translucency of the fabric. So physical mechanical stress in a disaster situation gets to be very important due to the combination of gravity and the additional weight of the water absorbed. A gallon of water weighs almost 8 and 1 half pounds. So if you have something that absorbs even just another five gallons of water, my goodness, that's 50 more pounds of weight that's particular fabric has to then carry. We also have the foibles of the natural and man-made fibers that they physically swell as they absorb moisture, vapor, and liquid water, and then conversely, shrink as they are drying and losing this moisture, vapor, and liquid water. So you literally have this physical activity of swelling and then shrinking. I've already mentioned that both natural and man-made fibers are much physically weaker when wet, and so will tear much more easily when they're wet. The earliest rayons and acetates during the 40s and 50s were literally so weak when they were first manufactured that they couldn't even be hand-washed because they would literally just come apart in the sink while they were being bathed by the consumers. That didn't go over too well. We also have dangling parts and components of dresses and costume, whether it's the trims or voluminous skirts. And so if these things are not supported while they're wet out when they're being moved, they literally can just tear away. Then we have the usual folds and creases that have resulted from both intentional, whether the pleats are put in intentionally or the gathering of the fabric is intentional, or sort of accidentally where it could get a large wedding dress into a box. It has to be folded a lot of times and where it's been folded into too small of a box, creases and folds happen. So as these fibers deteriorate, these polymer chains are breaking and becoming shorter and so this makes them physically weaker and this even gets worse when they're damp or wet. So just some quick images of things that are falling apart, waistbands with shredding silk and lots and lots of tiny little stitches forming pleats and seams. So in case of light, you probably already have heard from conservators that all the wavelengths of light cause damage and it's not just the ultraviolet portion. Unfortunately, ultraviolet is the most energetic and so causes the most damage. Light exposure is both a function of intensity of the light in duration and so basically this energy that is absorbed and reflected by the fibers and dyes and pigments can literally cause molecular chains to break and if it causes enough molecular chains to break, it can change the color of the dyes and pigments which is when we call it fading. Also undyed white fibers as their molecular chains break, this re-emitted light shifts to the yellow wavelengths and so then we start seeing it as yellow and as it becomes worse, it shifts into the browns. Now the other end of the light spectrum of course is the infrared and that's in what we manifest as heat and so it's not just the UV portion we have to worry about but also the IR portion which causes a temperature rise. We have to remember that light is exposure is both cumulative and irreversible. Resting in dark storage is just a myth. There's something resting in storage, in dark storage it doesn't put those broken molecules back together. So in a disaster situation, light sort of drops in importance compared to the other sources of deterioration. In this case we need enough light for personal safety and to assess the damage and to accomplish what we need to do in terms of salvage. However, we do try to minimize the light exposure possible and so if you have to work outside during salvage operations to try to work in the shade or to rig up tarps and provide shade by working with under tarps or working in tents and canopies. So just as different you can literally see here is the one tassel being opened up and then here's it's twin over here that hasn't been opened up and you can see it's gone from a bright pink to white irreversible, irreversible damage. So here's the high temperature and relative humidity information and the thing that we really have to be the most concerned with is this rate of reaction over here and basically chemical reactions double in speed for roughly every 18 degrees Fahrenheit increase. So you can imagine just getting that temperature controlled is so important. It also of course realizes that relative humidity, the amount of water vapor in the air is determined by the temperature. I've already mentioned that the natural and manmade fibers absorb this water vapor and physically swell so here we have this synergy of the physical and mechanical stress tied to temperature and relative humidity. And of course we also have mold and mildew growth and so that gets into the contamination. We also have to be concerned about fibers and fabrics getting too cold because they lose their flexibility as their water content starts freezing up. They literally can become brittle and you can literally break things off if they're not fully supported when you're moving them when they're frozen. So in a disaster situation, this high temperature and relative humidity is really one of the most important combined with contamination and physical and mechanical stress. The scale of the disaster when it comes to the temperature and relative humidity, also it's much easier to take care of the soaring temperatures and relative humidity being too high in a small area versus if the whole building or block has been damaged. So here's our different mold and mildew examples as I don't know if any of the other presenters have mentioned that mold and mildew comes in a wide variety of colors, not just white, not just black, but also green and pink and all sorts of colors of the rainbow. You have to be careful also about extraneous metal pieces. They literally have two kinds of safety pins here that in high humidity situations, literally corroded and rusted. So now you also have physical and mechanical stress of trying to get them out of the fabric without tearing it. And here we have a costume accessory where the metal clasp has rusted into the closure and it's so corroded that there is no way to safely remove that corroded clasp anymore. So then contamination and we just have, it's from A to Z here and it's seen and unseen and what is unseen can become seen over time as the contamination oxidizes. My favorite example is when you first cut open an apple, it has a nice white flesh and then as that flesh starts oxidizing it becomes yellow and brown. And this is what happens with a lot of the things that contaminate the things that we are dealing with. And so as you can see, a lot of the contamination is from being around human bodies or animal bodies for any man and human activity. And then also when we have the cleaning solutions and what's been left behind and in the case of mothballs and pesticides, especially after it's been accession into the collection, this is usually undocumented and so it's definitely an unknown. And then we have just sort of the rest of the insect world getting involved here and rodents and all this and then the intentional vandalism. And then there's a category of what I call, seemed a good idea at the time and that includes things like using blue-colored tissue paper to stuff out because it makes things look wider. And unfortunately in a disaster situation that blue dye runs in the tissue. So contamination in a disaster situation is definitely activated by the higher temperature and relative humidity and the radiative reaction goes up. So not only do you have all the internal sources that this textiles and fibers have, have already are existing with, but now we have all those external sources also contaminating and this energy between them. So you have contaminated water, you have smoke, you have soot, you have fire fighting foam and all those are interacting. And then as the drying and the water removal occurs, tide lines can occur where there's contaminants become concentrated. And of course we've already talked, had previous speakers talk about the mold and mildew spores that literally inhabit every single centimeter of our existence and this is also true with our textile and fiber related collection. And so they are now in a situation where they're now in the right temperature and relative humidity situation for their populations to just escalate to monumental proportions. So here we have a situation where here, there we go, there's my, where the perspiration stains in the armpit of this costume have already changed the color of the ground from dark blue to a beigey color. And then it's also chemically and physically weakened this area. So in a disaster, you can really expect that this silk fabric here is just gonna say, I've had enough, I'm out of here and just literally split and dissolve into contaminated water. And then here we have a padded hanger where they literally just use cotton batting and cotton fabric wrapped around a wooden hanger and in a disaster situation, they thought they were doing just so well because it was a padded hanger, but unfortunately the mold and mildew growth just exploded in this situation where it was no air circulation. And so it was actually more contaminated than the costume itself. And here we have the back of a framed girlhood embroidery and you can just see the tide lines here just all over the place, mold and mildew going. And here's another example of a good idea at the time and base for their display. They just put garden rocks out. Well, they didn't even rinse off the garden rocks. So here's all this dirt and grit that is just sitting there waiting for a moisture to really cause all sorts of additional damage, unnecessary damage. Okay, so let's talk about some recommendations here from Meg, the pessimist. So I've always talked about ounce of prevention pound of cure, but we have to deal with the reality of the object combined with the reality of the building and the reality of the staffing. And now they were all incredibly depressed. Well, move on, because we'll just do what we can do. So my suggestion is that you prioritize your collection as to importance. This has already also been mentioned by previous speakers. And the first has to be loans. Anything that has been loaned to your institution, whether on short-term or in long-term, that has got to be your highest priority because it doesn't belong to you. It belongs to someone or some other institution. Do you have pilgrimage objects in your collection? Is it a wedding dress? Is it a rug that was brought around the horn or over the isthmus of Panama on the back of a mule? You know, just pilgrimage objects are historically important for your mission. And usually these do not have a high dollar value. Most textiles and costumes don't have a high dollar value. There are some niches in the field, including things like Baltimore album quilts, pile rugs and carpets, American Southwest weavings, contemporary fiber art, hote couture, Gerhulet embroideries. But in the field, generally, there's not usually a hard dollar value with a formal appraisal. Also ethnographic and tribal, because they generally have less dye fastness because of the cultural and environmental conditions. Those with natural and man-made fibers and mixed media components. And the props and the decor has to be very low. And those need to be identified. So in terms of prioritizing also, as if you didn't have enough to do, basically, you need to prioritize on how difficult would it be to do that pound of cure. So then you really go with your ounce of prevention. So you don't have to deal with that pound of cure. Or these items, frame textiles, are these girlhood embroideries in the original frames? Or you've already had a conservator talking about frame paintings. Well, that kind of information that she's provided about unframing textiles, unframing paintings, also applies to unframing textiles. It takes up a lot of space. There's a lot of things that you need to do to take it apart. Do you have oversized textiles, things like tapestries and quilts and contemporary fiber art in terms of just huge size, monumental size, wall size, castle size, building size? It's just moving those are so difficult. And if they're completely waterlogged, now not only are they size, but the weight of them is just a minute. Leather and hide really acts poorly to being exposed to water and in the drying out process. And they have to be manipulated throughout the whole drying process to keep their flexibility. And this is very labor-intensive. Things that are made with mixed media are that made with metals that will rust or wood that will split or cardboard that will disintegrate. There's also, in terms of costume, we also have things that have been used as stiffeners in the bodices. And so you can't necessarily see them, but they're there stiffening the bodice. And they could literally be made out of baleen. They could be made out of pieces of thin steel that rust if you blink at them. I've also come across stiffeners that have been made using reed. So it's just even more susceptible to any kind of water damage. Do you have upholstered furniture? Also, once again, oversized in mixed media. It's not just fibers, but different fibers like jute and wood and all that. And then the costume accessories like shoes and umbrellas and parasols are just a mixed media nightmare. Do you have crowded storage boxes that are made out of paper? Cardboard, not cardboard, but the matboard. And then have you used acid-free tissue to stuff out and separate pieces? Where are they displayed in your building? Where the building features are a danger? Are they displayed or stored? Where it's difficult to physically move them just because they have to go up and down the stairs? You have two landings that literally turn back on each other. You would have to have the upholstered furniture up on end to try to get it up or down the stairs. And then you have the width of the doorway. This particularly gets to be a telling problem in historic houses that haven't been built to be a public space. So, Jess, could you put up that second pole for us? There we go. Basically, I'd like you to just put down where your collection is stored in your building. We'll just do that for a couple minutes. Yeah, the typical, oh, it's nice to see that nobody's got their collection stored in the basement and below ground. That really makes a big difference because, of course, as we know in a situation, that's where water seeks the lowest ground. And if everything's in the basement or below ground, that's where it ended up going. Right. OK, thanks, Jess. So if you have your items in contact with the floor, we need to get them off the floor. Once again, it's where water will seek the lowest level. And so even just six inches will make a big difference. That also helps in your cleaning abilities from week to week, month to month, of being able to clean in and around and do integrated pest management, having that space underneath the boxes and storage. Within 18 inches of a window, there's the problem of, is that window hardened? So if that window gets broken or something to help prevent what's on the outside to keep that glass from blowing in, so that's another problem. Also having below building pipes that are running overhead. So if you've got costums in those situations, here's some recommendations to help mitigate the reality of the building you're dealing with. And one of my favorite things to recommend is to get rid of those paperboard boxes, replace them with a corrugated polyethylene or polypropylene box, because they are inherently not damaged by water. Their one weakness, in my opinion, of course is that they're corrugated. And so if you have dust or an insect possibility, what you need to do is tape off all those corrugated edges, which is very easy to do with framing tape or aluminum foil tape. And then the box needs to be labeled with the contents on the outside so you know what's in the box. If you have paperboard boxes and don't rob banks for hobby and so aren't able to replace wholesale all your paperboard boxes immediately with polyethylene, polypropylene boxes, my suggestion is that you wrap every single one of those boxes with polyethylene sheeting or lay flat polyethylene tubing and tape close all those seams. That way, if there is a water situation, the box is completely waterproofed and the contents of the boxes are buffered by the paperboard boxes and the tissue that's inside, but you've prevented that water from getting through to those boxes. Any costumes that are hanging should be on non-absorbent padded hangings at polyester bathing or using a polyethylene pool noodle or foam sheet instead of cotton batting. If you are hanging your costumes on an open rack or rod, each, that whole rack or rod should first be covered with fabric and then there should be another complete shroud of polyethylene sheeting or Tyvek to provide the water resistance or waterproofness. Ideally, each costume would have its own shroud. Here is an example of a paperboard box and it is what I call a box waterfall and you can literally see the water that's flowing out of this box from the volunteer staff member emptying out it into a bucket because what happened here was a HVAC line, a condensation line was not cleaned out by the building maintenance people in a timely fashion and so it backed up and it literally filled up this box which was 40 inches by 18 inches by four inches literally to the top of the box with water. Here's a, I apologize for my drawing ability, obviously I can't draw a straight line with a ruler here. Here's a really quick and easy what I call a no-sew shroud. So you don't even have to have a volunteer with a sewing machine to put together a shroud, a fabric sling shroud. So here's some additional recommendations. Place a barrier between the warring media and so a little circle or square of aluminum foil or tie-back under the buttons and the insignia on all those wool uniforms that still have all their insignia on it and underneath the buttons. So in a situation where high humidity or water happens if there's going to be any corrosion of those metal elements, that corrosion is stopped from permeating into the fabric part of the costume. That each artifact is labeled with a water-resistant hang tag which means no cardboard or paper with an untied string or thread. So it is actually, you can actually see the label and its accession number. The problem during a disaster if you're trying to, as you're moving things around and trying to keep an inventory, if the accession number is sewn down to the inside center back neck or inside waistband or inside the center front edge or there's only one on a 12 foot by six foot tapestry, you have to handle it too much to try to find that accession number. My recommendation is that you have this hang tag type of label extended beyond the edge so you can see it instantly without having to even touch the textile. If you have a very large, my rule of thumb for large textiles that should be labeled in more than one place in preferably two or three places is if it's bigger than 24 inches by 48 inches there should be a label on each end. And then if it's rolled there should also be one on the outside wrapping. I also recommend that each storage box is first lined with a piece of fabric so it can be used as a sling to remove the artifacts from the storage box. And in the case of a disaster you might need two people to actually lift that sling out. You also should use fabric as an inner lining to separate the objects from each other in a storage box. In a disaster what happens with acid-free tissue is that it literally becomes paper pulp like wet toilet paper. So here's just some demonstrations of of here's the fabric sling in a box and two folks lifting it in and out. A board, a stiff board to literally move things around especially if it's wet. Here's an example of a hang tag that's easily seen and because of the length of the thread for display purposes this can literally just be tucked back in out of the way. Here is a rolled paisley shawl as I think with a Tyvek paper label. Notice how loose this tie is around it. It's not cinched down but it's nice and easy to see. And then here we have in the case of a doll. It's on, she's stored face down because of the condition of her face. But there's this tang tag. Here's a boutique where it's thread tied out but it's once again extended beyond the edge of the textile so when it's in its box and being stored this label is very easily seen. Other recommendations is to use also fabric as the interlining to separate the layers of folds as needed and stuffing out 3D components like sleeves and shoes. I'm a recommender of using aluminum foil to service a core for 3D, things like shoes and purses. And you create a core of crumpled aluminum and then wrap it with the fabric and that way it's the aluminum foil is obviously not gonna absorb any water and can also take the weight of something if it is in a water-based disaster. I recommend that you use a fabric as an outer wrap of rolled textiles and framed textiles and then a cover of polyethylene sheeting or lay flat tubing and then you take these seams completely. And once again, here's a silly thing that people forget is that when you do have rolled textiles and you have this long opening make sure that that opening is facing down and not up. Had a situation where there was a boutique collection where they had all these, about half of the openings facing up and then during the water situation it actually, there wouldn't have been any kind of damage except for all these openings that were facing up had filled up with water. If you happen to have a custom-made hanger shroud or outside cover for a particular thing make sure that that is also labeled with the accession number. So it can be then matched back up with its appropriate object. Ideally, you would have individual shrouds for each hanging costume even if it's inside an archival powder-coated metal storage cabinet. And this shroud, of course, also seems to be labeled. These shrouds provide protection against abrasion from each other as they're being moved in and out of the cabinets. They also serve as a means of monitoring for integrated pest management and also as a means of holding on to pieces and components that are falling off, whether it's buttons or fibers or beads or sequins or something like that. These individual shrouds will hold on to that component. And of course, during a disaster as they're taken out of their storage cabinets they are completely covered during that situation. I also recommend that you look into getting water alarms. We have both expensive and inexpensive ones. And here are some, this one at the top literally is set up so it determines that there's a large amount of water is rushing. This is for a broken pipe and we'll turn the water off at that junction. We have a very inexpensive one. I think it's less than $20 where it has when water connects these two little metal posts it puts off an incredibly loud noise. And then next sophistication it has a determination of when it determines that there's water it actually will phone someone with the pre-programmed cell phone number that you put in or the security people or whomever you've decided to receive those notification. They also have water sensor monitors that can actually be tied into a security system. And once again, a wide variety of costs here. So some of your homework that you need to do before the next disaster is you do need to reach out to your first responders that are going to you know the folks who are going to be your first responders. And have them come visit your facility all the different shifts because there are three different shifts at least. And have this happen periodically especially if you have loans that are coming in and out or you're doing rotations and some of your higher priority artifacts are now in storage instead of being on display. This way in a disaster those first responders might be able to throw tarps over the piano and the paisley shawl that are on the first floor landing. University of Vermont last week or the week before in one of their natural history collections had a botanical mostly and they were able to have very little damage to the actual artifacts because the first responders were able to throw protective tarps over a lot of their storage cabinets. Also reach out to conservators specific to your collection types in and out of your area and get their contact information and get that onto your D plan or your prep handout or whatever. I know every single conservator I've ever come across whether they're museum based or in private practice or happy to serve as in this capacity. And then of course gather the supplies ahead of time that you need to protect and salvage your high priority artifacts and store them where they're needed if possible and for what their purpose is. This is for, these are the tarps that are to go over the upholstery. These is the tarps that are to go over the protective polyethylene sheeting and ties to go over the open racks of costumes. Also determine ahead of time if you did have to take things your oversized textiles out of the building. Where would you put them? Where, how would you get them there? Would you be able to keep them on site? Would you have to use somebody else's space? How would they get to that space? Questions to get answered ahead of time. Ah yes, thanks Jess. And then they're good old tabletop drills. This really is a fabulous idea when you can get a group within your institution or within your Miami Response Group where you literally are just talking about, well how would we move our four tapestries to prevent them against water intrusion? How can it be done and what would we need and what staffing would be needed? And then, wow, how would we get the artifacts out of our old wood display cases when the woods are swollen shut? And just as an example of some old wood, we have a display case here that is literally sitting on the floor. And you can see that a whole mixed media here, we've got fans, we've got gloves. We have over here, we have thin glass that's not strengthened glass in any way. How do we get those hats out if we can't get the plywood doors in the back here? Now, we get to the most important part of it. What do you need to be protecting yourself? Previous presenters have already told you about N95 or N100 disposable breathing masks. Make sure you store those in a plastic bag so they don't continue to filter the air. We need them to be up and ready to go without having spent the last six months filtering your office space or your drawer in your desk. Better is getting fit tested for a half-face respirator. Also, this half-face respirator needs to be stored with its cartridges in a plastic bag. You need to make sure your health allows you to use a half-face respirator and you need to do that by going through your healthcare provider. You must, must wear nitrile gloves at all times and change them frequently. Wear them under your work gloves. Those work gloves are going to be thrown away. You can literally get a new pair of work gloves. Make sure that you have nitrile gloves underneath those work gloves. We don't reuse nitrile gloves ever. This combination of the past undocumented pesticide usage, you have no idea. Standard operating procedure, linden, chlorine, DDT, paradichlorobenzene, naphthalene. We've used these both in our own households and also in our institutional situations over the past 50 years willy-nilly. Also, goggles that's actually stropped to your head and are sized to fit over your glasses. You can't have those goggles falling off into the muck while you're bending over or investigating a wet corner. One of my favorite things to use is a polyethylene knee pad. They get them at the local hardware store. They're literally just shaped, half-inch thick polyethylene foam, dense foam with Velcro straps. And it really helps. They're very lightweight. They're inexpensive. They're waterproof. And it really helps when you're kneeling and getting up and down. A headlamp, leaving your hands free for where you need the light. This is one of those rare occasions where as a conservator, I'm saying yes, up that light level. You need to be able to see what you're doing to stay safe and to accomplish the tasks you need to get done without squinting. You're gonna need cotton bar rags to wipe off the table surfaces when they're damp and wet. And these are thrown away just once again because of the contamination. If your table surfaces are dry, you can use the disposable static wipes unscented. And once again, those are thrown away. So it's not only protecting you from the contamination, but also the next object or artifact that's put on that table. You must remember that waterlogged textiles and boxes are very, very heavy. And you need to protect your back. You're gonna need more than one person for lifting and carrying. So using of carts and even just polyethylene sheeting laid down on the ground. And then you can use that polyethylene sheeting to drag that box to where it needs to go. The slipping hazards in wet and damp situations. You need steel toe footwear if you're going to be part of the reentry team in the first round of salvaging with non-slip soles to protect once again you and your feet. So here are some tips for salvaging, actual salvaging. Use pieces of polyethylene sheeting or large polyethylene bags to gently wriggle under the whole stack of wet out textiles in a box. And then between the stacked wet out textiles to separate them. You can also then use these pieces of sheeting or bags as a means to carry the individual textiles to where they need to be. You can also gently wriggle these pieces of polyethylene sheeting. And once again, this polyethylene sheeting is about two mil thick, it's not really thick. So it's not really stiff. And you can use it and wriggle it into the arms and the hats and between the front and the back to separate those layers to aid in the shaping and the rinsing and the air drying. If you happen to be using bags, you can also then use them to stuff out to a more three dimensional shape using either aluminum foil or other bags or fabric or paper. Cause there's a lot of things, especially things like leather and hide that is if they're allowed to dry in misshaping and wrong contour, you'll never be able to get them back into the proper contour once they're dry. So you do that while they're still wet and damp. And then you need to be rinsing outside with clean running water. That nozzle needs to be controlled. You might even need to use squeeze bottles to do the rinsing if the nozzle can't be controlled and get down to a trickle. And or you also need to find an inside space that's set up to deal with the large quantities of water that are needed for the rinsing process. Use fabric for the initial blotting and covering while air drying and wicking. And I have to say my favorite kind of fabric is literally bed sheets, the flat contour ones. You can get 100% cotton ones so inexpensively these days and the size of a king size sheet is absolutely fabulous. And it's also strong when it's wet out. So if you need something to be covered, it's also rinsing for air drying and wicking will help lift off the contamination and help with the drying. And they're very inexpensive and easy to obtain. One of the previous, and I can't remember who it was, mentioned P-pads for wicking. And these are the ones that are used for inside pets. And these work really great for drying. You do the initial blotting on upholstered fabrics, but then you have those areas after you've removed the cushions and have the cushions wrapped up in fabric to help dry them, you have that area of the upholstered part of the furniture that you can't remove from the furniture, but it goes underneath and it's been tucked under. You can use these P-pads tucked in to help with the wicking and drying of those particular kinds of areas on upholstered furniture. Be aware that plastic polyethylene hangers can fail if the costume that's on them gets too waterlogged. It's too much weight for the hook. You are gonna need to unframe, frame textiles to air dry the components. There's just too much stuff going on under there to leave them alone. Air circulation is so critical to slow down mold and mildew growth. You wanna make sure those fans, whoever, are directed around the area and not pointed directly at the textiles because you don't want to start blowing off pieces. I hate to tell you this, but the once the mold and mildew population is visible to your naked eye, you probably won't be able to remove the staining that's resulting from this mold and mildew population. It's a combination of the actual number of fruiting bodies of this mold and mildew, so it's actual individual, it just gets up to that. And also what's happening is as this mold and mildew population is actually digesting the fabric and fibers that they're sitting on, but also they're excreting on it. So it's not just the damage from the physical damage of them being digested, but they are living creatures, living things, and what goes in comes out, and it is stain, it does interact. Also some safe turning over techniques here I have from small to large scale. So here's an example of the hook failure for these large tubular polyethylene under either time and or if they're waterlogged. I'm not a real big fan of using these because under weight, whether it's through time or waterlogged, they do fail. So here's some different ethophone based hangers and custom made hangers for your information. And then here's just some quick tips for turning things over. Using two boards, you can do this really big or really small. The text, this is how you can turn a large textile over. You're gonna use obviously more than one person to do if you have something that's large in size, but just some quick tips on how to turn those over as needed safely. So if you have soot, you really need to contact a conservator immediately for possible removal methods appropriate. It's just too difficult to give you just broad generalizations when it comes to soot. And the same with odors. It's just too difficult to say you can always use this. There are different methods possible, but depending on what the weakest link is, depending on the size, depending on the type of soot, what the smoke was created by, what was burning, what was used for firefighting really governs what possible safe removal methods there are for both soot and odors. Some supplies you should be getting. Fabric, flat sheets and all sizes. I'm a real fan of those polyethylene top folding tables, especially ones that are adjustable in height. It's brand names or lifetime, iceberg. The mere fact that they're polyethylene means they're lightweight, so they're easy to move around, they're folding, so you can get them out of the way if you needed the adjustable height ones. Sometimes it's really great to be standing, other times it's great to be sitting. The two to four mil polyethylene sheeting or lay flat tubing, wet dry HEPA vacuum cleaner and the replacement filter and bags. And also the extension cords and surge protectors and all that kind of stuff. I also recommend you get 120 inch flexible retracting tape measure, very handy for when you have to measure things. Battery operated LED task lights. I love the right in rain products because these are waterproof papers and so if you happen to drop your inventory sheets in the muck, it's not ruined and you can just wipe it off. And I'm also very much a fan of Tyvek, both the paper like and the fabric like. My favorite supplier is Materials Concept and they are listed in the supplier list. Here's, this is what the Festool dust extractors look like. I've got the CT MIDI and so it's a little rectangular dude here and they're even cheaper, they're very inexpensive compared to Neofisk and because they can be used wet or dry. Very, very, very functional in a disaster. And then of course the dry ones, the meal ones also work very well and also are very affordable but they are not wet dry and you have to once again read their information very carefully to make sure you're actually getting ones that are HEPA filter. And these change all the time because they change the models because they are consumer related vacuum cleaner. Here's that 120 inch retractable tape measure I was telling you about. I have to tell you every time I go somewhere either on contract or when I'm on staff these tape measures tend to disappear from my toolkit for some odd reason. They're very, very handy and as you can see they are both metric and standard measurements to make them even more tractable. Whoops, I just lost it. Let's go back. This is what I get for clicking on the link. I didn't realize it was a live link. My apologies. There we go. Okay. Okay, Jess, I've got a problem. I think I'm doubled in here somehow. I'm not a presenter anymore. Oh, okay. So I see you're logged in twice. Yeah, so you probably have two windows open but I'm gonna go ahead and bump your other one up to presenter. So both windows should have seen to you. Thank you. Yeah, I see I am doubled up there. My apologies, but we're almost at the end here. Oh, and I just wanted to mention in Randy's presentation and because I'm the fabric fiber solution for everything, he was talking about Pellon. This is the proper spelling of it, double L. Unfortunately, Pellon should be machine rinsed and air dried before it's used. This is a pain. And so I recommend that you use, obtain and use Hollitex non-woven fabric instead from an archival supplier. Okay, I have just whizzed through this. Please do not hesitate to contact me for any kind of clarifications or if you have further questions. I am happy to help. So any questions? Wonderful, well thank you so much Meg. Yeah, I'll just echo that and say if anyone has any questions right now, please do feel free to go ahead and drop those in the chat window. And thank you so much Meg for sharing your contact information with the group. So if anyone has questions specific to this presentation, please do feel free to get in touch with Meg and of course for those who are watching this as a recording and have questions so we can't answer live. That's a great way to get some more information. I'm not seeing anyone typing anything. Yeah, I think they're just completely- That was just really comprehensive. Oh, it was wonderful. A really thoughtful take on this very important topic. And as we saw from the poll questions, it seems like the institutions that are represented on the program today, so I know we have a lot of folks from the Wolfsonian, some folks from Florida International University Libraries, from Vizcaya, there's just a real diversity of textiles held in all those collections. So this is a very important topic for this group to address. So short of seeing any questions coming in, I guess I'll just go ahead and wrap things up by saying thank you again to everyone who was able to join us live. I know we've had a lot of these programs during the summer months when a lot of people are traveling, so I'm grateful for everyone for taking the time to join in for these. And of course, a big, big thank you to Meg for this really wonderful presentation. As I said, this is such an important topic for everyone and you really did an excellent job covering a range of issues related to textiles and protecting them in these kind of emergency and disaster situations. So thank you, Meg. And thanks again to everyone and I will see you all back here in two weeks' time for our next presentation on fundraising. Have a great summer, everyone.