 Good morning, everyone, or good afternoon. It depends on where you are. I think for most of you, it's probably afternoon. I'm Susan from Learning Times, and it's my delight to welcome you to yet another Connecting to Collections webinar. Several of you have figured out how to use that Q&A pod over to the left to introduce yourself. Let us know your institution in that area. And feel free to ask questions and have conversations over there as we go through the next hour. At this point, I would like to introduce Elsa Huxley from Heritage Preservation, and Elsa will lead you through and then introduce our guest for the day, Elsa. Thanks, Susan. Hello, everyone, welcome. I'm Elsa Huxley from Heritage Preservation, and we are so glad that you're joining us today. Heritage Preservation is moderating the Connecting to Collections online community in cooperation with the American Association for State and Local History, and with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the site is designed and produced by Learning Times. They are hosting this webinar today. The goal of the online community is to help smaller museums, libraries, archives, and historical societies quickly locate reliable preservation resources and network with their colleagues. In developing the community, we have drawn on many resources that were developed for the Connecting to Collections including the Connecting to Collections bookshelf and the Raising the Bar workshops and webinars, and links to these resources are filed under the topics menu on the site. We will also file a recording of today's webinar there. About once or twice a month, the Connecting to Collections online community features a particularly helpful preservation resource and hosts a webinar related to it. The resources we posted for today's webinar can be accessed by clicking this photograph on our web page, www.connectingtocollection.org. So today, we want to welcome Ann Ennis, the textile conservator at the National Park Service Harper's Ferry Center Museum Conservation Services. Ann, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself? Sure. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm a recent National Park Service employee. I started in April. This is a big change for me, but it seems like a very nice bit. I had spent 26 years as a textile conservator with the Textile Museum in Washington, DC, before coming here. This is a big change, but I'm enjoying every bit of it and love being immersed in American history once again. It's been nice. Great. I know we're excited for today's topic. We have some polls that I can pull over, and I just want to make sure to encourage everyone again to feel free to type in your questions in that Q&A box on the left as they occur to you. We may not address them right away, but we will certainly address them during the hour. You might not see them appear as soon as you post them to. This chat is moderated, but every question will be addressed. All right, Ann, should I pull up our poll? Sure. OK. How many flags? Does that poll disappear? It may have gone behind the PowerPoint. OK, sorry about that. OK, so the majority of the people have between one and five, so we do have some people with more in their collections. Let's see. I'll bring up our question about storage. Yes, that would be nice. So is this typical? And so a lot are folded. Most of them are folded. So that's interesting. And how many, we had put in a poll question about how many of you have flags that are permanently on display? That's a typical scenario. Flags, the fact that so many have things stored is good. It looks like about a quarter of them have do rotate flags on display, maybe a little bit less. Right, well, we need to talk more about the storage. Flags do tend to be one of those textiles that are on permanent display. But even if display is well done, it's still stress on the flag, the textiles. So we really want to stress the importance of putting things in storage and letting them rest and be in a good, clean, dark environment to prolong their lives a bit for future generations. Maybe we can bring up, we can go over the rolling since that's sort of what the conservatgram speaks to primarily. And we can maybe put up a couple of the rolled textile pictures. OK, this rolled storage on standardized tubes and then the other rolled textile. Is this the one that you were? Yeah, that's one of them. I don't know what kind of storage facilities everybody has that is here. Ideally, things that are flat. And if they are strong enough, it's ideal to have them rolled so you don't have any creasing issues. I'm a big promoter of boxing textiles. It allows them to have a little bit more protection. And also it buffers them against the environment. And a lot of us don't have ideal environments for our collection try as we might. It's hard to have that ideal relative humidity and temperature. So by putting things in archival boxes, you offer a little bit more buffering ability. And we have seen this with data loggers recording the temperature and humidity. You can put a data logger in a storeroom and put one in an archival box in the same storeroom. And the environment inside that box will be better and the changes will be much more gradual fluctuation. So it's really a good way to preserve the collection. In the one of the screen where you see the small textiles, I have them rolled there in a box. They're cradled with SFOAM at the side. So they are not resting on their bottoms. They're actually suspended within the box. So that's a really great way. If you can standardize, if you have a large collection of say small flags, you can then put them on these standardized tubes that fit within the standard archival boxes. This is really a nice, and it keeps them. You can move the box without them rolling around. It's very safe for transporting things as well. One of my big things is the bows. Bows are great, but they get a little messy in storage. They do have double-sided velcro straps now. A lot of them are kind of harsh and thick still, but if you have a roll like this suspended, there's no reason why you can't use those double-sided velcro straps. They're a little bit tidier, and that's just another option for keeping the rolls intact. Test fabric is one of the suppliers, and I know they carry this, I think, half inch and one inch velcro strapping as well. So that's a good source to think about if you're doing this kind of storage. In just individual rolled items, I really, again, promote the use of muslin. If you get it from Test Fabrics, it's actually called unbleached cotton print cloth. And that's really, again, it offers more buffering to your object. So I would say use that as your leader even. You can use it as your leader on the roll. Roll your object, and then use it as a cover, with Tyvek being the outer wrap, which is a good moisture and light barrier. The picture you're seeing now of the rolled textile, there's the twill tape being tied around it. Make sure that doesn't get tied too tightly so you're squishing the flag, so to speak. Oh, there we go. My computer just went dark for a second. One of the things to be aware of, and this is something I didn't think about until a few years back, but it makes good sense, is the seam that you see of the outer wrap. If you have these in suspended storage on poles, or if you have them sitting on a shelf, you really want that seam of that outer wrap right there to be facing downward. It's easy enough when you're moving objects to and from to not think about that. But if you place it with that seam facing downward, if you ever, god forbid, have a problem with sprinkler heads going off or a leak from an air conditioning unit or whatever from above, any water coming down would go bypass that roll completely and not go in it. So that's just something to be conscious of, just in case of an emergency. That makes sense. So make sure you don't tie it too tight and make sure that you've got the seam pointed down. Are there any other things that people commonly don't think of when they're placing these things in storage that they should? That's the main thing. We have those pictures, as well, of some storage cabinetry, I believe, up here somewhere. Yeah, let me pull those over. Would you like the flat storage or the rolled storage? Yeah, let's do one of each of those. Here's the first of the flat storage photos. And this, again, for flags that are really too fragile to be rolled, having them flat is the best bet. Quite often, silk flags are starting to shatter and getting very fragile, and they really need to be flat. Flags that are painted, a lot of flags have painted areas in the middle, and those as well should be flat, because you're going to get pigment separating from the surfaces, even if you try to roll it. So there are certain occasions when flags should be stored flat. You'll also need to have a place in storage cabinets such as this for the flag poles. Quite often, there's very specific flag poles to each specific flag, as you, I'm sure, all know, and they need to be stored together, as well, and labeled. So that's an option for the poles, as well. Suspended storage, there is a cabinet. We have a picture of a cabinet here somewhere of some suspended storage. Here we go. These are drawers with the powder-coated steel flats that run through the archival tube. So each flag is rolled on an archival tube, but then threaded through this stainless steel powder-coated support, and then it just opens up like a drawer. So this is a really good way, again, of storing smaller flags or even longer ones. This looks like they have put, I think, I believe this is Gettysburg, and they have put Mylar, I believe, around as the outer wrap. I still like to put Tyvek. It's just a good light barrier. Yes, in theory, things are in dark storage, but quite often, storerooms are, you know, people go into, whether they're cleaning or going to research and doing a little bit of viewing. As much as we encourage that to be done elsewhere, quite often, it happens in the storage room. So it's always good to have an extra light barrier. Do you see we had a question about what type of a marker should be used with a Tyvek? Right, I use a permanent marker. As long as you use a permanent marker that works, you should always label the Tyvek before you roll it on the tube, because it does, like a Sharpie pen, for instance, will bleed through slightly, so you want to do it before you're anywhere near the object, but that works just fine. In fact, a good way of labeling flags and textiles now is using Tyvek sheets. This is a system we had come up with a few years back. And actually printing up a whole bunch of numbers on a Tyvek sheet, you can order Tyvek sheets paper size and run them through an inkjet printer, which is permanent, and then cut out the labels to attach to your object. One thing nice about Tyvek, it won't dissolve or deteriorate if it gets wet. And as I say, the inkjet or a Sharpie marker, those are all permanent. So it's just a good way for labeling. OK. And we had a question earlier from Catherine, and later she said she saw the benefits of using the Tyvek because of the potential for water damage. Are there any other materials that you would suggest using? She was saying maybe unbleached muslin, or is it? Yeah, I like to use both, actually. Just, you know, conservators are always a little obsessive, but you always try to do as much as you can for the object. And using the muslin and the Tyvek together, the Tyvek's a good light barrier, a good moisture barrier. The muslin is good for buffering. Again, buffering from an environment that might not be ideal. So if you can use the muslin as your leader and your cover and then use the Tyvek as the outer wrap, that makes a nice little unit. So you've got buffering going on. You have protection from moisture and dust. Muslin can always be washed and reused, and that's another good feature of muslin. Should I show the other flat storage or rolled storage photos? Would that be helpful? Sure. Let's do the world one first. Here we go. Is that another view of the same cabinet? I believe that's another view. OK. Oh, and now Catherine has a question. Will the permanent marker bleed if there was a water leak? It shouldn't, but I always test to make sure that it is permanent in water. So it should be fine. Sharpie pens are usually fine, but test it if you have any questions. Always good to be safe and sorry. Here's another view of that flat storage cabinet. That's good for, as you say, for silk flags that shouldn't be folded or rolled. For flags to be rolled, I mean, the small ones are fine on the 2-inch diameter tubes that you can get and put into boxes, that sort of thing. 3-inch diameter tubes are great for the majority of flags. If you have a flag that's particularly long, or if it's a little bit fragile, you probably do want to go to a wider diameter. OK. OK, and Dan Kokenspeiger, who was one of our experts on our Working with Emergency Responders webinar a couple months ago, asks, how about lining with acid-free unbuffered tissue paper? Yep, that's fine too. Absolutely. And that also offers buffering against the environment. So unbuffered tissue is definitely good to use. Now interleaving is something that doesn't always need to be done. If you have suspect dies, and you're not sure about your environment, yes, I would go ahead and interleave your flag as you roll it. If you have flags with holes or anything like that where it could catch on itself as you roll, interleave with unbuffered tissue. Another instance is if it has any kind of embellishments or metallic threads that again might catch on itself, it's really important to interleave with unbuffered tissue. So definitely I would suggest that. Now there's one caveat I have, and I've seen a couple flags in my past that had been previously mounted not well, I have to say. Quite often, flags would get glued down at their edges, and probably some of you have seen the same thing. And so you have a little bit of glue residue all along the edges, which in theory seems to be dry and hard. But if you have that situation, and it's an environment where it's a little humid, temperatures a little high, that can become tacky. And so I have seen a couple times now where tissue paper has been interleaved in the flag. It's finally been properly rolled, but the tissue paper has stuck to those edges. So that creates another issue of removal. So that's just something to be aware of. If you have some kind of embellishment, pigments, possible adhesive issues, I would suggest using silicon relief paper. And that is available from a lot of these archival supply companies. And interleave with that instead. That way you won't get anything sticking. Does that make sense? You were saying interleave with the tissue. Is Jenny in North Dakota is asking if you can interleave with muslin as well? Yeah, you can do that as well. You just have to make sure as you're doing it, you're smoothing out any ripples. Sometimes interleaving, you're adding a whole other layer, which is you are with the tissue as well. But you don't want anything to catch on the textile. Muzzlin has a little bit of nap, just because it is another fiber. That's the only thing to be aware of. And again, make sure you're smoothing it out as you roll. Whenever you have more than one layer, for instance, quilts or things like that, or things that are lined, you're going to have rippling on that inside layer as you roll. It's just something that's inevitable. So you just need to watch that. Should I pull over the PDF you sent about making a pock and ed, or would you like to talk about terminology? Yeah, actually, let's do the stock net. Since it did seem like a lot of people had flags that were folded. I don't know if flags were folded in boxes or folded in big drawers. I'm not sure. Yeah. Pull it over. And if you're having any trouble reading this, I've uploaded it to the website. And you'll be able to download it after that. So this is just a very simple way of padding out folds for textiles and flags that do need to be folded. I would suggest making these stock net sausages, so to speak. They're a little tidier than the tissue. You can still crunch up as a free tissue, and that works well also. But out of the sausages out of stock net, they hold up longer, especially if you're unfolding and putting it on display or putting it back. It just holds up for a longer period of time. And the loft of the batting will also hold up sometimes better than tissue. If you get a heavy flag, that tissue is going to crunch and not really do its job after a while. The stock net, you can just use cotton or polyester stock net. It's usually sold in surgical supply companies. And it's very handy. I actually prefer the 1 inch, but I think this is 2 inch that works fine too. You thread it over a small tube. We call them tubettes. And you put your batting, which you cut to maybe 2 inches, tops. And you thread that through the inside of the tube. And then with a little extra stock net at the edge, you can then pinch it carefully and pull it through as a unit. And it's a really, it's like magic, but it makes a good little faucet. It's just nice and tidy. And that you can pat out your folds. I am hoping that you can then put your folded flag in a box for extra protection. You should always fold it as little as possible. You basically want to fit it into the box that it's going into, the bigger the better. So you don't have too many folds. Another thing that I like to do for things in boxes is to make an envelope of muslin. Again, unbleached cotton print cloth. Make just a big piece, cut a big piece that can go and envelope around your object before you put it in the box. And then you can also label that muslin with its number. Again, if you're putting more than one in a box, that allows you to lift the flag carefully in and out of that box by the muslin envelope instead of by the object itself. So it's just a nice, easy way of accessing the object. OK, you could use this for other kinds of textiles, too, as Catherine points out. If you do fold your flags, and some do have emblems and things in the center or in the upper left, you try to fold them so you're not interfering with anything like that. And sometimes it's good to refold in a different area if they're long term and storage that way. So would you unpack them and refold them in a certain amount of time, like every few months? Or what would you recommend? Oh, no, I wouldn't say every few months, but maybe once a year. It depends, again, if they're by themselves or if they have other things on top of them. It's nice to use trays in the 30 inch archival boxes and the 40 inch archival boxes. You can actually purchase trays that go in those. And so you stack the trays rather than the object. It's very nice. It cuts down on rummaging. You can label the box so you know what's in the top or bottom tray. However, the bigger size boxes don't come with trays. So you have to think about the weight and always putting your stronger flag or textile on the bottom. Dan is asking if the protection offered by the stockinette precludes the need to make sure that the tube is acid free. Oh, the tube is just to make the stockinette. Oh, and then you take it out once the stockinette is made. The tube is a tool that you use to make the sausage. The sausage is simply the stockinette with the batting inside. I did this really quickly the other day. And if it's not clear, people can feel free to email me or whatever if they need a little bit more of an idea of how to do this. But it's really just the batting inside the stockinette. And that's what you're using to pad out your fold. The tube is just a tool to make the sausage. OK, and that answers Adrienne's question, too, I think. Yeah. Let's see. So we have a question now from Deborah at the Reginald Bluist in Baltimore. You stated earlier to use inkjet on mylar for labeling, but I believe you meant laser because it uses plastic to print and not ink. No, I didn't mean any of that. So let's go back to that. Good. I'm glad I came up. It's always good to clarify. I'm glad you asked. Inkjet ink will work on Tyvek. I don't suggest it for mylar. You can print on Tyvek to make, say, a catalog label or something for your object. And the inkjet, the inks used in inkjet printers will be permanent on the Tyvek. I have tested it in water and let it soak, and it is permanent. I wouldn't, the laser, you cannot put a Tyvek sheet through a laser printer because of the heat involved. So inkjet is the way to go if you're doing any kind of printing. I don't know how mylar would behave, but that also wouldn't be able to go through a laser jet printer because of the heat, I would imagine. So Tyvek, because as I say, it won't deteriorate when it gets wet, and the inkjet, inks are more permanent and will work for good quality. Again, I would suggest always testing it because inks will vary. But I would do a test, go ahead and print something out on Tyvek and then put it in water and see what happens. I'm glad we clarified that. That was a very good question. One of the, I don't know whether you all wear gloves when you handle your flags. Gloves are important when the flags are dirty, which quite often, if they're out on display, they will be. I would suggest wearing the nitrile gloves. Cotton gloves are fine, providing they're not linty, but the nitrile gloves are actually your best bet. They're disposable, easier to deal with. Quite often what I see is people using the cotton gloves, but they're using very dirty cotton gloves. And that's what I usually suggest for just washing your hands a lot. You don't want to transfer the dirt from object to object or to yourself, so you really need to either launder the gloves a lot or use the disposable gloves or just wash your hands often. We have a list of suppliers that you made available. I can pull that up. Or if it's posted, people can go back and print it out. I don't imagine I may want to sit there and scribble it. Well, if we don't have any other questions, do you want me to pull over the flag terminology? Oh, here we do have one actually. What's your suggestion for laundering the gloves? Just, I would suggest using the tied, free, the laundry detergents that don't have all the extra perfumes and additives in them. I know tied makes one. I think some of the others do as well. And just make sure they're well rinsed. Here's another question. I want to ask about special treatment for the hoist end of the flag, grommets, ties, et cetera. Right. The main thing is to have that hoist end on the outside of the roll, because they are, it's much more bulky. And the grommets, again, can end up denting into your object, your flag, cause issues. So on the conservergram, you will see that we do suggest rolling from the fly end first to the hoist end. And that's also another reason why it's really great to be able to suspend your rolled flag in the end, because you won't have the indentations from the grommets and things like that. Again, you want to think about your humidity and temperature levels when you have things like grommets. Any kind of metal will corrode much faster in bad environments. So it's another reason for keeping your environmental area fairly stable, or anything else on that. What about cleaning the metal? That is really something to get a conservator to do. Sometimes there's not too much you can do to it, usually. But that's more of a metals conservator, objects conservator question. There are little, for instance, fiberglass brushes you can use and swap things with mineral spirits. But again, it goes into a little bit more detail than the average person wants to probably get involved with. And if anyone is trying to find a conservator, we do the best way to find one at the www.conservation-us.org website of AIC. And I was wondering what the storage situations are like for people who are listening. Do you have good environments? Do you have cabinets? Are your flags suspended if they're rolled? That sort of thing. I'm curious. We all struggle with providing good storage. We all end up having to do the best we can. Do you have that supplier list? I do. Let me grab that for you. Oh, I see that comment about the gloves wearing cotton under the nitrile gloves. That actually works fine too. You do want to make sure you can still feel very comfortable handling your objects. If you have too much bulk, you lose your sense of touch and feel. So I'm back to looking at comments over here. I'm pulling up the supplier list. Should you clean a flag before storing it? And I think I saw a follow-up question. If so, how would you do it? Vacuum wash. Vacuum. Vacuum is your best bet. And definitely because the flags are out in elements usually, inside or outside, doesn't matter. They're going to be getting dusty. So definitely vacuum them. We recommend nilfisk vacuums or other hepatite filter vacuums. And if you can get one where you can adjust the suction, that's even better. So you want to use a low suction. And usually use a vacuum through a screen. Either a nylon mesh or a fiberglass screen is the easiest. And vacuum through that, especially if the flag has any kind of fringes or embellishments on it. It's always safest to vacuum through a screen. Here we have a question back from Adrienne in North Carolina. Would a layer of tissue still be the best interleaf with grommets, or would you recommend corrosion intercept? I would still probably just use the tissue or the muslin. But again, you should be checking on your things in storage occasionally to make sure there's nothing major going on. OK. Robert Swanson told you that the cabinets that they're using are retired Park Service cabinets. Might be the same ones that you have, I wonder. And Catherine says, we have three cabinets of flat storage, but most of ours are rolled on homemade suspended racks. Our conserved flags are framed. If anybody having to use wooden dowels and poles, sometimes that was the old school easiest to do. However, you need to think about the wood and all the acidity coming from the wood. If you have to use it, that's fine. There is something you can do to guard against the wood acid, and that's something called Marvel Seal, also available from these archival suppliers. It's really an aluminized polyethylene, so you can actually iron it on. It's really simple to use. It irons sticks to itself. You iron it on whatever you're covering, and it becomes a complete vapor and acid barrier. I think it was developed by the military years ago for munitions, but it's being used more and more in conservation to add a barrier against any kind of acid. That's a really good way to, again, I've heard of people having to use regular tubes rather than archival tubes just because of a budget money situation, but then those could be covered with Marvel Seal as well. There's lots of different options. That seal would go on the wooden rod that they were being wrapped around. I'm wondering about the question that Janet had about the triangle wood flag frame. It should not be stored in triangle wood. I know what you're talking about. They do market those. Usually, they're for very contemporary flags, which are probably fine. But, again, yes, the wood frames are acidic, even if they're sealed somewhat. Who knows what they're sealed with? So, yes, something you could do is Marvel Seal the interior of those so the wood acid is not coming in contact. Would you recommend not using those if possible? Yeah, again, that's sort of a judgment call. But, yeah, they're not for long-term and for certainly older, more fragile flags. Absolutely not. And we have a question about wrinkles. From Deborah, some flags have multiple seams because of stripes, and this makes it difficult to prevent wrinkles from occurring. Do you have suggestions to prevent them from occurring? Yeah, that's true. A lot of things when you roll don't roll smoothly. There's always issues within the objects and flags are a perfect example because they do have very thick seams where they have overlapped. So, what you can do to compensate is take some unbuffered tissue and fold it to fit within those seams. And as you roll it, have that tissue as being the extra level to make up for that thickness and roll it as you go. There's a lot of compensation you have to make quite often when you have flags with sort of more the banner type flags with triangular ends, fly ends. Those two, you can compensate by putting acid-free tissue in that area so you bring it up to the same thickness level. Okay. Okay, Robert says this question has been discussed with private owners of military memorabilia who maybe were given with the wooden frames as I assume what he is talking about. Those things, they're sold by framers. You see them in catalogs because people are presented with the flags folded like that. That's the way you fold flags, contemporary American flags. But for older ones, no. It's really not good for the flag. Let's see, wrinkles. Yes, we discussed that. See, we have the suppliers up here. Oh, okay. Robert says for the long-term, they're stored rolled. Now, I could pull up the conservogram. Just so everybody has a chance to see it. Of course, it's a PDF and can be downloaded from the website. Do you think that would be helpful? Sure, that would be fine. Or we could go into the discussion of pests as well. Oh, right. Okay. That first. Sure. Let me grab the pictures. One of the domestic family. There's two pests that you have to be particularly weary of and that's the domestic family. It's all kinds of beetles from the adult-varied carpet beetle to the furniture beetle, the common carpet beetle. There's a lot of variations to the black carpet beetle. They're all in the domestic family and they all eat protein. So the domestic are something to watch for as well as the clothes moths, which are either the webbing or the case-making moths. So all of these will eat any kind of protein. And of course, flags are quite often made of silk and wool. So definitely need to watch out for them. These beetles are tiny. Maybe an eighth of an inch if that. The adult beetles are really, really small. So they're hard to... Once you know what you're looking for, you can find them. The larvas are soft-bodied and rather hairy. Now the black carpet beetle is more worm-like and has like tail hairs at the end. And they all do cat...they molt. And they cast their skins, their ex-go-skeletons. So quite often you may not see the larva, but you might see these castings floating about. So you need to be on the watch for those. They like dark undisturbed places, which is what our storerooms are. So you need to be careful. You'll see frass. The frass of the beetle is much finer. It's all granular, but it's much finer than the moth frass. Now carpet beetles chew very nice, neat, clean, circular holes. It's pretty amazing. So you can kind of tell what kind of damage you're looking at in a flag. You can tell that usually between moth and carpet beetles. Carpet beetles are very tidy. So if you find this casting, what should you do? I would suggest doing a thorough cleaning. You might want to isolate the flag in the area where you found it, or freeze it, depending if you have the capability for freezing. Freezing is what most people do now, is to kill bugs, to kill both adults, larvae, and eggs. You can go to CCI, which is the Canadian Conservation Institute, and they have a great series of notes, technical notes on all kinds of different topics. And one of them is on controlling insects with low temperature. So that goes over the protocol for freezing. But that's something I definitely recommend. If there's any question, it's highly suspect or you definitely have an active infestation you want to freeze. If you're not sure, again, you can isolate the flag in question or a couple flags, wrap them securely in a good quality polyethylene, and seal them up completely, and just watch them for a month or two, three months, and see if anything's happening. If you don't see any activity, maybe everything's fine, and give it a good vacuuming and put it away. And the main thing is to clean the storeroom. Quite often, if you see a little bit more activity, it means you need to do a better job cleaning your storeroom, checking window sills and light fixtures and things like that for any other dead bugs, because even dead bugs will be food for these. As I say, hair, feathers, hide, silk wool, any protein is what they like to eat, and that includes other dead bugs. Okay, here are your photos of the moss. So after you freeze it, you would take it out, vacuum it again. So when you inspected it, you'd be fighting something new if you saw other castings, I'm assuming. Absolutely. Okay. And so the freezing, as I say, you can follow the protocol in the CCI notes. Again, you can feel free to email me if you need extra guidelines. The moss, again, the moss are really small. A lot of times you'll see moss, but they're not the closed moss. Closed moss, again, are very small. They're usually about a quarter inch, five-eighths of an inch if that, the adults. And they're straw, golden-colored and very feathery. But then the case-making actually is darker brown, and it has spots on its wings, so it's a little bit different. But again, both are very small. The larvae are the ones that do the eating. So that's what you'll see feeding on your object. And the frass will be quite often the color of whatever they're feeding on. When you're making one, the cases, the cocoons that they're dragging along with them will be the color of what they're feeding on. So sometimes you have to really look closely to see them and always look behind seams and things like that because that's where they'll be. So again, their frass is a little bit bigger. It's a little more granular than the frass of the carpet beetle. And I would worry a little bit more with moss than with carpet beetles. They produce faster just because of their life cycle. Also, their eggs, they have sort of a sticky substance, gelatinous substance, when they attach their eggs, when they lay their eggs. So they tend to stick on the textiles, the flags, the carpets, whatever, a little bit more than a carpet beetle. So it just makes a higher risk for an infestation taking hold. Any other questions? Okay, I see one from Renee. I notice this is being recorded while I be able to rewind it and play it again. Yes, we will provide a video within a day on the website, and that will also have links to the various resources and the presentation and other things that you've been shown today. And Dan is asking, is there less worry about insect damage with synthetic, for example, nylon versus natural material in flags? Yes, absolutely. Again, the damage, the moths and carpet beetles need protein to survive. They will chew holes through synthetics to get to a better source. But generally, no, they're not going to be as susceptible to the bugs or the mold, and they'll do anything like that. Yeah, mold is another thing you do need to be conscious of. The mold spores are always in the air. It's just a matter of if the humidity and temperature is high enough, they will then be able to grow. So you just need to be conscious of that as well. It's basically enzymes are excreted, the fungi excrete enzymes, and it's actually they start digesting the surface of your object, and that's when you start seeing the tell-tale signs of mold. So definitely it's something to be conscious of as well, but we can work on our environment, bring in dehumidifiers, whatever you need to do, get air circulating. In order to get rid of the mold? Once you spot the mold, what should you do? That you should make sure you have protection. Mold is, you have to be very careful, and again, there's a lot of good information on mold, both in the conservograms and in CCI notes, and I would suggest reading all of that before you even tackle something. Hopefully you wouldn't have a big problem. Some of the staining you might see that looks like mold, if it's been there long enough time, you're going to have a hard time getting it out, and probably isn't, you know, you can vacuum, but it's probably not going to come out if it's been there long enough. But if you have a major mold outbreak, you really need to contact somebody to help you with that and read all the literature, because it can be a real nightmare and a real risk to your health as well. So proceed cautiously. Okay. One thing as far as flags go, I think we all in general, they're such utilitarian objects, we see them and they're out on display outside, and you think of them as sturdy objects, but quite often some of the older ones, they've been on display for so long in the elements, in the polluted air, and I think people tend to handle them a little bit more, I don't know, a little less respect, I mean flags have respect, but at the same time, I think they think of them as sturdy objects, so, but if they've been on display for a very long time and subjected to the pollutants in the air and the soils, they all may be a little more fragile than we're thinking, so I guess that would be one of my big cautions when handling flags, is to just really handle very gently, you know, and try to look at the condition, and also note the condition down before things go back on display. A lot of you were rotating your collection, so it's really important to document the condition before and after display so you can gauge what's happening, if anything, hopefully nothing. Yes, I'm just looking at this question that came up about humidification, and definitely if they need to be humidified, if they have creases from past-folding, that sort of thing, you can do that. There's definitely techniques to creating humidification chambers for entire flags, or there's actually a much smaller way of doing it, and we didn't put those up there, but I have information on how to humidify small localized areas, like small creases, and that can be done, or you can contact a conservator to do that for you. It usually involves a Gore-Tex layer and a cotton flannel, and you can work at small creases a little bit at a time to gently relax these. You sort of make little micro humidification chambers with using mylar over it and weighting it down, leaving it be, and then moving it along a creased area. So it's a really gentle way of dealing with a crease, and I do have information on that, but you can also contact a conservator. Okay, I can post that information too with the webinar recording. What about the question about dyes? When you're humidifying them, will the dyes be all right? That's something to think about. That's why you definitely need to do it slowly and carefully, and check the dyes. Put blotter underneath and above to make sure nothing... because sometimes dyes will, even in high humidity, start moving, so you really have to be conscious of that. That's why a lot of times we don't like the idea of steaming things out. A lot of people will take steamers to textiles and flags and other things, but that's a hot steam, and that can definitely cause movement of dyes, and also can set in any kind of soils and stains that are there. It can just make them set in a little bit more. So that's something you want to stay away from. Okay. Janine is asking, how can you support a flag that has been hanging on a wall for many, many years in order to safely take it down? I would suggest having a flat support slash big box type tray right up there. I don't know how far it's been up there, but to have it right there when you're taking it down so you can kind of lower it down, sort of accordion pleat it down into this support carefully. I don't know whether it's something hanging from a pole or from... I can't picture it, but definitely have, before you start taking it down, have your plan in place and have a nice big catch tray available forward, or even Tyvek or Muslin to have it fall sort of gently accordion pleated into that. Almost like sailors would flake. I think it's called flaking a sail when they bring it down. You want to sort of do the same thing. I'm looking at this next question. Mothballs. Yes, mothballs are bad news. For us and the objects, yeah, you really need to try to air it out, but yeah, they've been found to affect the dyes and it's really hard to get that out. And we certainly... Now, that's one reason to wear gloves. Again, not only protect the objects, but sometimes we want to protect ourselves. Sometimes these things are impregnated with mothballs or other who-knows-what-else moth-proofing agents, and we don't want to be absorbing that through our skin. So definitely, if you're dealing with that kind of thing, have good ventilation in the area you're working in and make sure you're wearing gloves. And you're going to have to try to somehow air it out, but yeah, it's a problem. Okay. Do you ever recommend that people wear masks while they're working with... Mask are helpful, but you almost need to have the appropriate respirators, and those are, you know, you have to make sure they're fitted properly. But yes, a respirator for something like that, like if you have a real mold problem, if you have a horrible mothball or other problem, you need to get proper fitted respirators. You can get those at lab safety and supply. And yeah, I would definitely look into that if you have a big problem. Okay. Janine followed up on her question about taking down the flag by saying it's tacked to the wall by the top corners. It's a small Confederate battle flag. Oh, that's sad. Okay. It needs to come down. Yeah. I would definitely... I don't know how big it is, but if you can have something sort of right up there, I don't know if you have a hijacker or ladders or how high it is, but if you can have two people up, say it's tacked on both corners, you need to have two people up on ladders at each side, but then a couple people below to catch it and to cradle it as it comes down, hopefully fairly high as well. So, yeah, you definitely want to support it. Okay. You don't want to take one side down before the other and keep the weight of it pulled, I'm assuming. Exactly. Okay. And then you're going to want to vacuum it if it's been up for a long time. Anytime, you definitely want to vacuum flags after they've been on exhibition and before you roll them for storage. You can also freeze them too if you think there may be an issue before it goes back into your storage room is to freeze things after they come down for exhibition just to be safe. That's a really good thing. Washing, as I say, is... Washing is an irreversible thing. If dyes run or something... Washing is something you want to stay away from. And also flags quite often have evidence of the battles on the flags, and so washing a flag is not something to be undertaken unless it's really critical. So stick to just good, thorough vacuuming and possibly freezing if it tends to be wool and silk and if you think there might be an issue. Okay. We have about five minutes left, so I'd like to encourage everyone to put any last-minute questions up that you wanted to have answered now. You're from Adrian for the Mossballed Items. Would you recommend placing in a box with activated carbon paper with muslin in between the artifact and the activated carbon paper? You could try that. I don't know... I don't have experience with that and how successful it has been. It would be interesting to do it as an experiment to see, but that is a possibility. I'd be very interested and if you've had experience with that or somebody that has tried that, I'd be interested in seeing and hearing about how it responds. We have a discussion section on the webpage, too, and if anybody wants to contribute information about how they've used any of these suggestions or how things have worked for them, that'd be a great place to share that information. Michelle's battleship flag smells of oil and gas. How should it be stored? Again, I would use a lot of muslin that might help to absorb some of that slowly over time and then you could wash it, maybe make a plan on washing that muslin and replacing it with the clean muslin and maybe over time that would absorb some of that. That's an interesting problem. I'm just going to take a minute here to pull over a link to an evaluation that we ask people to fill out for us. It's not very long, it's about six questions, but we haven't made the plan for our December webinar live chat event yet and so your suggestions at the end of this evaluation will be really helpful to us. You can open that in another link and not leave us quite yet, but that's where it's going to be. It's a pearl harbor flag. It's part of its provenance. The oil and gas smell I mean from the battleship flag. That's an issue. Yeah, I think maybe just using the muslin and maybe even interleaving with the muslin throughout the flag and then washing that and changing that regularly to see if that will help reduce it. Again, I'd be interested in experience with this and if that would work. Other ideas? Get that evaluation link back up here. All right, well we just have about two minutes left. One last question. Maybe we're done. Well, I just wanted to mention again that I'll be posting all the different resources that we've been providing today as well as an additional one, I think, about how to humidify the flags and anything else that comes up. So feel free to keep posting questions here for a minute or to join us online on the community in the group discussion board. Anne, I want to thank you very much. Very welcome, my pleasure. Thank you, Susan. You're welcome. This was certainly, as several of the guests said, this was very helpful and very timely. With veterans today? Yeah. Okay, well don't forget to fill out the evaluation everyone and give us suggestions for December.