Heritage Preservation Programs Transition to FAIC

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Washington, DC — April 27, 2015 — Throughout its 33-year history, first as the National Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Property and then under its current name, Heritage Preservation has fulfilled its mission to preserve the nation’s heritage for future generations through innovative leadership and educational agendas. It has steadily advocated for the protection of cultural heritage by creating programs, publications, and easily accessed products that advance the field of conservation and serve the needs of allied preservation professions.
Heritage Preservation’s programs have been tested and proven. Hence, they are trusted and highly valued. Their loss would be severely felt throughout the cultural heritage community. Research undertaken over the past six months indicates that several synergies exist between the programs of the DC-based Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) and Heritage Preservation. For this reason, following the recent vote by Heritage Preservation members approving its dissolution as of June 30, 2015, several popular Heritage Preservation programs will transition to FAIC, thus ensuring their continuation.
Programs That Will Move to FAIC
FAIC will administer and lead three primary emergency planning, preparedness, and response programs currently offered by Heritage Preservation: Alliance for Response (AFR), State Heritage Emergency Partnership (SHEP), and Risk Evaluation and Planning Program (REPP). FAIC will also promote the annual MayDay campaign in 2015 and into the future. Heritage Preservation’s plan to develop an app called the Disaster Assessment Reporting Tool (DART) is on hold until funding is obtained to develop a prototype.
Transfer of the Connecting to Collections (C2C) Online Community program, and other activities related to the statewide preservation planning and implementation program developed and funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), with programmatic assistance from Heritage Preservation, began in December 2014, and has been fully implemented as C2C Care.
FAIC is in the process of hiring additional programmatic and support staff, as well as part-time contractors, to ensure that former Heritage Preservation activities will thrive. Four key Heritage Preservation staff members will be retained, allowing uninterrupted access to their expertise.
Heritage Preservation’s joint award with the College Art Association was presented in February 2015 in New York City. The College Art Association and the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) have agreed to form a partnership in time for the 2016 award. It is hoped that a new organizational arrangement for the joint Heritage Preservation/AIC Ross Merrill Award for Outstanding Commitment to the Preservation and Care of Collections can be announced prior to the 2016 award cycle.
Although FAIC will not directly oversee Heritage Preservation’s Save Outdoor Sculpture! and Rescue Public Murals programs, existing digital materials from these and other initiatives will be hosted on FAIC’s Conservation OnLine (CoOL) website to ensure continued access.
The Smithsonian Institution Archives, the Campbell Center, the National Park Service, the Library of Congress, the Washington Conservation Guild, the University of Maryland Archives, Conservation Resources Management, and the George Washington University Libraries graciously agreed to accept library and archival materials so that they may continue to be put to good use.
After April 30, 2015, the Heritage Preservation Board of Directors will:

  • donate the intellectual property rights for the name and logo of Heritage Preservation to FAIC;
  • transfer copyrights and inventory of all Heritage Preservation publications and products to FAIC so that these important resources can continue to be distributed;
  • work with FAIC to arrange for mail, product sales, and the website URLs to be redirected to FAIC;
  • and allocate all unencumbered monies and transfer unspent funds, as appropriate, to FAIC when the closure of Heritage Preservation is completed.

Other Key Heritage Preservation Programs
The completion and successful delivery of Heritage Health Information 2014, funded by an IMLS grant award with additional support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Getty Foundation, and others, will continue to be Heritage Preservation’s principal activity for the first half of 2015, with results tabulated and disseminated to the cultural heritage community by summer 2015.
The IMLS Conservation Assessment Program (CAP), managed by Heritage Preservation, will close on April 30, 2015. Further information about this program can be found at www.imls.gov.
Plans are underway to place the Heritage Emergency National Task Force, of which FAIC is an active member, under the jurisdiction of a federal agency.
Additional Information
Questions or comments regarding the status of Heritage Preservation programs may be directed to Tom Clareson, Acting President, Heritage Preservation (tclareson@heritagepreservation.org), or Eryl Wentworth, Executive Director, Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation (ewentworth@conservation-us.org).
 
To download the announcement, please go to http://www.conservation-us.org/about-us/press-room/hp-release

Climate Change Blog Post 2: Sustainability in light of disaster

In light of this year’s conference theme, Practical Philosophy or Making Conservation Work, the Sustainability Committee would like to highlight how something as intangible as climate change directly affects the practical side of conservation.
This is 2 of 3 in the series of blog posts that explores this relationship. In this one we offer a case study of how climate change affected one institution.


Climate change may seem like an esoteric topic to the average conservator until it hits close to home. In the summer of 2012, parts of the American Midwest experienced drought conditions. Extreme heat, coupled with severe cold the previous winter, led to pavement shifting and subsequent water main breaks. In fact, in the greater Kansas City area, dozens of water main breaks occurred daily at the peak of the summer of 2012.
On August 1, 2012, Lawrence, Kansas, experienced near record high heat. That morning, when staff entered the Murphy Art and Architecture Library at the University of Kansas (KU), located below grade on the first floor of the university art museum, water was rushing in from the ceiling. The art museum was situated halfway down a steep hill, and a water main break in the road above led to water entering the building and traveling down to the library. The force of the water inundated the 14,000 square foot space, covering the floor with many inches of water in short time, and drenching the library stacks with water on the way down.
Ceiling tiles and wet floor after a water main break in the University of Kansas art library. Courtesy University of Kansas Libraries.

Ceiling tiles and dirty water remain after the water from the ceiling stopped. Image: University of Kansas Libraries

Luckily, the University of Kansas Libraries had a disaster plan in place and quickly came up with a recovery plan. Nearly one-hundred volunteers helped remove wet books from the space on the day of the disaster and package them for transport from the library. The combined staff contribution was 279 work hours on the day of the disaster, and subsequent work on further days added many additional hours of staff labor.
Boxing wet books for removal to an off-site drying facility. Courtesy University of Kansas Libraries.

Books packed in boxes for removal to the disaster recovery company. Image: University of Kansas Libraries

The Collections Emergency Response Team worked with university leaders to contract with a disaster recovery company that vacuum-freeze-dried over 17,000 volumes. While better than 97% of the volumes were recovered, thanks to significant planning and training before the event, the toll on the conservation lab was still significant. In fact, between the disaster in August and the following February, the staff in the Stannard Conservation Laboratory focused almost entirely on treatment of materials recovered from the disaster. All but the most urgent outside treatment requests were put on hold.
Industrial dehumidification equipment.

Industrial dehumidification equipment used to dry out the space. Image: University of Kansas Libraries

The damage to the library building was extensive, and the library was closed for over a month. Because the space had to be rebuilt from the ground up, 26,000 volumes not affected by the water main break still had to be moved from the space. Drywall was cut up to 24 inches from the floor to prevent mold growth, so books on wall-mounted shelves had to be removed. Likewise, soggy carpet had to be discarded, requiring that books on bottom shelves in freestanding shelving ranges be relocated. Staff volunteered 212 hours of their time to help place these books on trucks, and hired contractors moved them to a location across campus. Although in an ideal world the collections would not have been returned to a basement-grade location, space restrictions necessitated reusing the existing library.
Rebuilding compact shelving after a disaster. Courtesy University of Kansas Libraries.

Rebuilding compact shelving from scratch. Image: University of Kansas Libraries

In this one, but fairly typical, example, the resources that went into recovering the collections and library space were extensive: nearly five hundred hours of staff time were diverted from other projects to remove books from the space and six months of conservation staff time were focused almost exclusively on recovery of collections. Perhaps the most challenging aspect of this experience is that extreme heat and cold may occur in future years and such a disaster could possibly be repeated. Certainly there are extensive references available to aid us in preparing for a likely disaster, but do we have adequate training to respond to the often very large events that result from climate change? Are we prepared to reserve the resources—financial, personnel, supplies—that such disaster may take? How can we sustain our collections without taxing limited resources?
Email us at sustainability@conservation-us.org or post a comment below.

Climate Change Blog Post 1 – Water, Water Everywhere

In light of this year’s conference theme, Practical Philosophy or Making Conservation Work, the Sustainability Committee would like to highlight how something as intangible as climate change directly affects the practical side of conservation.
This is 1 of 3 in the series of blog posts that explores this relationship. In this one we ask the question “how has climate change affected conservators in the work they do?”

——

Climate change affects everyone, including conservators. For the past few years I’ve been researching sustainability and conservation. Making sustainability seem relevant on a practical level is one of the most challenging parts about convincing others to change their habits.
Much like damage to artifacts due to improper handling or prolonged light exposure, the consequences of climate change becomes more apparent once you see what you’ve been avoiding, the worst-case scenarios. What specific events have already happened where extreme weather and climate change negatively affected how conservators care for art and cultural heritage? Since this year’s conference is held in tropical Miami, this post focuses on weather-related water damage and how it affects conservators and the work they do.
It’s no surprise that floods, storms, and hurricanes have adversely affected many cultural institutions. While many storage facilities raise their lowest shelves a few inches off the ground, take into account the following examples as a cautionary tale of what could happen, even to the most prepared institution.
Photos of water-damaged artifacts at the National Guard Militia Museum.  Photo source: Ashley Peskoe | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com.

Photos of water-damaged artifacts at the National Guard Militia Museum.
Photo source: Ashley Peskoe | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com.

The National Guard Militia Museum in New Jersey experienced severe flood damage during Hurricane Sandy when five feet of water got into their collections storage site. The damage was extensive and difficult to assess. How do you assign value to irreplaceable photographs and handwritten letters? When the “conservation treatment for each large flag would cost between $20,000 to $30,000” how do you prioritize it over other objects? What about the “465 oral history interviews from veterans dating back to World War II, which got wet in the storm”? After the hurricane even the records of these oral histories “were glued to the floor,” said assistant curator Carol Fowler.
The flooded National September 11 Memorial Museum, 2012. Photo Source: Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company.

The flooded National September 11 Memorial Museum, 2012.
Photo Source: Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company.

At the same time the National September 11 Memorial Museum, then still under construction, was “filled with at least seven feet of water during the [Hurricane Sandy] storm.” The flooding had nearly immersed two fire trucks, while the symbolic last column, the steel cross, and the survivor’s stairway were all also partially submerged. And this damage happened after years of conservation and climate controlled storage.
The hurricane damaged Lone Star Flight Museum. Photo Source: Property of the Experimental Aircraft Association.

The hurricane damaged Lone Star Flight Museum.
Photo Source: Property of the Experimental Aircraft Association.

Similarly in 2008 Hurricane Ike devastated the Lone Star Flight Museum “with 6 to 8 feet of saltwater.” While some of the planes were flown out in time, “all the aircraft that remained behind sustained some degree of damage [while] the restored Jeeps and other vehicles were under water.[…] The briny brew corroded their metal frames and engines and soaked their wooden ribs.” Not only planes were damaged but small artifacts as well – “Bits and pieces of various displays — flags, uniforms, photographs — were recovered from the muck. Most were not.” Even their repair shop, with specialty tools and equipment for aircraft repair was “all gone,” meaning immediate conservation work was severely limited. To make a bad situation worse, “the museum had no flood insurance, [so] it will depend heavily on donations to recover.” Larry Gregory, the museum’s president, stated “right now we’ve got to devote all our resources to staying in business,” so routine conservation and maintenance took a back seat to long-term recovery.
The flooded exterior of the River and Rowing Museum. Photo Source: from the 2014 article “Weather forces museums to close” by Simon Stephens.

The flooded exterior of the River and Rowing Museum.
Photo Source: from the 2014 article “Weather forces museums to close” by Simon Stephens.

Even annual flooding can be unpredictable. Last year the River and Rowing Museum, the Spelthorne Museum, the Brocklands Museum, and the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, all in different parts of England, had to temporarily close due to rising flood waters. Catherine Yoxall, marketing manager of the River and Rowing Museum, said that while the museum was lucky since it is purposely built on stilts, “our problem is that we are unable to get anywhere near the building and it simply wouldn’t be safe to expect our staff to try to get in.”
Photos of the 2008 Iowa flood during the recovery process (left and center) and during the flood itself (right).  Photo Source: © 2015 National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library.

Photos of the 2008 Iowa flood during the recovery process (left, center) and during the flood itself (right).
Photo Source: © 2015 National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library.

In 2008 the Iowa Flood flooded the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library with 10 feet of water causing between eight and eleven million dollars worth of damage to five museum-owned buildings, including 20-25% of their collection. This included “6,000 volumes [of books and] one thousand sixty-seven flood-damaged artifacts.” And the damage occurred after many days of flood preparation where much of their collection was taken off site or moved to a higher floor within the building. All told the museum will need to be rebuilt, costing an additional $25 million.
Left: Collapsed roof at the Huronia Museum. Photo Source: Submitted photo/Bryan Piitz. Right: Water damage sustained by a rug at the Huronia Museum. Photo Source: Jenni Dunning.

Left: Collapsed roof at the Huronia Museum. Photo Source: Submitted photo/Bryan Piitz.
Right: Water damage sustained by a rug at the Huronia Museum. Photo Source: Jenni Dunning.

Even run of the mill thunderstorms can cause incredible damage. The Hurnonia Museum, a local history museum in Midland, Ontario, had survived two back-to-back thunderstorms in August 2014. Since “the entire floor of the museum was covered in an inch of water,” it fared relatively well in comparison to the museums previously mentioned, except for the 19th century rug that was on the floor as well as other low to the ground objects. This is especially troubling because the small museum had a new roof installed just a few months prior after a leak had caused its ceiling to collapse. And with their modest budget they were just hoping “to earn what we earned (last year) or better,” which after closures and emergency costs they could not do.
Conservation as a profession is a balance between the practical and the theoretical knowledge. Climate change and its effects should be directly tied to emergency preparedness and preventive conservation,  and thus to our professional ethics and mandate in that our goal is to care for objects in perpetuity. The practical side of our ethical decision-making is often understated, if even mentioned at all. Perhaps this is because there is no tangible, immediate reward to disaster prevention, or perhaps it is because the process is cumulative and ongoing. In either case it is none the less part of the foundation of what we do as conservation professionals.
When thinking about climate change and conservation, we can take Huronia Museum executive director Nahanni Born’s words to heart, “when you take (an artifact) in, you promise to take care of it forever.” How have you and your organization been negatively affected by climate change? What have you done to mitigate this? What actions can you take, large or small, to have a positive, cumulative effect to mitigate climate change’s effect on your work?
Email us at sustainability@conservation-us.orgor write in the comments.

Connecting to Collections Care MayDay Webinar, May 1

Sign up for the next Connecting to Collections Care webinar on disaster recovery.  It’s free!
“After Disasters: Salvage and Recovery in Small to Mid-Sized Museums and Libraries”
May 1, 2015, 2:00 – 3:30, EDT, with Susan Duhl.
Understanding the components of disaster response is key in successful recovery of collections of any type, size, and budget.  This webinar will show professionals and volunteers the steps needed to effectively save collections, including:
       + What happens to collections after fires, floods, mechanical failures, and other events
       + Recovery logistics, team building, and securing supplies
       + Safety and health practices
       + Working with first responders, engineers, contractors and conservators, and local resources
       + Collections triage, handling practices, drying options, soot and mud cleaning techniques, and mold control
       + Long-term recovery: conservation treatment and funding
Susan Duhl is an Art Conservator and Collections Consultant, providing assessments, consultations, and conservation treatment for institutions and individuals throughout the United States and internationally. She specializes in disaster prevention and strategic recovery of art, archival, and historic collections from natural, mechanical, accidental, and man-made disasters. Capabilities include assessments, pre-incident planning, prevention, emergency response, strategic planning for recovery, and conservation treatment. Clients include private collectors, historic houses and societies, and institutional collections of all types and sizes.
Check the Calendar for more upcoming events.
This webinar is part of the MayDay Initiative. All activities hosted by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation for MayDay 2015 are sponsored by Polygon Group, offering document recovery, emergency planning services, property damage restoration, and temporary humidity control across the globe.
Connecting to Collections Care is sponsored by the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation with funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Be prepared: not just a Boy Scout motto

It’s every museum’s nightmare: an errant spark from construction causes a fire; sprinklers unleash water on some of the most vulnerable objects in the collection.  Luckily this museum had an emergency response plan.  In the Dec. 26, 2014 Wall Street Journal article “After Fire, a Rush to Preserve History,” the conservators at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) faced this all too common nightmare and successfully and quickly responded.  Ironically, the damage occurred in the Hall of Northwest Coast Indians, the recent focus of a multi-year conservation project, described previously on this blog and also presented  at last year’s AIC annual conference.  The conservation department, led by Judith Levinson (pictured in the article), quickly removed the affected objects, catalogued them, and performed triage.  Levinson was also featured in a video by local news channel Pix 11.  This occurrence raises the question: does your museum have a emergency response plan?
 

42nd Annual Meeting – Book and Paper Group Session (BPG), May 30, “Salvage of Paper Materials from the Flooding of São Luiz do Paraitinga” by Fernanda Mokdessi Auada

 On Friday May 30th, Ms. Fernanda Mokdessi Auada presented an account of the joint salvage effort undertaken by the Nucleus for Conservation of Public Files of São Paulo (APESP) and the Nucleus of Restoration-Conservation Edson Motta, Laboratory del National Service for Industrial Apprenticeship (NUCLEM-SENAI) following the 2010 flooding of São Luiz do Paraitinga, Brazil. Collective gasps went up from the audience as Auada showed photographs of the devastated city. Among the images was the city all but subsumed by the Paraitinga river, and shots of devastating structural damage to the city’s principal church (São Luiz de Tolosa) and its municipal library. 
 

During the flood of 2010, the fall of the city’s principal church
During the flood of 2010, the fall of the city’s principal church

 

Thousands of documents, over 15 linear meters in total, were immersed in the flood waters for over 20 days. The papers related primarily to the population’s citizenship and legal identity, making it vital for conservators to save the information contained in the wet and moldy files. Despite the grave condition of the documents–and the challenge of having virtually no money or trained support staff–the overall salvage was a success, Ms. Auada said.

The documents arrived for salvage in three allotments. The first two allotments were treated manually, using traditional flood damage salvage procedures. First, the documents were separated and air dried flat on top of absorbent paper. The documents were then individually documented and inventoried during dry cleaning, these steps carried out in a dedicated cleaning area. Documents that could not be separated mechanically after drying were separated while immersed in an aqueous bath. Papers soiled with heavy accretions of dirt and mud were washed to recover legibility. The papers were then mended, flattened and rehoused in paper folders and corrugated polypropylene boxes. Incredibly, 95% of the documents in the first and second allotments were recovered.

The third allotment, from the Public Ministry, proved to be more problematic, calling for radical treatment. These documents arrived at the APESP three months following the flood, after having been stored wet and housed in garbage bags. Upon drying the materials, it was determined that the extensive mold damage would be impossible to treat using traditional methods. Representing a “worst-case” scenario, this allotment of 176 files was submitted to decontamination by gamma irradiation. The moldy documents were packed in corrugated cardboard boxes and sent to the Radiation Technology Centre for Nuclear and Energy Research Institute (CTR-IPEN) at the University of São Paulo. While still within the cardboard storage boxes, the documents were dosed for disinfection (not sterilization) at 11kGy. This was the first time this type of salvage procedure had been carried out in Brazil.

Following irradiation, the papers were separated and dry cleaned using brushes. The dry removal of the mold spores proved easier and faster than the first two non-irradiated allotments, with sheets separating easily. Perhaps most importantly, the biohazard was eliminated, eliminating the need to quarantine the documents during documentation and dry cleaning. Ms. Auada described the costs of the treatment as acceptable, even within the project’s meager budget. The irradiated documents will be monitored for long term effects of the radiation, with polymerization of the cellulose being of primary concern.

42nd Annual Meeting – Health and Safety Session, May 31st, "Sustainability for the Conservator: Mold Remediation"

This short session was presented by Chris Stavroudis (Conservator in Private Practice) and Steven Pine (Senior Conservator for Decorative Arts, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and AIC-CERT member), and was sub-titled “Lessons from Super Storm Sandy.”
Chris began the session by acknowledging that he is not a mold expert, though he has had plenty of experience dealing with mold and art/artifacts, and highlighted Elise Rousseau in the audience as a fellow AIC member with significant mold remediation experience (Elise also presented an excellently detailed and informative poster at the meeting, which can be found here). The activities of the Cultural Recovery Center in Brooklyn immediately following Super Storm Sandy dealt with a lot of mold. The CRC opened to provide expertise to assist artists and owners in salvaging their works. Chris referenced the Mold Remediation workshop, and summarized mold as a form of biodeterioration that also acts as an allergen, and that mold by-products can stain art or be toxic to people. He mentioned that most people have some sensitivity to mold, and some people develop a hypersensitivity either through multiple exposures or even single instances of massive overexposure.
As this was a Health & Safety Session, the emphasis was on Personal Protective Equipment – gloves, suits, respirators or full masks with cartridges for toxic mold by-products. The PPE needs to be appropriate for what you’re working on/the environment you are working in. In instances with large amounts of mold,  eye protection can be important. You particularly do not want to track mold everywhere or bring it home.
Some tips on PPE:
When working with a large amount of moldy objects, it can be a good idea to have multiple rooms to separate the bulk of mold activity – hot/warm/cold sections, where hot  = the highest mold activity.
It is ideal to use a Tyvek coveralls/body suit – while they are meant to be disposable (and personally I feel you should discard the suit after exposure, though at ~$12 each this may become cost prohibitive), you can also wipe down suits with sanitizing wipes or an alcohol/water solution.
You also want to bring separate clothes to go home in – you can bring kitchen bags to segragate your clothing when changing into PPE. There will be less cleaning of associated bags and clothes when leaving a “hot” area.
Steven Pine volunteered to demonstrate the right way to put on your PPE – the demonstration was somewhat hilarious, with a couple false starts and emphasized the need for a buddy-system to help.

AIC2014 Health & Safety - Mold remediation
Steve Pine demonstares how to put on your PPE.

 
You should put on your Tyvek suit in a clean/cold zone. They recommend having a roll of green Frog Tape, in case the suit tears or as a way to make the suit fit a little better – tyvek suits are one-size-fits-all, and using the tape to tighten waistlines or shorten arm/leg lengths makes it a little less cumbersome to wear. Painters tape/blue tape does not work as well, as removing it can cause the suit to tear, it may not stick to the tyvek, and will peel in a damp environment. Steve also recommended using the Frog Tape to label yourself on the front and back, as once suited up all people tend to look the same.
Elise advised using cotton face masks (also known as a “spray sock”) when wearing a respirator, as it makes them more comfortable to wear – I would suggest making sure you are still able to get a tight fit while wearing both (doing the breathe in/out test in your respirator). You should arrive with your face mask/respirator bagged, and bag it again after use. It can be very difficult to communicate with a mask on – it may be useful to have a notepad or similar to write things down.
Tyvek shoe covers/booties are also advised as another barrier over shoes – the gap between the booties and the coverall legs can be taped closed. Using the booties with the coveralls makes everything disposable.
When getting dressed, you should put your gloves on first. Wearing cotton gloves under nitrile gloves can make long term wear less irritating. Once gloves are on, it can be difficult to tear tap, so you need a buddy or prepare torn tape strips accessible beforehand. Wearing multiple nitrile gloves or thicker work gloves can be useful, in case the outer layer is torn or stained, that way you can peel off the soiled layers.
A trick from Steve is to make a tape loops attached to arms for pens, etc – acts as a utility belt to hang things on. Also, a tip to tape down the upper part of the zipper to prevent it from traveling down while you’re working.
Overall, you are going to be very uncomfortable – it is advised to bring whatever is necessary to make yourself comfortable afterward, such as a change of clean clothing, as well as wet wipes for refreshing yourself afterward.
When removing your PPE, be strategic so that everything peels inside out – hook underneath the gloves to pull them off inside out. Encompass gloves with each other so that the interior sides are on the outside. The respirator is put on UNDERNEATH the tyvek hood, so it is removed last.
Steve Pine illustrates proper glove removal (inside out)
Steve Pine illustrates proper glove removal (inside out)

Elise cautioned that all items in contact with mold (including PPE) may need to be disposed of as hazardous waste – clear trash bags are good for hazmat disposal, as it allows waste management to assess the contents.
There are occasionally problems when working in a disaster environment, such as how much PPE you where when your host doesn’t or can’t wear any? It is a judgement call on the part of the conservator, and based on how bad the situation is.
After the PPE demonstration, the talk went to mold treatments, and some new recipes that are being used (namely Elise Rousseau’s research and application – see poster). The speakers mentioned the recognition that fungi have a growing resistance to fungicides and bleaches, and warn against using thymol. As there was a lot of information being passed very quickly, I managed to snap some pics of slides with recipes and treatment protocols – be advised that all materials should be tested to determine the effects of remediation treatments! You have to weigh the effects of the treatment against the possible effects of mold growth on the art/artifacts.
Slide from AIC2014 Health & Safety - Mold remediation
Slide from AIC2014 Health & Safety – Mold remediation

Slide from AIC2014 Health & Safety - Mold remediation
Slide from AIC2014 Health & Safety – Mold remediation

AIC2014 Health & Safety - Mold remediation
AIC2014 Health & Safety – Mold remediation

Slide from AIC2014 Health & Safety - Mold remediation
Slide from AIC2014 Health & Safety – Mold remediation

AIC2014 Health & Safety - Mold remediation
AIC2014 Health & Safety – Mold remediation

AIC2014 Health & Safety - Mold remediation
AIC2014 Health & Safety – Mold remediation

There was also some discussion on how to build containment units, something that Elise is also very well versed in. A double walled containmnet unit with doors and air extractors/scrubbers with HEPA filters or venting to the exterior is recommended – I managed to snap a pic of an illustrative slide, but I would recommend working with an engineer or someone well versed in creating such a unit before building one yourself.
AIC2014 Health & Safety - Mold remediation
AIC2014 Health & Safety – Mold remediation

All in all it was a very informative session with great tips and advice from people who have a lot of experience working in mold remediation – there is definitely room for more research on the effectiveness of traditional and emerging remediation treatments, as well as getting a better understanding of how mold and mold remediation treatments could affect various types of substrates. Also, it would be useful to have a clear step-by-step guide for putting on and removing PPE in the appropriate order for mold treatments – perhaps the presenters could work on publishing a short chart in the AIC Newsletter?

42nd Annual Meeting – Workshop, May 28, "Responding to Mold Outbreaks after a Disaster"

This full-day workshop comprised 4 talks by 3 conservators, all experienced with treating mold affected artworks or library/archive materials. The morning session was presented by Olivia Primanis, Senior Conservator at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas Austin. Primanis gave a large amount of introductory material focusing on aspects of mold that are of interest to Heritage Conservators and Caretakers. An introduction to mycology provided a basic understanding of fungal characteristics and the life cycle of aspergillus, one of the mold genera most commonly found after flood events. Details of fungal anatomy such as conidia/spore sizes were also discussed, as were activators of conidia – the conditions that encourage rapid growth. Fungal genera found on artifacts, as illustrated in Mary Lou Florian’s book Fungal Facts, was also briefly discussed. Primanis also discussed whether it was necessary to consult with fungal experts, such as industrial hygenists, who can take samples and identify the mold species. While species identification may inform mitigation treatments, it appeared that the presenter did not do any species identification during any of the case studies presented, and all mold outbreaks were treated using the same method of HEPA vacuuming to remove the visible mold, in some cases followed by attempts to neutralize the remaining microscopic elements using a 70% ethanol solution. Rather than attempt to “kill” the mold, Primanis vacuums and then works to optimize the environment to stop or slow mold growth, as historic mold killing treatments have been found to either stay in the affected material and affect users, or could potentially adversely affect the object itself.
In addition to a lengthy bibliography and access to additional downloads via a shared Dropbox folder, Primanis also provided a useful list of options to consider when responding to a mold infestation:
• What is the cause of mold growth and how can the growth be stopped?
• Should an expert, such as an industrial hygienist, be consulted?
• Should the type of mold and bacteria be identified?
• Should the mold be killed?
• What are the health and safety issues for staff and patron?
• Should the mold, and can the mold, be removed from affected building materials and artifacts?
o What methods can be used to remove the mold contamination?
o What methods can be used to assure the cleaning process has been effective?
o What will access to building and collection materials be?
The second presentation was by Ann Frellsen, Book and Paper Collections Conservator for the Emory University Libraries, a member of AIC-CERT as well as organizer of HERA (Heritage Emergency Response Alliance) in Atlanta, GA. Frellson discussed AIC-CERT response after Hurricane Katrina as well as HERA regional response activities, presenting a variety of challenges through a series of case studies. Response activities after tornado destruction in Atlanta highlighted challenges in establishing salvage priorities, as the emotionally affected owners of the collection were incapable of making those decisions, as well as communication issues. Post-Katrina AIC-CERT response inside a historic house on the Gulf coast illustrated the essential need for proper PPE, in this case including full HAZMAT suits equipped with a forced-air system. Another case study discussed how affected town record ledgers containing property data needed to remain accessible, as people were required to consult them in order to obtain proof of ownership as required by their insurance companies. A mold event at Emory University discussed the need for managing contracts with salvage companies, emphasizing that their activities may need to be closely monitored, and you need to know exactly what you want from them.
Ann Frellsen and Vicki Lee (Director of Preservation and Conservation at the Maryland State Archives and AIC-CERT member) teamed up to give a short case-study presentation cleverly titled: “Where We Did Not Find Mold, or, I Suited Up for This?” This presentation consisted of a series of images from flood/water response activities that provided the ideal circumstances for rampant mold growth (such as wet photos in plastic sleeves, wet salvage items left covered in plastic, and wet basement library items relocated to a non-climate controlled backyard shed), but exhibited no visible mold growth.
Another short presentation, titled “Creative Solutions: Thinking Outside the Box (the boxes have not shipped yet)”, presented examples of stabilization treatment ideas that developed from specific needs, such as the creation of a quick-fix solvent chamber at the Cultural Recovery Center in Brooklyn (post Hurricane Sandy) in which solvent sensitive moldy artifacts were treated by placing them in a Ziploc bag with solvent soaked cotton balls overnight. The efficacy of the treatment was not determined. Another attempt to wash and deacidify a paper item tried using crushed and strained calcium vitamins in an attempt to develop a buffering solution bath – the pH was tested at ~pH 7.5. This may be because calcium vitamins comprise calcium carbonate, not calcium hydroxide, but perhaps there were some other steps involved in the experiment that were not mentioned.
Questions from the audience:
Q. How effective is spraying an alcohol solution, when papers are general soaked in baths for 30 min?
Answer from Presenter: No testing was done to determine effectiveness, but it visually appeared to work.
Answer from Audience member: Alcohol treatment only kills surface mold via dehydration. To kill the fungal organism inside of the object or paper fibers, it needs to be put in an anoxic environment for at least 5 weeks using CO2 or Argon gas, which ruptures the cells. If you don’t kill all of the mold (not just the surface mold), then you will have dormant mold under the upper structure.
Q. Was it worth spraying then?
A. Yes, because it minimizes the spread of the spores. You can potentially maintain dormancy by controlling the environment (if possible).
Q. Should you spray, vacuum, and spray again? Vacuum, spray, vacuum?
A. Generally, spray, vac, spray, unless obviously very dirty, then vacuum first so that you can access more of the surface mold.

Call for Chapter Proposals: Disaster Management and Contingency Planning in Modern Libraries

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS

Proposal Submission Deadline: May 30, 2014

Disaster Management and Contingency Planning in Modern Libraries

A book edited by

Emy Nelson Decker (AUC-Robert W. Woodruff Library)

Jennifer Townes (AUC-Robert W. Woodruff Library)

To be published by IGI Global: http://bit.ly/1fOOCfT

For release in Advances in Library and Information Science Book series

ISSN: 2326-4136

The Advances in Library and Information Science Book Series aims to expand the body of library science literature by covering a wide range of topics affecting the profession and field at large. The series also seeks to provide readers with an essential resource for uncovering the latest research in library and information science management, development, and technologies
Introduction
Library and archives disaster planning and contingency management go by many names: emergency planning, risk assessment, business continuity, etc. Awareness has increased over the past fifteen years, and now disaster planning is an ever-growing presence in modern consciousness. Any type of contingency planning for libraries is important because we are building more and more evidence that preparedness is possible, even if prevention is not. In general, anything involving extensive damage to the collections falls into the “disaster” category. However, it is important to draw a distinction between small-scale disasters, such as a burst pipe, and large-scale disasters, such as a category 5 hurricane. A naturally occurring disaster is an act of nature (tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes), as opposed to an anthropogenic disaster, which is caused or produced by humans (war, censorship, arson). The myriad ways in which we define disaster indicate our inability to predict them, and therefore we will never be able to prevent them. What we can do is prepare the one variable we do have control over: ourselves. By exploring disasters of different scale and devastation, we can begin to develop more complete and efficient disaster plans for our cultural institutions.
The literature about disaster planning has not given close examination to the different types of disasters to befall libraries, thus this book is based on emerging research and events exemplified by case studies. Contributions to this edited volume will explore libraries impacted by disasters of different scales, ranging from small to catastrophic and disasters of different types, from naturally occurring to anthropogenic.
Objective of the Book
This compendium of emerging research about disaster mitigation and contingency planning will better inform disaster planning at the design level. Additionally, this book will serve as a resource for those who have already experienced disaster and the ideas put forth will potentially spur positive change in organizational culture. This book will investigate the impact of large and small scale disasters — both anthropogenic and natural in origin — on libraries. Readers will learn from the experiences of others, expand their definition of disaster, and create or redesign their own disaster plans.
Target Audience
Our publication will benefit librarians, library staff, archivists, curators, students, local/state/national disaster preparedness professionals, private collectors, and corporations which store/archive collections.
Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
Contributors are welcome to submit chapters on the following topics relating to library disaster management and contingency planning:

  • Disaster management and contingency planning in libraries
  • Changes to disaster planning and recovery post-2000
  • Library safety measures
  • Changes to library materials conservation and restoration post-2000
  • Emerging disaster management theory
  • Emerging contingency planning theory
  • Lessons learned from small scale disasters (broken pipes, fires, vandalism, storms, etc.)
  • Lessons learned from large scale disasters (September 11th, Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, the Indonesian tsunami, Typhoon Haiyan, the Haitian earthquake, etc.)
  • Social implications of disaster preparedness and management
  • Public, academic, and private libraries and archives experiences with disaster of any scale
  • Naturally occurring disasters
  • Anthropogenic disasters
  • Challenges/crises not commonly included in disaster plans
  • Financial disaster planning (recession, staff cuts, effect on digital projects, etc.)
  • Electronic backup failure (loss of backup servers, born-digital data, electrical surges, etc.)

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before May 30, 2014, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by July 30, 2014 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by September 30, 2014. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project. Proposals should be submitted through the link at the bottom of this page.
Publisher
This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group Reference), “Medical Information Science Reference,” “Business Science Reference,” and “Engineering Science Reference” imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com. This book is anticipated to be released in 2015.
Important Dates
May 30, 2014:                                    Proposal Submission Deadline
July 30, 2014:                                     Notification of Acceptance
September 30, 2014:                    Full Chapter Submission
November 30, 2014:                     Review Results Returned
February 15, 2015:                          Final Chapter Submission
 
Inquiries can be forwarded to

Emy Nelson Decker and Jennifer Townes

Atlanta University Center – Robert W. Woodruff Library

111 James P. Brawley Drive SW, Atlanta, GA 30314

Tel.: (404) 978-2087, (404) 978-2053

E-mail: edecker@auctr.edu, jtownes@auctr.edu

Propose a chapter here
To find related content in this research area, visit InfoSci®-OnDemand:
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http://www.igi-global.com/infosci-ondemand/search/
 

Exploring the FAIC Oral History Project in Light of the "Monuments Men" Film

By Rebecca Rushfield, for a Google Art panel that was organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Feb. 7, 2014
The FAIC oral history interviews contain material on a wide variety of subjects some of which are of interest primarily to conservation professionals while others will have a much wider audience. The recent opening of the film “Monuments Men” gave Rebecca Rushfield a chance to explain what the archive of interviews held on the subject of the preservation of Western cultural heritage before and during World War II.
The Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives program under the Civil Affairs and Military Government Sections of the Allied armies was just one aspect of the effort to protect Western cultural heritage during World War II. Each nation put in motion plans for protecting its monuments be it by encasing historic buildings in scaffolding, supporting walls, and sandbags or by moving its most important artifacts far from the line of fire. Information about these efforts is available in archival documents and publications, but the events are most vividly and personally captured in the reminiscences of their participants.
The Oral History Project of the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation was established in 1974. Its first interview was a five-person discussion held in Mexico City on September 4, 1974. That interview touched upon the subject of conservation efforts during World War II and included as a participant George Stout, one of the “Monuments Men.” Using excerpts from interviews in the FAIC archives, I will present several individuals’ stories of the art and monuments protection efforts leading up to and during World War II.
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In 1941, George Stout was the head of the Harvard University Fogg Art Museum conservation department. He recalled the preparations for the coming war that took place at Harvard University. ” I was asked to sit with the American Defence Harvard Group – they were interested in public opinion and cultivating attitudes. When Pearl Harbor came and everyone got the wind up. Francis Taylor had a meeting of mostly museum directors and a few technical people … there were half a dozen of us – discussing what are we going to do about evacuating our museums – getting things out where they won’t be bombed, all that kind of thing.”
A conference on the emergency protection of works of art was planned. Stout recalled, “It was planned after December of ’41 – and held … March, ’42.”
Well, actually, we had it almost demanded of us really, by kind of a general pressure of public opinion – what are you doing? Are you getting ready? Everybody thought we were going to be bombed any moment the way London had been. There was all that pressure of public alarm that was quite current in those early months of our entry into the Second World War.”
In1941, Craig Hugh Smyth was a senior research assistant at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. When the decision was made to move the Gallery’s treasures away from Washington, D.C. to a location less likely to be bombed, he was put in charge of the move. He said, “In December of ’41 came Pearl Harbor and the National Gallery had to evacuate its pictures and I was sent with them, to take care of the collection of the country. So I had the experience of nothing to do, except look at pictures and sculpture. I was there for about 6 weeks to 2 months, I think. With my wife—we had just gotten married that year. It was a great start—I must say—to have our own collection. “ … “[The paintings] were in the Biltmore House at Asheville, N.C. The National Gallery never did things by halves…if it was going to have a house in the country, it would have the best house in the country—so to speak.”… “It was great. But it was far in the country and nobody was supposed to know that National Gallery pictures were there. But the National Gallery wasn’t very wise and they shipped these things down with great labels on the outside…that said precisely what was in them! So the whole countryside knew and we had a guard—a force of guards there—my first administrative post. And one of the guards decided that the Germans would attack and come up the river—which was so small that no one could come up it.”
Harold Plenderleith, head of the Scientific Laboratory at the British Museum remembered that in the 1930s, “I was once asked about giving lectures to the Portuguese army by our foreign office. Well, I happened to know something about the war, you see. I was asked to go and give them a talk about preservation of the cultural property in the event of armed conflict. About a fortnight before, the foreign office telephoned to say, “Was everything all right for my lecture?” “Oh, yes,” I said. “Oh, that’s all right then you will be lecturing in French, of course.” “Not on your life,” said I. “Oh yes but we want you to do it in French. What I did was to write out the lecture in detail in English and get it to a professional to put it into French. Then learn the thing off by heart in French which was a terrific effort. I first of all had to give this lecture in Madrid. Half the audience was in uniform-brass hats and so on. I did my little histories and showed them some frightful war time slides that I had drawn and painted specially to horrify them and they were tremendously impressed! I was immediately invited to go and do it again in Oporto.”
He recalled that “A few years later, in 1938 a year or so before the outbreak of the Second World War, we realized that we were heading for possible disaster if war should break out. [Ian] Rawlins and I wrote a little booklet about first aid treatment of museum material. I forget what it was called–our text was never published. It was diverted to the protection of museum objects in war-time. This got to the attention of the directors of museums in London, particularly the British Museum. They asked if they could see it and later on said they would take it over and they published it. That was fine. We were involved by this means. We had gotten most of the practical information disseminated and urgently needed before we were involved in war in 1939. For example, how to make standard boxes to be stored in minimum space so that they could be speedily made up into containers in emergency. Lists of stuff we should get together while the going was good and could have standing by. We had all that planned and they published the thing so that it was ready in good time. Then the Ministry of Works purchased large quantities of essential materials and made them available to museums and picture galleries for use in protecting the collections in war time.”
As war came nearer, “My job was to assist the director whose name was Sir John Fordyce. He planned the actual siteing of the objects when it became necessary to decentralize and I used to trudge around to help him in selecting sites and in deploying caretaker staff. [The objects] were taken to about 15 of the sort of major house in England – country houses. Decentralization we called it. Then after that there came what we called, “The Baedeker bombing.” The Germans started bombing these bigger houses. (for the coming war Baedeker is a well known guidebook.). That became a great source of worry and we couldn’t by this time get any of the good bomb-proof sites for they had all been acquired already by others. We were quite stumped. Someone went to Churchill for advice and he said, ‘Well, you might like to have a look at an underground limestone quarry near Bath. I’ll allocate a quarry and you can see that.’ “
When war came, Plenderleith was too old to be commissioned, so he was put in charge of the safety of the Museum. He said, “I had no staff. You see everyone who was there was in the army or engaged in war work. I had had my “whack” in the army in the First World War. Of course, I was now over age and of course much more useful at the museum than anywhere else. I knew the museum. It was a very complicated structure; acres of rooms. I had to train staff from other departments who didn’t know the museum. Where were the places you could get out if you were trapped? Where were the places where the most valuable things were kept? Where were the keys? … I used to arrange training emergencies you see on Sundays for example, a wooden hoop covered with paper like a drum and marked as an incendiary bomb – 500 pounds bomb, I would stick that somewhere in the museum and then I would blow off the alarm. These trainees were the salvage people, it was their job to find the so called bomb and take appropriate action. They were timed, you see. They had to report what action they had taken. Where was the nearest hydrant, because we had our own pressure hydrants all over the museum? They had to act as firemen too. We used to have that sort of emergency training and it served to be very valuable… I lived at the museum all the time. I was asked to go in and do this by Sir John Fordyce the Director to come in on the weekend that the war was declared, September 1939.”
When the U.S. entered the War, Craig Smyth was young and was commissioned in the Navy. He recalled how he became part of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives unit. “Well at the end of the war, the Allies knew that they were going to have to deal with the art objects in Germany. That A: which Germany owned, that which was stored off in various repositories and B: the works of art that the Nazis had taken from occupied countries. There was already a Monuments Art and Archives section of the United States army, but as the war drew to a close, I knew they were going to have more people in it. So they looked for people already in the armed services, who had some experience. And I was suddenly ordered to—in France and then into Germany, and then assigned there to establish a collecting point in Munich for works of art in that—in the Southern section of Germany, which had to be taken in from repositories. And above all, the Hitlerian loot, which was in the salt mines in Austria especially—but in other places too—so for a year, I was the head of this establishment and ran the Collecting Point and began repatriation of works of art to the countries that they were stolen from. And obviously—yet again—it was a question of taking emergency care of objects that were in bad condition. So I learned something about that in the process, but I also learned how hearty works of art can be. Some of them had been through an awful lot.”
A laboratory was established and staffed. Smyth recalled, “This was a thing that required in the end, a staff of—well, first and last—over a hundred people, which had to be Germans. We had to find people whom we thought we could trust. Which was not hard to do in fact. There were people who came out of the walls, who had stayed away from the Nazis. And among them, some really good people…. So yes, I was the one who made decisions, but very often there was somebody else who said, this has to be done. It was an odd thing that the amount of responsibility that came to the head of a Collecting Point like that, because the Allies were supposed to have a great international committee to decide about all such things and decide about what works of art went back to the countries from which they had been taken. And in the end, the head of the Collecting Point was the person to ask—so it was all very odd.”
While Smyth’s recollections were of the work that took place at the end of the war, Caroline Keck recalled her husband Sheldon Keck’s participation in an earlier, more dangerous event. She said, “In England by D-Day and in France a few weeks later, he [Sheldon] was almost lost during the debacle in the Heurtgen Forest. At long last he was assigned to the Arts Unit as a technical sergeant.” Sheldon and Walter Huchthausen, another member of the MFAA unit were together and accidently drove their jeep into a battle line of the Ruhr Pocket. “Walter’s body saved Sheldon’s life. Both fell from the jeep into foxholes. Later, our advancing troops found Sheldon. Walter had been killed instantly.”
Caught up in the glamour of our talk about great art, we sometimes forget that the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives personnel were part of the military and as such were exposed to all of the dangers of war.
MFAA_Officer_James_Rorimer_supervises_U.S._soldiers_recovering_looted_paintings_from_Neuschwanstein_Castle