Lights, Camera, Museums!

Ask ASM

Question: I was wondering what your thoughts are on placing a lightweight easel with rubber on the base on a desk (in this case, an artifact in the permanent collection) to display a lightweight piece of foam board with a diagram on it. Is it acceptable to place such an easel (without sharp edges on its base) on an artifact? If it is absolutely necessary for it the poster to be displayed (it has important information on our new museum plans) and it is requested that it be displayed on the artifact, do you think a compromise such as placing a cotton muslin cloth below the easel where the base pieces touch the artifact is a reasonable solution? While it would be more desirable to display the easels elsewhere (for aesthetic and professional) reasons, space is limited and some may really desire this location.

ASM: My opinion is that putting a barrier between the easel and the desk would make it OK to display a piece of foam core. I think the main issue would be with the feet of the easel somehow affecting the finish on the desk. Rubber has sulfur in it and can be reactive. Without the rubber there is a danger in scratching it. So I would say, rubber with the muslin cloth down first. If you don’t like the way the muslin looks you could always just put Mylar disks beneath the rubber feet.

http://www.heritagepreservation.org/CAP/application.html

Shaking the Money Tree

Conservation Assessment Program

Applications for the 2013 Conservation Assessment Program (CAP) are now available.

The postmark deadline for applications is Monday, December 3, 2012. To be added to the CAP application mailing list or for more information, email the CAP staff or call 202-233-0800. Learn more about CAP here:

http://www.heritagepreservation.org/CAP/index.html?utm_source=Update+e-Newsletter&utm_campaign=d51b29301c-Update+Summer+2012&utm_medium=email

Museum Assessment Program

The Museum Assessment Program (MAP) helps small and mid-sized museums strengthen operations, plan for the future and meet national standards through self-study and a site visit from a peer reviewer. IMLS-funded MAP grants are non-competitive and provide $4,000 of consultative resources and services to participating museums.

MAP provides guidance and growth in the following areas:

prioritization of goals
focus on mission and planning
communications between staff, board and other constituents
credibility with potential funders and donors

The program offers four assessments:

Organizational
Collections Stewardship
Community Engagement
Leadership (full cost only)

Each assessment can be completed in less than a year. Costs to participate range from free to $750. Applications are accepted twice per year with deadlines of July 1 or December 1.

NEH

Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections

Division of Preservation and Access

Deadline December 4, 2012 for Projects Beginning October 2013

Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections (SCHC) helps cultural institutions meet the complex challenge of preserving large and diverse holdings of humanities materials for future generations by supporting preventive conservation measures that mitigate deterioration and prolong the useful life of collections.

Apply for planning grants of up to $40,000 (with an option of up to $50,000) to bring together interdisciplinary teams that might reevaluate environmental parameters for collections and examine passive (non-mechanical) and low-energy alternatives to conventional energy sources and energy-intensive mechanized systems for managing collection environments. Testing, modeling, or project-specific research may help applicants better understand collection environments and formulate sustainable preservation strategies; therefore, with planning grants you might measure energy consumption; use blower door tests to identify air leaks in buildings; create mock-ups of lighting options; test natural ventilation methods; conduct thermal imaging of buildings; test the effect of buffered storage enclosures on moderating fluctuating environmental conditions; re-commission small-scale climate control systems; or adjust the operating protocols for climate control systems.

Apply for implementation grants of up to $350,000 to manage interior relative humidity and temperature by passive methods; install heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems; install storage systems and rehouse collections; improve security and the protection of collections from fire, flood, and other disasters; and upgrade lighting systems and controls to achieve levels suitable for collections that are energy efficient. Projects that seek to implement preventive conservation measures in sustainable ways are especially encouraged.

Guidelines: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/SCHC.html

FAQs: http://www.neh.gov/files/grants/sustaining-cultural-heritage-faqs_2012.pdf

For more information: http://www.neh.gov/grants/preservation/sustaining-cultural-heritage-collections

IMLS

Museums for America

Deadline: January 15

Grant Amount: $5000-$150,000

Grant Period: Up to three years

Matching Requirement: 1:1

The web conference schedule for the FY2013 Museums for America grant program is as follows:

Thursday, October 25, 2012, at 2 – 3 pm Eastern Time

Thursday, November 8, 2012, at 2 – 3 pm Eastern Time

Tuesday, November 20, 2012, at 2 – 3 pm Eastern Time

Wednesday, December 5, 2012, at 2 – 3 pm Eastern Time

Wednesday, December 19, 2012, at 2 – 3 pm Eastern Time

To participate in a web conference, a few minutes before it is scheduled to begin, log into:

https://imls.megameeting.com/ωpage=guest&conid=MFA_and_NLG_Webinar_for_Potential_Applicants

Or here:

http://www.imls.gov/applicants/detail.aspx?GrantId=11

Then, using any touchtone phone, call 1-866-299-7945. When prompted to enter a passcode, enter 9910420#.

For more information: http://www.imls.gov/applicants/detail.aspx?GrantId=11

Spotlight on Grant in Aid

The Juneau-Douglas City Museum’s Oversized Collection Storage Expansion and Environmental Monitoring Project improved the museum’s ability to serve the community by providing safer, cleaner and more secure storage for the museum’s growing collection of accessioned objects. Project funds were used in two phases; first, to purchase and erect a new storage rack in the collection storage room, purchase archival materials to equip the storage rack, purchase a new flat file, and replace an aging data logger system.

The second phase entailed the purchase and fielding of new Image Permanence Institute PEM2 dataloggers to monitor the environment within the facility.The project began in early 2012 in the collections storage room of the City Museum. Project Director Addison Field, Intern Victoria Brown, and grant-funded contractor Joe Sears moved all accessioned objects that were in storage in the existing space, to temporary storage locations in other areas of the facility. Old storage pallets and racks were removed. An existing flat file was moved out of the area. A dust and fume barrier was built around the storage area, then the area was cleaned and painted.

During this process, loose and deteriorating floor tiles and cove molding were discovered. When feasible, this material was removed. It was evident that the spaces behind and beneath these deteriorating products were providing a damp place where pests were living. Refreshing the walls and floors had an added benefit later in the spring when a water leak was spotted when it pooled on the floor beneath a broken window tile in the ceiling above. In the past it is likely that such a leak may have gone unnoticed. After the storage area was cleaned and painted, the intern and contractor erected new industrial shelving that was purchased from McMaster-Carr. The shelving was put into place, lined with formaldehyde free MDO and double-walled, archival corrugated board. One existing flat file was put back into its location, and a new flat file purchased from Archival Supply was populated. Following these changes to the physical storage configuration, the intern, contractor and project director began the process of moving objects back into storage. The opportunity to inventory and update object locations, clean objects, make new storage mounts, update catalog records and take additional object photographs was fully utilized.

After the objects were put in place, a contractor made a dust cover to encapsulate the new storage shelves – a different contractor from the one from which had provided the estimate at the beginning of the project. This contractor was less expensive and as a result, a second dust cover for a separate object storage rack in a different part of the facility was made. The dust covers were fabricated with tyvek and designed to custom fit each of the racks. The intent is to provide a dust and light barrier that will provide added safety for the objects.After objects were repositioned on new racks there was additional space for object storage. This will allow the JDCM to better serve the community by providing additional space in which to store new donations. Importantly, the new shelving provides safer storage for collections through a solid barrier between collections objects and an air handling unit installed directly above the storage rack. This unit is serviced by maintenance personnel regularly.

Phase two of the project was the fielding of a new Image Permanence Institute PEM2 environmental monitoring system. The system was brought on-line in the spring of 2012 and though they are still gathering data, it has been a clear success. Within a month after fielding the new system and setting up the data management package there was data to make some basic and relatively straightforward object preservation decisions. For example, after several months it became clear that the environmental conditions inside the compactor storage vault were better suited for storage of furniture with laminated surfaces rather than the large over-size object storage racks in the basement. The slow and incremental process of relocating some of the sensitive objects from the basement shelves to the compactor storage unit has begun.The JDCM learned this summer that they received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to install an integrated HVAC system in the facility. The IPI environmental monitoring system will be invaluable as the organization moves forward, allowing the Museum to move away from the old “set point” paradigm of environmental management used in the past, to a new, zone management system that the City Museum and the new HVAC system will transition into.

http://www.connectingtocollections.org/meeting/

Professional Development/Training Opportunities

Racist Stereotypes & Cultural Appropriation in American Sports
National Museum of the American Indian

Thursday, November 1, 2012
6 AM to 1:45 PM AKST

Join commentators, scholars, authors, and representatives from sports organizations for a series of panel discussions on racist stereotypes and cultural appropriation in American sports. Explore the mythology and psychology of sports stereotypes and mascots, examine the retirement of “Native American” sports references and collegiate efforts to revive them despite the NCAA’s policy against “hostile and abusive” nicknames and symbols, and engage in a lively “community conversation” about the name and logo of the Washington, D.C., professional football organization.
Live webcast at: http://nmai.si.edu/multimedia/webcasts/.

Upcoming C2C Online Community Webinars

In November, there will be two more opportunities to catch a webinar and live chat event on the Connecting to Collections Online Community. On November 7 at 10:00 pm (AKST), the Community will host speaker Connie Bodner, senior program officer for IMLS. Bodner will review and answer questions regarding the IMLS grant program Museums for America.

Then, just in time for the holidays, on November 28 at 10:00 pm (AKST), the Community will host a discussion on policies aimed at protecting collections during special events—from galas to rentals.

Registration Open for AASLH’s Basics of Archives

Proceed at your own pace through this online course covering the basics of archival management and practices.

The course is made up of five lessons:

Archives and Archivists
Acquiring Your Collections
Processing Collections
Housing Your Collections
Access and Outreach

The course is web-based and takes 15-20 hours to complete. There are no required times to be online. You may finish the course anytime during the four-week course period.

Register now and take the course anytime between
October 29-November 30, 2012
$85 members / $160 nonmembers

To learn more, visit the Basics of Archives webpage.

Enrolled in StEPs?
This workshop may help institutions achieve the standards in the Audience and Stewardship of Collections sections of AASLH’s StEPs Program.

Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums

Call for Session Proposals for the 2013 International Conference of Indigenous Archives, Libraries, and Museums (November 1, 2012 Deadline)

The Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums invites you to propose a workshop, session, keynote, or poster for the 2013 International Conference of Indigenous Archives, Libraries, and Museums to be held June 10-13 at the Santa Ana Pueblo-owned Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area. The four-day conference brings together cultures from across the nation and around the world to exchange best practices for indigenous archives, libraries, and museums. The conference features a minimum of six pre-conference workshops, two pre-conference tours, 50 concurrent sessions, two general sessions, three keynote luncheons, and a post-conference Town Hall-style meeting. Conference tracks focus on library, archive, and museum collections, programs, and services, as well as specialized topics such as cultural tourism, advocacy, oral history projects, language programs, digitization, preservation, and fundraising. The conference is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Oklahoma Department of Libraries.

To view past conference programs and/or submit a proposal before the November 1 deadline, visit www.atalm.org. Please direct questions to atalminfo@gmail.com

Intern Report

The Wandering Intern: A Tale of Travel, Rust, and Bald Eagles

by Emma Dailey, Collections Intern – The Valdez Museum & Historical Archive, Summer 2012

Intern and Bush Pilot Extraordinaire

What makes a Museum Studies graduate student pack up her bags, leave the city she knows and loves, and travel to Valdez, Alaska for a summer internship? I must say, I have been asked this question more times than I can recall; first it was my family, then my classmates and professors in Washington, D.C., and then finally the good people of Alaska themselves. The only response I can give is that I love traveling and having new experiences. I am no newbie to the world of internships; I have now done four museum internships. Additionally, they were all in different cities, different states even.

First there was a local history museum in Buffalo, New York. This was followed by a corporate history museum at the Wells Fargo headquarters in San Francisco, California. Then, it was national women’s history at the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum in D.C. And now, I find myself in the last week of my internship here, at the Valdez Museum & Historical Archive. So, how do they stack up against one another?

The Valdez Museum is *shock* not the smallest museum I have been at! That prize goes to Buffalo. However, not surprisingly, Valdez is by far the smallest community I have found myself in. This has its advantages and disadvantages. For the first time I was able to walk the whole commute to work. Score one for exercise! However, it seems to rain a lot there and I lacked the proper footwear for wet weather. Minus one for that, I’m afraid.

What about navigation? You would think that’d be a piece of cake compared to D.C. or San Fran. Well, yes and no. If a visitor is willing to put in the time and leg muscles needed to walk the entire town, making a mental map is doable. However, trying to find something via local directions (“take a left at the dock, but if you pass the seafood place, you’ve gone too far”) or my iPhone’s map (“No, sir, I’m not in Anchorage”) is more challenging than anticipated. “But surely Emma,” you ask out loud, “Surely D.C. or San Francisco or even Buffalo must be harder to navigate?” First, I can’t hear you, so stop talking to yourself. Second, not necessarily. Buffalo is a really confusing city in which to drive and the public transportation is wanting. However, I grew up there so I’ve learned to cope. The other two cities though? Piece of cake. And I’m not just saying that to sound like a stuck-up city slicker. Great public transportation and detailed maps (and a phone that doesn’t get confused about where you are) all make it smooth sailing.

How does Valdez compare in the beauty department? Well, Buffalo is a pretty ugly city so that’s out of the running. San Francisco is more neat and trendy than beautiful for the most part.

San Fran: Traveling in Style since 1890

D.C. is gorgeous, plain and simple, but mostly architecturally.

Man

Valdez has not been a disappointment though. What the town lacks in austere neoclassical and colonial buildings, the landscape makes up for with its breathtaking natural beauty.

Nature

And the weather of each location, Emma? Well, Valdez summer is exactly like San Francisco winter. Buffalo winter is brutal. D.C. summer is sunny but outrageously hot and humid. Huh. I guess I haven’t had much luck there. C’est la vie. Let’s just move on to wildlife. Alaska wins, no competition. Buffalo has…um… squirrels? San Francisco does have the sea lions on Pier 33, but they also have hipsters so I think they cancel each other out.

West Coast Hipsters

And D.C. has pigeons and politicians. Since I’ve been in Valdez, however, I’ve seen sea lions, seals, sea otters, dolphins, a moose, and bald eagles. Lots of bald eagles. They seem to be akin to the pigeons of D.C. Oh, and I also saw rabbits, and learned that there are some, err, disagreements regarding their presence in town.

Public Enemy No. 1

“That’s all fine and dandy, Emma, but what about your actual work?” you ask. Buffalo had me cataloguing everything from WWII helmets to 1870s vegetable peelers. I also worked with the educator. Wells Fargo had me combing through archives and doing research. At the Sewall-Belmont I catalogued over 2,000 photographs from the 20th century suffrage movement. And Valdez? I had never before seen so many rusty mechanical parts. It was certainly a learning experience! I needed to teach myself about Model-Ts, Ahrens fire engines, and OX-5 airplanes before I could even identify parts to catalogue them. It has to be the most demanding cataloguing I did, but it was great real-world experience! Now if I ever find myself with a box of rusty engine parts in the future, it will be easy-peasy!

okay, I’m not perfect

All-in-all, every single one of my internships has been fantastic. Hands-on work and friendly staff make my experiences worthwhile. And being able to travel and see new sights keeps the homesickness at bay.

Well, except for missing my pets, but who could blame me there?

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/alaska-senator-gets-tough-xtratufs

Professional Time Wasting on the Web

XTRATUFS = “SORT-OF-TUFs?”

Preserving photos of the 1910-1913 British Antarctic Expedition’s tragedies and triumphs
http://www.ccaha.org/about/news/2012/09/28/preserving-the-photographs-that-document-the-tragedies-and-triumphs-of-the-british-antarctic-expedition-1910-1913

Ever at a loss to describe or critique art? If so, you’ll appreciate the Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator….

http://www.pixmaven.com/phrase_generator.html

Alaska State Museums Bulletin 56

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Alaska State Museum Bulletin

http://lam.alaska.gov/disaster_resources

“Oh, the Humanity!” – Disasters in Museums

Tune in to any cable news network. Every week there’s a new disaster. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Tsunamis. War. Flesh-eating bacteria. Zombies (remember June’s CDC “Zombie Apocalypse” story?)

This summer saw floods in Florida, wildfires in Colorado and, closer to home, flooding, washouts and mudslides in British Columbia, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, Canada. Last summer, political protests in Cairo led to vandalism and looting of the Egyptian National Museum, home to some of the world’s most precious antiquities, some 120,000 artifacts in all. A year later, curators are still assessing the extent of the damage.

In the wake of these and other recent events, cultural institutions have learned, often the hard way, just how important adequate preparation can be to effective disaster response—not to mention just how heroic staff and community efforts can be to collections preservation.

A few examples:

For two straight days in June 2008 flooding inundated Iowa’s Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, submerging some of the collection in a foot of sewage. It took a year for staff to reinstall the galleries and return the remaining collection to proper storage—one painting at a time. Community members, businesses, government agencies and foundations also joined the recovery effort; CRMA was even ultimately able to lend a gallery to the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, which lost its primary building in the flood.

In a similar instance with a decidedly Alaskan twist, in 2009, record flooding of the Yukon River devastated the beautiful, historic town of Eagle, Alaska – itself a National Historic Landmark. When floodwaters—and ice chunks(!)—threatened the century-old customs house, site of Eagle Historical Society & Museum, town residents passed the entire collection of frontier-era artifacts, one-by-one, through a window as the building filled with water. Some did so as their own homes and possessions floated away.

Customs House Eagle, Alaska Photo: Jean Turner

Here in Juneau that same summer a rainstorm ripped through a construction bubble at the Alaska State Archives and flooded the entire collection. Thanks to state and local efforts, meticulous staff recovery techniques and widespread community support, as well as a group of volunteer conservators who happened to be in town for the Western Association for Art Conservation’s annual meeting, the entire collection was saved. (Read ASM Conservator Ellen Carrlee’s “Anatomy of an Archives Flood” at http://ellencarrlee.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/anatomy-of-an-archives-flood.)

Chris Hieb moves wetboxes in the Alaska State Archives. Photo: Damon Stuebner

Some museums, such as the Saskatchewan Western Development Museum—which lost its roof in a 2003 windstorm—and the Oakland Museum of California—which suffered damage during the 1989 earthquake—even made exhibits of their disaster response. In fact, the Museum of Alaska Transportation and Industry (MATI) in Wasilla owes most of its collection to a 1973 fire that destroyed the Alaska Transportation Museum in Anchorage. Other surviving objects are displayed at the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum in Anchorage.

Truth be told, most collections disasters are smaller in scale. The most common risks to museum artifacts: dust and mold contamination, custodial neglect (i.e. artifact mishandling), UV/light exposure and incorrect environmental conditions. In other words, little things can cause big damage, especially if ignored while preparing for more catastrophic events. Small or large, natural or manmade, effective disaster response is determined by effective disaster preparedness. Unfortunately, most cultural institutions are unprepared to handle disasters. Not only are staffs not trained in recovery efforts, but they are often unaware of OSHA health and safety requirements. In other words, disaster preparedness means more than learning how to pack wet books.

Increasingly, cultural institutions are implementing tools borrowed from the insurance industry to identify risks to their collections, codify preservation procedures, reduce the potential for disasters that can be avoided and mitigate the effects of those that can’t.

The first step is conducting a risk assessment. Formal or informal, extensive or on a portion of a collection, risk assessment tools prioritize preservation efforts in an attempt to limit, or even prevent, damage.

Risk assessment determines:

Percentage of a collection susceptible to specific risk
Resulting loss of value
Likelihood of a disaster event
Extent of the event, worst-case to best-case scenario

Obviously, not all disasters can be prevented. Institutions and staff must be prepared to assure the safety of personnel, visitors, collections and data. For this, libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, or any other collection-holding entity should develop a disaster plan.

A disaster plan allows an institution to:

Prevent or mitigate disasters
Prepare for the most likely emergencies
Respond quickly to minimize damage if disaster strikes
Recover quickly while continuing to provide services to the community

Four Basic Rules of Museum Disaster Response

Minimize additional damage – don’t begin recovery until the disaster is over; once it is, begin sorting immediately so additional damage isn’t done by walking on collections; don’t be satisfied with damage appraisal until you have checked EVERYTHING. Even seemingly unaffected items may have suffered damage. For example, films and tapes inside containers can be far more damaged than the container’s condition might appear.
Document the disaster and your recovery (not just for your insurance company and superiors—who knows, it might make a nice exhibit one day)
Think before doing – too many people rush into recovery. The first rule of recovery is “do no harm.” That means care and thought, as opposed to fast action.
Care for yourself and your staff – disasters often do damage far beyond the obvious, and that extends to emotional damage to museum staff. Look out for them—and yourself—as carefully as you look out for your collection.

In almost every case, you’ll want to call in preservation and conservation experts to assist in salvaging your collection. And remember: human life is far more valuable than any collection. First thing to consider in any disaster situation is safety.

The American Museum of Natural History offers a comprehensive list of risk management and disaster planning websites, tutorials, readings and other information with copious downloads and links to resources. Visit and bookmark http://collections.paleo.amnh.org/9/risk-management-and-disaster-planning; well worth your time.

Northeast Document Conservation Center offers a customizable online disaster planning service, dPlan, geared toward small and medium-sized institutions without in-house preservation staff. Learn more at www.dplan.org

Museum SOS (www.museum-sos.org) is also an excellent hub for disaster preparation and response, as is Heritage Preservation (www.heritagepreservation.org) which offers a wide variety of free and pay disaster preparedness resources. There is a new post on the Connecting to Collections blog about the Pocket Response Plan. Check it out here http://collectionsconversations.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/pocket-response-plan/

For something with more home state appeal try the new Library Guide for Disaster Information Resources from the Alaska State Library

General Resources Online

Coping with Disasters (MedlinePlus)

After any type of disaster, people feel relieved to be alive. But then they often feel stress, fear and anger. Most people will also find that they can’t stop thinking about what happened. Learn how to cope with these emotions effectively.

Disaster Apps and Mobile Optimized Web Pages

During a disaster, mobile devices may be your only way to connect with others. Learn how to use NLM’s disaster apps and mobile optimized web pages before disaster strikes.

Disaster News

Check out this RSS feed to the CDC’s Emergency Preparedness and Response site.

Disaster Preparation and Recovery (MedlinePlus)

Preparing for a disaster can reduce the fear, anxiety and losses that disasters cause. Be prepared.

Personal Preparedness

Explore this list of NLM resources on all types of man-made and natural disasters.

Ready.gov

Maintained by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), this site is designed to educate and empower Americans to prepare for and respond to emergencies including natural and man-made disasters. The three tenets of Ready.gov are: (1) build an emergency supply kit, (2) make a family emergency plan and (3) be informed about the different types of emergencies that could occur and their appropriate responses.

Special Populations: Emergency and Disaster Preparedness

Certain populations have unique needs during emergencies and disasters. Be prepared to help these groups.

Sources of Emergency and Disaster Health Information from the U.S. Government

Discover these sources of emergency and disaster health information.

Ask ASM

Question: We found a really cool object (that IS accessioned), but are debating how to handle it. We definitely want to keep it, but we’re uncertain about how to handle its contents. We have a nurse’s syringe kit. That kit still contains strychnine sulfate, etc. We are curious about storage for this item. Tips, ideas, and/or contacts would be appreciated.

ASM: Editor’s note: normally the responses to a museum query follows from one line of thinking. Occasionally there can be differing responses amongst museum professionals. Here are several responses to this query that show there is sometimes more than one way to think about things.

Response 1: My suggestion would be to dispose of the “medicine” at the toxic waste dump after reading the MSDS sheets for the different chemicals. I would then pack each piece individually, marking each as part of a whole.

Response 2: Would you scrape the poison off South American darts? My feeling is this: any true museum professional who accidently stuck themselves with the darts would relish the opportunity to fully document the use of poison darting from the point a view of a monkey, and would take notes for as long as they could as the poison took hold. Personally, I would love to leave this life via some exotic mechanism that expands our knowledge of history and culture.

Seriously, we don’t know what research interests will arise in the future. New technology even in the past couple years has greatly expanded our ability to analyze materials. Do we know if there are intact nurses’ kits preserved somewhere else, in case someone is looking for samples of certain antiquated drugs or chemical preparations?

In this increasingly digital age, filled to the brim with simulacra, the only thing separating museums from Disney World is authenticity.

Response 3: I remember how thrilled I was when, as a child exploring my great grandfather’s old ranch in eastern Oregon, I (literally) stumbled into a root cellar and found rows and rows of mason jars filled with the fruits of a harvest long forgotten. The energy from those hot, dusty summers of toil preserved in translucent batteries. Some had clearly gone bad, but others were amazingly fresh looking. Empty jars are just not nearly as evocative. I feel the same way about other such items. For research, keeping contents, dangerous or not, might be very important, so unless it’s leaking toxicity, ticking, or too otherwise too intrinsically dangerous to have around (a large glass jar with ill-fitting cap full of mercury comes to mind…something that we deaccessioned and disposed of), I think the best approach is to simply contain and label it accordingly.

Response 4: I know I am in the minority on this one, but I always wonder why these “dangerous or potentially dangerous” materials are not considered a part of the artifact. If I were the curator, I would containerize the artifacts and the constituent parts in multiple layers of housings with careful labels and signage, perhaps skull-and-crossbones signs too. I would make a detailed note in the database record and in the hard copy file about exactly what the chemical is and what its threat is, as well as info about what to do if someone is exposed. However, I get the impression that current museum practice often involves getting rid of toxic materials.

Response 5: In most museum settings, there are enough restrictions on access to these types of materials that they can be safely stored or displayed. I also believe that in some cases getting rid of the hazardous part is not that easy and sometimes involves destroying or damaging other parts of the artifact. Obviously if it is oozing or deteriorating because of the contents (such as canned goods for example) then it is advisable to get rid of the contents.

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Shaking the Money Tree

NEH

Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections

Division of Preservation and Access

Deadline December 4, 2012 for Projects Beginning October 2013

Guidelines: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/SCHC.html

FAQs: http://www.neh.gov/files/grants/sustaining-cultural-heritage-faqs_2012.pdf

For more information: http://www.neh.gov/grants/preservation/sustaining-cultural-heritage-collections

Spotlight on Grant in Aid

The Sheldon Museum in Haines Protects Its Exhibits

Even with “Do Not Touch” signs near most exhibits, visitors to the Sheldon Museum seemed to have a hard time not touching the artifacts on display. In recently changed permanent exhibits, more artifacts were exposed and vulnerable. After much discussion and research, the staff decided that Plexiglas walls could be an attractive, unobtrusive solution.

Townsite and Gold rush exhibit before. Photo: Jerrie Clarke

Additional vitrines for the museum’s pedestals were also needed. Not all of our pedestals were supplied with covers, and a few years ago volunteers built an additional seven pedestals for the Six-Week Spotlight, local artist shows.

Staff consulted ASM Curator of Museum Services Scott Carrlee and local carpenter Gordon Whitermore about design and construction, and purchased Plexiglas sheets and vitrines. A volunteer had offered to transport the Plexiglas from Seattle to Haines but when the time came, was not able to bring the items, so the original plan and budget had to be adjusted. After shipping, there was not enough left to build walls in the upper gallery. However, the shipping was less than the cost of the upper gallery walls so we were able to purchase additional vitrines and sheets of Plexiglas to replace the broken Plexi on two “Sleeping Beauty” cases that are used in temporary exhibits and on four multi-plex panels on which additional information about local history is given.

Townsite and Gold rush exhibit. After. Photo: Jerrie Clarke

Mr. Whitermore designed the walls, purchased the wood and hinges for the frames from the local hardware store, and then constructed the walls. His invoices included the cost of the materials he purchased. The walls are attractive and professional-looking, and the artifacts and photographs are protected. Vitrines now top our pedestals and protect objects on permanent and temporary exhibit. The three-dimensional art displayed by our local artists during the Six-Week Spotlight solo and duo shows are now also better protected. We have received many comments indicating that the new Plexi walls add to the professional look of the permanent exhibits. The Six-Week Spotlight artists are delighted to be able to protect their three-dimensional art under the vitrines on the pedestals. The museum staff is delighted and grateful to have the ability to better protect the museum artifacts and art as well as those on loan for temporary exhibitions.

Event at the Sheldon Jackson Museum

July 19-21 the Sheldon Jackson Museum held a fish skin workshop sponsored by the Alaska Humanities Forum, the Friends of the Sheldon Jackson Museum and the Sitka Sound Science Center.

For a slide show of the event click here.

http://www.adn.com/2012/09/01/2608486/copiously-illustrated-book-traces.html

Alaska Museums in the News

Copiously illustrated book traces Alaska Arlines’ colorful past

Ziegler painting donated to UAS library

http://juneauempire.com/art/2012-08-16/original-ziegler-oil-painting-donated-egan-library-uas

The Mysterious Death of Robert Kennicott

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2010/08/the-mysterious-death-of-robert-kennicott/

3D sculpture brings history of Kennicott back to life

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/video/3-D-Scanning-Bringing-History-Back-to-Life.html

Living with the Old Things

http://www.nps.gov/akso/beringia/beringia/library/Living-with-old-things.pdf

Professional Development/Training Opportunities

Creating and Funding Preservation Projects to Enhance Collection Care

Where: Anchorage Museum, Reynolds Classroom, 625 C Street, Anchorage, AK 99501

When: October 17, 2012, 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Sponsored by Western States & Territories Preservation Assistance Service (WESTPAS)

Workshop instructor: Gary Menges

Do you want to get a preservation grant to take care of your collections? Many institutions have used grant-funded projects to enhance the level of care they can provide for their collections, and sometimes even to jump start their preservation programs.

“Creating and Funding Preservation Projects to Enhance Collection Care” is a one-day workshop that begins with identifying and setting priorities among collection needs. With a clear sense of needs, the second part of the workshop reviews sources of grant funding available to your institution. The third part of the workshop addresses the key preservation questions asked on grant applications – participants answer the questions on behalf of their institutions, building the elements of a proposal for their own collection. The workshop emphasizes working collaboratively with colleagues to develop and receive feedback on project proposals.

By the end of the workshop day, participants will have:

Outlined a preservation project proposal specific to their institution
Identified possible funding sources
Tested their ideas with other workshop participants

Who should attend: Administrators and staff responsible for care of the collection in all types of libraries and archives, with an emphasis on small-to-medium sized institutions without preservation grant writing experience. By registering for the workshop, the institution commits to supporting the attendee(s) to achieve the workshop’s goals to develop and submit proposals for preservation projects to enhance collection care. When possible, TWO attendees from an institution should attend so they can work together on project development.

Cost: No charge to the institution. WESTPAS is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Registration: Pre-registration required. Register online at: WESTPAS workshop http://tiny.cc/ZePOL

For registration assistance contact: Alexandra Gingerich gingerich@plsinfo.org for general & content information contact Gary Menges, menges@uw.edu

October is Archives Month, and Archives & Special Collections at the UAA/APU Consortium Library will be celebrating by offering four FREE workshops!

Descriptions are below. All workshops are open to the public and will be held at the UAA/APU Consortium Library. Space is limited, so register soon!

TO REGISTER FOR A WORKSHOP: Email archives@uaa.alaska.edu or call 907-786-1849. No registration is necessary for the Archives Roadshow workshop on October 27th.

Saturday October 6 – Preserving & Identifying Photographs
10:30am – 4:30pm. UAA/APU Consortium Library Room 307. Maximum 25 participants.
Presenter: Megan K. Friedel, Archivist
Do you have shoeboxes stuffed with photographs? Are most of them unidentified and undated? Do you want to learn how best to store, preserve and identify them so that they last for future generations? This full-day workshop will teach you how to identify and date significant photo and negative types from the 19th and early 20th centuries; best practices for storing and preserving a wide range of photographic material, including slides, glass and film negatives, photo albums, scrapbooks and more; hands-on exercises in identifying the format and subject of photographs; and one-on-one consultation with a UAA archivist to help you determine the needs of your photo collection. Participants should bring 2-3 photographs from their collections to share with the class.

Saturday October 13 – Making Book Enclosures
10:30am – 12:30pm. UAA/APU Consortium Library Room 307. Maximum 20 participants.
Presenter: Arlene Schmuland, Head of Archives & Special Collections
Do you have worn books that you need to keep? Can’t repair them? Need to protect some of your rare volumes? This two-hour, hands-on training will show you how to make quick and simple book enclosures from sheets of folder-weight paper. You’re welcome to bring a book of your own or we’ll have some on hand for you to wrap for us.

Saturday October 13 – Introduction to Scanning and Organizing Digital Photographs
1:30 – 4:30pm. UAA/APU Consortium Library Room 307. Maximum 20 participants.
Presenter: Mariecris Gatlabayan, Archivist
Bytes, pixels, resolutions… oh my! The idea of scanning or organizing digital photographs can be overwhelming, so grab a bunch of your photographs and participate in this half-day workshop. The workshop will provide an introduction to scanning, resizing, editing, and organizing photographs, as well as guidelines on how best to preserve digital photographs to ensure long term access for future generations. Participants will have the opportunity to scan and edit a few of their photographs. As a result, please bring a USB drive or media on which you can save your scanned images.

Saturday October 27 – Archives Roadshow
1:30 – 4:30pm. UAA/APU Consortium Library Room 307. NO REGISTRATION NECESSARY.
Got old stuff? Want to know what it is, what historical value it has, and how to preserve it? Bring your photographs and negatives, moving image and audio recordings, letters, diaries, manuscripts, and other family or personal papers, and meet one-on-one for free consultations with archivists from UAA, the Anchorage Museum, Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association, National Archives, and other institutions. No monetary appraisals will be given, but we’ll help you find resources for valuation and conservation. There will also be a behind-the-scenes tour of the Archives & Special Collections collections vault at 2:30pm and a raffle for a free in-home consultation with an archivist!

Heritage Preservation Announces Fall Live Chat Schedule

“Why Do Old Books Smell and Other Adventures with Odors in Collections” – Wednesday, September 26 at 10 am AKST Eastern with Tara Kennedy, Preservation Field Services Librarian, Yale University Library
“Tour of the Canadian Conservation Institute’s Online Light Damage Calculator” – Wednesday, October 17 at 10 am AKST with Stefan Michalski, Senior Conservation Scientist, Preservation Services, Canadian Conservation Institute, Department of Canadian Heritage
“Museums for America: Grants from IMLS: An Overview of the Program Including New Guidelines for 2013” – Wednesday, November 7 at 10 am AKST Eastern with Connie Bodner, Senior Program Officer, IMLS
“Protecting Collections During Special Events” – Wednesday, November 28 at 10 am AKST Eastern with Barbara Heller, Director and Conservator of Special Projects, Detroit Institute of Arts

Registration is not required to participate in these live chat events. Simply go to the C2C Online Community Meeting Room (http://www.connectingtocollections.org/meeting/) and provide your name and location.

Digital Curation Resource Guide Created

Digital Scholarship has released the Digital Curation Resource Guide.

http://digital-scholarship.org/dcrg/dcrg.htm

This resource guide presents over 200 selected English-language websites and documents that are useful in understanding and conducting digital curation. It covers academic programs, discussion lists and groups, glossaries, file formats and guidelines, metadata standards and vocabularies, models, organizations, policies, research data management, serials and blogs, services and vendor software, software and tools, and training. It is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

The Digital Curation Resource Guide complements the Digital Curation Bibliography: Preservation and Stewardship of Scholarly Works, which was released in June. http://digital-scholarship.org/dcpb/dcb.htm

It is also available as an EPUB file (see How to Read EPUB Files).

http://digital-scholarship.org/dcrg/dcrg.epub

http://digital-scholarship.org/dcrg/epub.htm

http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/update/2012-09-08/museum-restores-mummy-using-lego

Intern Report

Kaleigh Paré, Masters student in Museums Studies at the Harvard University Extension School, interned this past summer at the Pioneer Air Museum in Fairbanks.

My first project upon arrival at the Pioneer Air Museum was to determine what from its 2011 Museum Assessment had been accomplished already and what still needed to be done. I spoke with both the Director and the Secretary of the Board and made notes accordingly in my copy of the report. From there I began to research and write a Mission Statement, a Collections Policy, an Integrated Pest Management Plan, and a Code of Ethics. During the June board meeting, I presented my plans for the summer to the Governing Board and collected their email addresses so that I could send them the policies I wrote for approval.

In addition to writing administrative documents, my other major project was working with PastPerfect. After I loaded the database onto the desktop computer, I instructed certain members of the staff in how to use the program as well as basic cataloging. We also participated in an official PastPerfect online training program. This included the Director, two of the younger staff, me, and a board member from the Tanana Railroad Museum, from across Pioneer Park. During the July board meeting I briefly showed the board members how to use PastPerfect as well.

Finally, I spent most of the last few weeks spread out on the floor of the office going through the boxes and folders of donor information that do exist for the museum. I tried to pull out what I could on recognizable objects. However, donations such as engines I had more difficultly with since I do not possess the knowledge to differentiate between all the different types of engines in the collection. I spoke with the Director about this and he noted that he would be able to identify them and with the help of some of the younger staff, enter the catalog information into PastPerfect. Therefore, I cataloged what I could and established a tripartite accession system (with year and FIC number for those objects found in the collection), as well as file folders for the individual objects’ paperwork. I ordered archival tags for labeling the objects with their object IDs but they had not come in the mail by the time I was due to leave. As a result, I left in my notes instructions to number and attach the tags to the objects already cataloged, as soon as the tags arrive.

As in my concluding notes for the Board President and Director, I listed what I accomplished and my list to the next intern of projects I would have undertaken had I had the time – the purchase of supplies such as gloves and archival tags which would be helpful when budgets permit, instructions for continuing the cataloging over the winter, and book and web resources they may find helpful. I put this together with a binder of the documents. All of the documents were also saved to the desktop so that they may be edited in the future.

I hope this gets the PioneerAirMuseum off to a good start. I had an amazing summer and I know I will be back to visit!

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Professional Time Wasting on the Web

LEGOs save Egyptian Mummy

Elderly woman destroys 19^th century fresco with DIY restoration

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/9491391/Elderly-woman-destroys-19th-century-fresco-with-DIY-restoration.html

The Horse that went outside

http://youtu.be/CtAyZYZyVfw

Demo how to write in hieroglyphics

http://oi.uchicago.edu/museum/special/writing/

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alaska Museums in the News, Alaska State Museum, Disaster Preparedness in Museums, disposal of hazardous waste in museums, Grants, medical kit, Museum Career Development, Museum Interns, Sheldon Jackson Museum, Sheldon Museum Haines | Leave a comment

Alaska State Museums Bulletin 55

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Alaska State Museum Bulletin

Portable XRF arrives at the Alaska State Museum

As many of you may have heard, the Alaska State Museum was able to purchase a Bruker Portable X-Ray Fluorescent Analyzer through a generous grant from the Rasmuson Foundation. For some background leading up to the purchase you may want to read Ellen Carrlee’s blog posting on the subject. http://ellencarrlee.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/xrf-why-should-we-get-one/.

Portable XRF Unit in Lab

You may be wondering what this instrument can do for Alaskan museums. This unit (which is being used at more than a hundred museums worldwide) rapidly identifies elements that compose objects or materials that are on the surface of objects. This non-destructive analysis does not harm the object in any way. The results can help identify the components of natural and cultural artifacts which can lead to proper attribution, dating, interpretation of meaning, as well as understanding technological processes, deterioration, and contamination. One of its most important functions will be to identify pesticide residues on museum objects. In the past, many museums applied pesticides such as arsenic, mercury and bromine compounds in a well-meaning attempt to protect artifacts from insect damage. Although this is no longer a practice today, there is still a legacy of pesticide residue on museum objects that presents a danger for museum staff and patrons. These types of residues are difficult and time-consuming to identify with other types of analyses. This problem becomes especially acute when museum artifacts are repatriated to Alaska Native cultural centers and are used in ceremonies. Use of taxidermy specimens in public programs is another realm where past pesticide contamination has been problematic for Alaskan museums.

So how does it work? As with most things in physics, it’s complicated. There are some good web resources that explain the science behind the technique. A great website is http://www.learnxrf.com/. The portable XRF shoots a small, controlled beam of x-rays at an object. The x-ray knocks an electron out of its orbital. When an electron from a higher orbital drops down to replace the missing electron it is going from a state of higher energy to a state of lower energy. By doing so it emits energy at a characteristic wavelength for that specific element.

The XRF analyzer records this energy and displays it on a computer graph. The XRF works especially well at identifying heavier elements with more electrons. These materials include metals, minerals, and glass.

Having the power to identify materials not only reveals new data for interpretation, but opens new possibilities for questions to ask. It provides museums and cultural centers with a fresh way to connect science to history, culture, and collections. The XRF unit is part of the outreach services provided by Alaska State Museum to all non-profit museums and cultural centers in the state. This robust, durable portable XRF unit is designed for use in the field and fits into a small case for easy travel. Three mechanisms for delivery include: (1) Part of the frequent on-site consultation services performed by Scott Carrlee, the ASM Curator of Museum Services (2) Samples could be sent to the Alaska State Museum for analysis (3) The unit could be loaned to institutions where staff have the appropriate training. One Alaskan cultural entity has already taken advantage of a professional site visit to incorporate the XRF into a public program. This was reported on in the previous ASM Bulletin http://museumbulletin.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/alaska-state-museums-bulletin-54/#4

There will be two sessions at the Museums Alaska conference in Sitka in October that will be dedicated to learning about the XRF. Bruce Kaiser, the Bruker chief scientist for museums and universities, will present a full day workshop on October 10^th and on Friday October 12^th there will be a session that examines how the XRF is being used in Alaskan Museums today. If you are interested you should be sure to sign up for one or both sessions. You can find out more about them at the conference website. http://museumsalaska.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/ma-session-preview.pdf

Ask ASM

Question: We have caught a few mice in our museum. What are your thoughts on a resident cat? Do any other institutions you know of utilize such methodology?

ASM: There are occasionally institutions that have cats and defend their use against the professional majority who say they are inappropriate. Typically these are semi-outdoor institutions like historic farms or railroad museums. Occasionally a historic house museum will have one, but it is in violation of museum best practices. A museum that had a resident cat, for example, would not be likely to achieve accreditation. Our museum would not likely approve loans to a museum that had a resident cat. Every few years the topic comes up on a listserve I subscribe to, and the arguments against cats usually include:

allergies, including residual allergens after the cat left
urination/ territory marking/ spraying
scratching
illness
hairballs
fur and dander pollutants
fleas, fur, dander as food source for bad bugs
tripping hazard
aggression/ biting humans
phobias
liability
unprofessional environs
interacting negatively with legal service animals
leaving dead mice and birds
food and water needed for cat attract bugs and pests
no guarantee cat will be an effective mouser

So on the whole I would say that the negatives outweigh any possible benefits of having a cat on the premises. You are better off using mousetraps to get rid of the problem.

http://www.heritagepreservation.org/CAP/index.html?utm_source=Update+e-Newsletter&utm_campaign=d51b29301c-Update+Summer+2012&utm_medium=email

Shaking the Money Tree

Applications for the 2013 Conservation Assessment Program (CAP) will be available October 1, 2012.The postmark deadline for applications is Monday, December 3, 2012. To be added to the CAP application mailing list or for more information, email the CAP staff or call 202-233-0800. Learn more about CAP here:

Legislative updates:

In draft legislation, the House Appropriations Subcommittee recommends a $227.317 million budget for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for the 2013 fiscal year. If enacted, it would represent an approximate 2% reduction from IMLS’s FY 2012 appropriation. The House of Representatives report that accompanies recommended legislation is not yet available.

The Senate Subcommittee has recommended the same amount requested by IMLS for Fiscal Year 2013. It approved IMLS’s consolidation of the Conservation Project Support program with the Museums for America program. For more, including a possible January 15, 2013 deadline see Heritage Hotline.

The House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee recommended a $132 million budget for both the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowments for the Arts (NEA) for the 2013 fiscal year. This is a 9.6% cut from 2012. No funds were allocated for Save America’s Treasures. More information is also available at Heritage Hotline

Spotlight on Grant in Aid

Seward Museum Moves Forward with Move

Immediately, upon receiving news that their grant request for professional assistance with planning and preparing their collection to move to a new facility had been granted, the Seward Museum began coordinating with Angela Demma, cultural resources consultant. Angela went to Seward in October 2011 to become familiar with the museum collection and make plans for the volunteer training.

The week of February 27–March 2 was chosen as the week to configure the packing area, train staff and volunteers, and initiate the program. Library museum staff began ordering supplies, materials and equipment as listed in the grant application. In preparing the grant request, staff had developed a list of volunteers willing to become trained in packing techniques. Although the original plan called for a week-long training for all, cooler heads prevailed. They identified “experts” (staff and local hard core volunteers) and “crew” those who were new recruits and/or unfamiliar with the collection. Once the training was completed the crew would be assigned to work with at least one expert, thus insuring that someone was familiar with the museum and there would be continuity in the process. Angela spent 1 ½ days with the experts configuring work space and becoming familiar with the equipment and procedures. Everyone participated in Angela’s training session, entitled “Seward Museum: Handling, Packing and Moving Resources,” after the training schedules were set and the work began.

As of June 30 there have been 437 items packed and ready for the journey to their new home. The grant funds paid for the materials and equipment to prepare the collection for the move. However, the greatest benefit to the community has come from the number of people who are now involved with the museum. Eighteen people have been trained to handle the collection, and almost 400 hours of volunteer time has been put in for packing. The opportunity to help with the move has enabled them to learn about the collection and the rich and exciting local history. Most importantly, these people have developed a relationship with the museum that will be nurtured.

ASM on the Road

Houston We have a Problem!

Ellen Carrlee goes to the Johnson Space Center

In July, I had the opportunity to visit NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Generally, school groups and the public visit Space Center Houston , but I had the opportunity to join a VIP tour (similar to their “Level 9 Tour” mentioned on the website) given to foreign dignitaries, politicians and celebrities. For the sake of those colleagues whose passion for space exploration dwarfs mine, I diligently documented the experience.

Click on any image below to view as a slide show.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/alaska-philanthropist-mary-louise-rasmuson-dies-at-age-101/2012/07/31/gJQAqmWtNX_story.htmlg

Alaska Museums in the News

Alaska philanthropist Mary Louise Rasmuson dies at age 101

Besides the foundation, Rasmuson extended her personal philanthropy to institutions like the Anchorage Museum and the Alaska Native Heritage Center, an educational and cultural center in Anchorage

A new short film – Tsimshian Ceremony and Celebration – from the Living Our Cultures exhibition, of the Artic Studies Center

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKeWHBrCNto&feature=plcp

The Kodiak Maritime Museum to Use Guide by Cell’s Audio Tour Service for “When Crab Was King: Faces” Exhibit.

http://www.melodika.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=335219&Itemid=54

University of Alaska Museum of the North’s curator wanted to create an exhibit where museum visitors can learn about what goes into the process of making the works on display, as well as seeing the finished products.
http://www.newsminer.com/view/full_story/18545526/article-Making-art–University-of-Alaska-Museum-exhibit-focuses-on-the-creative-process?instance=home_features_lead_story1
Amos Wallace collection donated to Walter Soboleff Center
http://juneauempire.com/art/2012-07-12/amos-wallace-collection-donated-walter-soboleff-center

Professional Development/Training Opportunities

NEDCC

The Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) is offering a number of inexpensive webinars this fall. Topics such as care of photographs and prints or digital curation may be of interest to Alaskan museums. To find out more go to their website here: http://www.nedcc.org/education/training.calendar.php#group

Museumwise

Museumwise is pleased to offer a slate of Collections Care and Preservation Online courses that provide basic, practical training at a low fee (starting at only $65!) Our 4-week mini courses are designed for staff, volunteers, board members, and interns at small to mid-sized museums. Courses can be taken at your own pace, with 2-3 hours of work time per week to be completed at your convenience. The courses also offer interaction with qualified instructors and assignments are based on your own collections.

Courses to be offered starting September 2012 include:

4-week NEW Care and Handling of Costumes and Textiles

6-week Collections Management 101

Courses to be offered starting February 2013 are:

Introduction to Reformatting

Climate Control for Small Institutions

Conservation and Preservation of Photographs and Albums

Basic Preservation, Care & Handling of Paper Based Materials
For more information or to register for these courses visit: http://www.museumwise.org/services/online-courses

Questions? Email me (stephanie@museumwise.org) or call 800.895.1648

Intern Report

Sarah Cloutier who is working on her Masters in Art History with a concentration in Museum Studies at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, interned at the American Bald Eagle Foundation in Haines AK. Below is her report.

During the 8 weeks I have spent in Haines at the American Bald Eagle Foundation and Natural History Museum I have become very familiar with the collection and the problems that needed to be taken care of so that they could work toward their goals of becoming an accredited museum. I had a lot of fun in the 8 weeks I spent there. Cheryl, Dave, and Dan were very helpful and supplied me with everything I needed in order to do my job.

I was able to enter all the taxidermy specimens, the sea life exhibition, and all the educational objects that are in view of the public into Past Perfect, as well as the geological exhibition. I was also able to write up a disaster preparedness plan which is located with the collections management plan.

I re-organized the geological display by numbering them and creating a guide for visitors to follow in order to identify all the rocks in the museum’s collection. In addition, I wrote up some more specimen labels that were missing and created a family exploration guide that I hope they will continue to use. I also went on two fieldtrips, to the Haines Ferry Terminal and the Malaspina to check on the specimens housed there. I was able to clean the specimens on the Malaspina and write up new labels for the display. The specimens at the Haines Ferry Terminal were inside a sealed display case and there was no available access to it.

Cleaning the specimens was very interesting and I have to say it was kind of fun. I have learned a lot about working in natural history museums and about the animals that are at the American Bald Eagle Foundation and found throughout the Chilkat Valley. This was a very rewarding experience and I truly enjoyed the work environment and I hope I was able to help them meet their goals. On Saturday I showed Cheryl how to use Past Perfect and she felt comfortable with it in order to keep up with the collection as new specimens come in. She knows that she can contact me if anything comes up that she needs assistance with.

I kept track of all my hours and I worked on average 40 hours a week with 320 hours completed. I hope this is what you were looking for and that it helps you to understand everything that I did while at the American Bald Eagle Foundation. If you have any further questions please let me know!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/sports/baseball/donors-seeking-to-monetize-memorabilia-put-museums-on-guard.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Professional Time Wasting on the Web

An Artifact or a Payday?

Museums Are Already Social Enterprises

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2012/jul/23/museums-social-enterprises-finance-development?newsfeed=true

A Little Loved Statue to be Exiled to a Brooklyn Cemetery

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/nyregion/civic-virtue-much-maligned-statue-may-be-moving-to-brooklyn-graveyard.html

At Getty Museum, Revelations of Art Via Tech

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13576_3-57481129-315/at-getty-museum-revelations-of-art-via-tech/

Native Americans Work to Revitalize California’s Indigenous Languages

http://oaklandnorth.net/2012/07/23/native-americans-work-to-revitalize-californias-indigenous-languages/

PEZ Museum Will Make You Flip Your Lid

http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201207271630/c

Blog posting on interesting relationship between a museum and a family of dentists

http://collectionsconversations.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/cementing-relationships/

How the State House’s cultural treasures have vanished, piece by piece
http://thephoenix.com/boston/arts/141880-how-the-state-houses-cultural-treasures-have-vani/#ixzz22L3h90EG

Puget Sound orcas: Pollution, noise and loss of salmon leave their future uncertain

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20090809/NEWS01/708099834/1005/BIZ

Lost, damaged: Questions remain about what happened to artworks donated to WSU

http://www.winonadailynews.com/news/local/article_9a383eaa-d3b5-11e1-9aa0-0019bb2963f4.html

The Curse of the Outcast Artifact

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/arts/design/antiquity-market-grapples-with-stricter-guidelines-for-gifts.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alaska Museums in the News, Alaska State Museum, Ask ASM, cats in museums, Grant in Aid, Museum Career Development, Museum Interns, Portable XRF in Museums, Sarah Cloutier, Seward Museum, summer museum interns | Leave a comment

Alaska State Museums Bulletin 54

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Alaska State Museum Bulletin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_drying#Reasons_for_splits_and_cracks_during_timber_drying_and_their_control

Using QR Codes for Good and Not for Evil

By Mary Irvine, Museum Protection and Visitor Services Supervisor

Alaska State Museum

This spring, Alaska State Museum staff realized we needed to reprint our rack cards. We have a beautiful rack card and it’s worked well for us over the years, but our prices bumped up a bit this summer, and we needed to get the word out.

Just about this time, we were learning about QR codes.

“QR” stands for “quick response” and basically, QR codes are those pixelated little 1”x1” square design patterns that have been creeping into advertisements or promotional material over the last few years.

Typically, you see them in magazines. I recently found one on a bunch of bananas I picked up at the store. This photo shows nicely that QR codes are similar to bar codes (a set of black-and-white pixels that contain information), but look quite a bit different.

The bar code is on the left, and the QR code is the black-and-white loose-knit square of pixels on the right.

QR codes work in tandem with smart phones and tablets or iPads that have cameras. Smart phone users can download any number of QR Code apps, which can then “read” the codes. No-frills QR reader apps are free from the App Store. I have two on my phone – “Red Laser,” and “QR Reader.” They’re pretty much the same, the only reason I have two is in case one doesn’t work, then I have a backup. Blackberries have a QR Code reader already built in.

Once you have a QR app on your smartphone, the next time you find a QR code that you are curious about, you can click on your app, scan the code, and you are quickly taken to wherever it is the QR code is set up for. Usually you land on a small online place that tells you more about the product being vetted.

The first QR code I ever scanned, I was sitting on the tarmac in an Alaska Airlines jet waiting for take-off. I was thumbing through their in-flight magazine, and saw one of these QR codes at the bottom of a full page advertisement for a certain wine. Even though I’m not a big wine drinker, I got my phone out, clicked on the App Store, downloaded a free QR reader and scanned the code. It took me to a particular part of the winery’s website, and soon I was wandering through lush photographs of their vineyards while waiting for my plane to take off.

It turns out that besides there being a lot of QR reader apps out there, there are also a lot of QR code writers (or generators) out there. Many of them are free, which means that almost anybody can easily produce QR codes and slap them on stuff so that other people can swipe them and get directed to online content that you wish them to see. One QR code generator that a librarian friend recommended is called “Zebra Crossing.” http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/ My librarian friend likes this one because it promises not to capture users’ identity information and utilize it for evil.

After learning a little bit about these things, my coworker Lisa Golisek and I got intrigued enough to play around with generating a few codes ourselves. We quickly realized that Zebra Crossing would allow us to create a QR code linking to a live map, like Google maps. By inputting the museum’s precise latitude and longitude, people who scanned our QR code would be taken to a live map – with a blue dot representing you the patron, and a red corkboard pin representing the museum. As the person walks or drives toward the museum, the blue dot moves, toward the red pin:

After you create a QR code online, you can save it on your own computer as a pdf, or other image file. It was a short jump from this to asking our exhibits team – Paul Gardinier and Jackie Manning – who were massaging the graphics of our rack card to incorporate our new little high tech tool onto our rack card a few days before it went to the printer.

You can make QR Codes different sizes, they don’t have to be the little 1”x1” pixilated squares that seem to be the defaults, and you can even work your regular branding into them, as long as you keep the three foundational pillars that are necessary for some reason. There are many examples out there of QR codes that have a name or a logo built into the pixilated bar code area.

For our rack card, we went with the plain vanilla QR code graphic, shrunk just slightly to fit in with the aesthetics of the back of our card.

More cool uses

One neat trick that some people have used QR Codes for is calendaring. Say we choose to put a QR Code on our next flyer. The user has a reader on their phone, they swipe our QR code, and their phone instantly captures the details of our event, and adds it to the calendar on that user’s phone. Sweet!

Another neat trick is that some people have put QR codes on their business cards. Seems like duplication? Not really – if you swipe the QR code, your phone instantly captures all their info into your “contacts” file on your phone, which it can then sync to your home computer when you sync your phone again.

Cautionary notes

Three important things: First, it’s important to make the page that somebody lands on after they swipe your QR code, mobile-friendly. Nobody wants to use a hip technology only to be brought to a blog, say, that doesn’t display well on their mobile device, or your boring old website that they have to navigate.

Second, you should probably tell people what they stand to gain by swiping your QR code. The Sheldon Jackson Museum recently did a great job with this, and simply, by putting an asterisk above the code design, and the simple phrase, “*scan for map.” If you don’t do this, folks might be less than motivated to scan your code, since they don’t know what’s in it for them.

Third, it’s best not to go too crazy with sophisticated stuff at your QR URL … for two reasons: first, this stuff still takes up bandwidth, and people will be mad at you for eating up their data plan when all they wanted was a little more information on some cool stuff. This might be mitigated if you are in a Wi-Fi environment, but most places aren’t. Second, unless you are targeting the world’s most patient people, normal people need instant gratification, and you’ll lose them if you make them wait while the video you want them to see or the scholarly article you want them to read downloads.

If you want to learn more, here is Nina Simon’s excellent (and short) article critical of QR usage in museums: http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2011/08/qr-codes-and-visitor-motivation-tell.html

For absolutely cutting edge stuff, turn to the Brooklyn Art Museum’s articles about such things, such as http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/2011/10/20/qr-code-conundrum where they really crunch the data. This museum is almost always exquisitely in tune with its audiences, and they make a good point about wanting to err on the side of not leaving anybody out of the experience due to socio-economic factors. They say frankly that “a very large portion of our visitors don’t have the smartphones required to use the codes.” They’ve installed QR codes that do various things; one excellent use is to jump to mobile versions of their collections database. As somebody who helps interpreters learn the ropes, I can see ample application of that in our galleries. However, the Brooklyn Museum is quick to point out that anybody can use the stand-alone computer kiosk in their galleries to access the same information. The Brooklyn Art Museum has also created a “Mobile Palm Card” gallery guide that explains QR codes and why and how they are sprinkled throughout their institution.

A growing number of museums are putting QR codes near or on some of their interpretive labels. For example, you can check out the Fort Wayne museum. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xolg9u8iiM Their thrust is simply to augment the experience visitors already have in the museum. It’s fun to think about ways to use QR codes inside the museum… we generally frown on (okay, I personally loathe) visitors who use their cell phones inside the museum, but even I admit there might be a call (sorry) for them if the technology is geared toward deepening a person’s meaningful engagement with the objects, and not just phoning a friend.

Something QR codes might really help with is language barriers that visitors from other countries run into. It’s possible to imagine QR codes that take the user to foreign language interpretation (QR codes in blue, for example for French language interpretation in your museum, QR codes in green for Japanese). Knowing one’s audience might help to narrow the options. However at the State Museum, we routinely see Chinese, Japanese, Russian, French and German visitors … and I don’t envision us posting 5 QR codes next to each interpretive label. However, if visitors could be instructed to scan a QR code at the front desk and receive a “Top Ten” list of objects at our museum, interpreted in their language, well, that might be an amazing thing. Still, if it’s just a medium over which to provide an audio tour, it’s a lot of work on the front end with a pretty unquantifiable product on the far end. Plus, it risks connecting the visitor more with their beloved phone than the objects they’ve come to see. Philosophically, there is something to be cherished about those moments visitors struggle to understand the objects that speak to them, without benefit of a ready and pat answer to their inquiry. (But that is another and as yet, unwritten, article.) In an over-the-top experiment that I don’t even want to know how it works: developers have designed single QR codes that will, when swiping them, decipher the language that your smart phone is set to, and then bring you to the Wikipedia site for that object, in the language your phone is set to.

What’s next for QR Codes and Museums?

The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis offers “QRpedia codes” for many of their objects. Scans of these codes take you to articles about the museum’s objects posted on Wikipedia. Museums that opt for this use typically have a “QRpedia expert” on staff to help volunteers write up their research on an object and post it for them on Wikipedia. Check it out in this funny video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ywFNLX_1OQ Some of the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis’ more specific/unique Wikipedia articles have upwards of 60% of their total page view traffic coming from QR scans, as opposed to users browsing and finding it the usual way a search progresses.

I suspect we’ll see an increase in self-guided tours, and maybe scavenger hunts for kids who have access to an adult with a smart phone. QR Code usage is rising in the U.S. Actual day-to-day usage of the codes varies markedly. From random chats with museum visitors, we’re finding that there is a good understanding of QR code logistics in students as young as 6th grade, and college students take them pretty much for granted. Folks older than me are aware of them, but may not be sure how they work. Like any technology, there’s a novelty to it that’s intriguing, but whether it has staying power is an open question.

This brings me to my final point. I’ve been curious to know how long QR generators will continue to host the QR codes they help users generate. In essence, how long a QR code will remain active. Nobody seems to know the answer to this. Even generator sites that charge for the flashier set ups or hosting an actual landing site URL for the user don’t make promises. Still, this isn’t a solid reason not to have some fun with QR codes.

As one QR code reviewer reminded readers, it was 1943 when IBM’s chairman miss-predicted “a world market for maybe five computers.” See http://www.imagemediapartners.com/blog/bid/68500/Riding-the-QR-Code-Technology-Wave This article also has a solid list of QR readers and QR generators.

Now excuse me, while I scan the QR code I posted at the very beginning of this article. I’m going to learn how to turn bananas into something that has the exact texture of soft serve ice-cream. Happy QR coding!

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Ask ASM

Question: I would like information on how to preserve a huge folk art wooden, painted sculpture. It’s a “cigar store Indian” about 48” tall and 18’ at the base. It seems to be cracking with age and I would like to know how to prevent further damage.

ASM: As you can imagine diagnosing what is wrong with your object is not easy without knowing a lot more about it. In the conservation world we often say “it depends, it depends, it depends.”

I imagine you have some radial cracking in the wood. Here is an entry on Wikipedia that explains why this happens:

“The chief difficulty experienced in the drying of timber is the tendency of its outer layers to dry out more rapidly than the interior ones. If these layers are allowed to dry much below the fibre saturation point while the interior is still saturated, stresses (called drying stresses) are set up because the shrinkage of the outer layers is restricted by the wet interior (Keey et al., 2000). Rupture in the wood tissues occurs, and consequently splits and cracks occur if these stresses across the grain exceed the strength across the grain (fibre to fibre bonding).”

My guess is that most of the damage that you are seeing occurred a long time ago and the rate of cracking has slowed down almost to a halt. If there is fresh new cracking (as evidenced by bright looking wood at the terminus of the cracks) it could be caused by a change in the climate that the object is accustomed to. I get a lot of calls from people who retire from Alaska down to Arizona and wonder why their carved masks and totems are actively cracking again.

Example of both new and old cracking on a totem pole. The new cracking appears lighter in color

Here is the bad news: There is not a whole lot you can do about it either way. This is a force of nature and the stress that is set up by the drying process can only be controlled, not stopped. We do that in the museum world by maintaining a stable environment via a very expensive climate control system. What you probably have in your home is the equivalent of a desert in the winter and a swamp in the summer, so there are these periods where the object is losing moisture and periods where it is gaining moisture. This movement has caused the cracking and will continue to cause cracking until all of the stress that can be relieved is relieved. As I said earlier, you may have already arrived at that point and you are seeing old damage. If you could get in your time machine and travel back to when the sculpture was first made and then make sure that it dries slowly and remains in a stable climate up until the time when you bought it then you could prevent those cracks from ever happening.

If I am wrong about this and you are seeing a lot of recent activity with regards to cracking and paint loss then there might be something else going on and you should have a conservator look at it. If the old damage is bothering you for aesthetic reasons, then a conservator who specializes in objects conservation, can fill and inpaint it so that it has more of an overall harmonious look. You can find out more about how to contact a conservator by checking out the website of the American Institute for Conservation http://www.conservation-us.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=495&parentID=472

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Spotlight on Grant in Aid

FY2013 Grant-in-Aid Awards

The Alaska State Museum has announced the awarding of 23 grants totaling $105,600 to Alaska museums and cultural centers for museum projects around the state.

The following awards were made:

Applicant	Project	Amount
Internship grants		$
Pioneer Air Museum, Fairbanks	Internship program	5,300
Simon Paneak Museum, Anaktuvuk	Internship program	5,300
Regular grants:
Ahtna Heritage Foundation, Glenallen	Exhibit lighting upgrade	6,944
Alaska Museum of Nat. Hist., Anchorage	Exhibit and storage upgrade	8,102
Alpine Historical Park, Sutton	Foundations for large objects	10,000
Alutiiq Museum, Kodiak	Exhibit Upgrade Project	5,514
Bald Eagle Foundation, Haines	LED Exhibit lights	8,541
Baranov Museum, Kodiak	Permanent exhibit development	9,000
Cordova Historical Society, Cordova	Exhibit design for new museum	8,784
Juneau Douglas City Museum, Juneau	Education collection organization	8,049
Pratt Museum, Homer	Internships	6,638
Sheldon Museum, Haines	Cataloging collections	2,939
Mini-grants:
Alaska Jewish Museum, Anchorage	PastPerfect purchase and training	1,952
Carrie McLean Museum, Nome	Computer laptop for collections	1,730
Eagle Historical Society, Eagle	UV window blinds for exhibits	2,000
Beringia Museum and Science Ctr, Nome	Website and PastPerfect upgrade	2,000
Kodiak Maritime Museum, Kodiak	Cataloging museum artifacts	2,000
Pioneer Memorial Park, Fairbanks	Mounting historic Photographs	2,000
Port Alexander HS, Port Alexander	Laptop collections mgmt. upgrades	1,806
Sealaska Heritage Institute, Juneau	collections internship	2,000
Seward Community Museum, Seward	Archival packing materials	1,998
Tanana Valley Railroad Museum, Fairbanks	Past Perfect purchase and training	2,000
Maxine and Jessie Whitney Museum, Valdez	Archival Framing of prints	1,000

ASM on the Road

Scott Carrlee, Curator of Museum Services, traveled to Skagway to work with two conservation interns, Nicole Peters and Katie Bonanno, who are cleaning and conserving the Rapuzzi collections of the Klondike Gold Rush National Park. While in Skagway, Scott was able to use the Bruker portable XRF for a public program called, “What’s It Made of, and How Do You Take Care of It.” The XRF analyzer is especially good at determining the content of metals, such as in jewelry and there were several surprises of jewelry that contained more precious metals than previously thought.

Scott Carrlee examines family heirlooms with a portable XRF

http://www.ktuu.com/news/extreme-patriotism-new-museum-celebrates-alaskas-veterans-070412,0,5116358.story

Alaska Museums in the News

Extreme Patriotism: New Museum Celebrates Alaska’s Veterans

Kodiak Museums Do Well Competing for State Grants

http://www.kmxt.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3940&Itemid=2

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Professional Development/Training Opportunities

The George Washington University’s Distance Education Graduate Certificate Program in Museum Collections Management and Care application deadline is August 1, 2012.

The graduate certificate is earned completely online and is designed for those working or volunteering in museums with collections management responsibilities. The courses are ideal for those either lacking prior formal museum studies training or desiring a refresher in the topics of legal and ethical issues, collections management and preventive conservation.

For more information, please contact Mary Coughlin at musede@gwu.edu

or visit their website: http://ccas.gwu.edu/museum

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Professional Time Wasting on the Web

A new short film in now available online about the St. Lawrence Island Yupik ceremonial gut parka, featuring community members Estelle Oozevaseuk, Branson Tungiyan and Elaine Kingeekuk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu09jl8BwRI&list=PL33278BF298794573&index=9&feature=plpp_video

Nine fascinating short films on the Philippine community in Kodiak are now available for viewing through the Baranov Museum’s YouTube channel

www.youtube.com/BarMuse

This winter social media Artist Ze Frank will take over a gallery of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art. Read more about it here http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2012/07/ze-frank-takes-over-my-museum.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+museumtwo+%28Museum+2.0%29

Or watch a cool TED talk Ze gave in 2010 http://www.ted.com/talks/ze_frank_s_web_playroom.html

Gold Rush Nuggets Stolen From Museum of Natural History

http://www.keyt.com/news/local/Gold-Rush-Nuggets-Stolen-From-Museum-of-Natural-History-160090045.html

Video interview with Paper Conservator Sam Sheesley on preserving the legacy of Sailor Jerry, legendary tattoo artist

http://www.ccaha.org/about/news/2012/06/19/video-interview-with-ccaha-paper-conservator-sam-sheesley-on-conservation-of-work-by-legendary-tattoo-artist-sailor-jerry

Economic Sustainability Some Trends to Watch

http://www.lord.ca/CulturalCapital/Spring2012/article-economic-sustainability.htm

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alaska Museums in the News, Alaska State Museum, Ask ASM, cracks in wooden sculpture, Grant in Aid, QR Code for Museums, Skagway interns, XRF public program | 3 Comments

Alaska State Museums Bulletin 53

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Alaska State Museum Bulletin

Sheldon Jackson Museum Artist Residency Program 2012

By Nadia Sethi, Curator of Collections, Sheldon Jackson Museum

The Sheldon Jackson Museum collections include artifacts representing the entire state of Alaska. Because the museum is located remotely in Sitka, however, few Alaska Native artists have an opportunity to visit the museum and see the collections in person. During the summer of 2012, the Sheldon Jackson Museum received grants from the Alaska Humanities Forum and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian to bring a group of nine Alaska Native artists to Sitka to study the museum collections and share their work with the public through artist lectures, workshops and demonstrations. The visiting artist residencies provide an opportunity for museum staff to learn about the museum collections from the perspective of Alaska Native artists while giving artists an opportunity to closely examine historical artifacts in the collection. Visitors are provided with an intimate experience as they are invited to touch, smell and handle artists’ work and speak with artists directly. This summer’s visiting artists include Coral Chernoff from Kodiak, Marlene Nielsen from Kokhanok, Othniel Art Oomittuk from Point Hope, Jennie Wheeler from Yakutat, Sonya Kelliher-Combs from Anchorage, Patty Lekanoff-Gregory from Unalaska, Tommy Joseph from Sitka, Selina Alexander from Fairbanks, and Audrey Armstrong from Anchorage.

Coral Chernoff from Kodiak Island demonstrates blowing up a bear gut in the museum gallery. Coral has been experimenting with gut materials to construct rain gear, doll clothing and bags.

The first two visiting artists, Coral Chernoff (May 8-10) and Marlene Nielsen (May 25-27), both focused their residencies on sharing information about fish skin use as a textile material. Although few practicing artists work with fish skin today, historically skins from salmon, halibut, lamprey eel, jackfish, burbot, grayling and arctic char were used as materials to construct waterproof bags, boots, mittens, pants, parkas, quivers, blankets, window coverings and drinking containers. Seeing the Sheldon Jackson Museum’s collection of fish skin clothing and containers was the first opportunity for both of these artists to see historical examples of fish skin artifacts in person. Both Nielsen and Chernoff described the collections as great teaching tools to learn stitching techniques and clothing designs. After seeing a salmon skin parka in the museum collection, Nielsen plans to start working on her first full size salmon skin parka later this summer. Chernoff will use information gained from her residency at a salmon skin processing and sewing workshop in Kodiak in August.

Marlene Nielsen from Kokhanok studies the design of a salmon skin parka she hopes to replicate later this summer

During the first week of June the museum hosted two artists who grew up in northern Alaska, mask carver Art Oomittuk (May 31-June 8) from Point Hope and conceptual artist Sonya Kelliher-Combs (June 4-8) now living in Anchorage but raised in Nome. Having Oomittuk at the Museum was an excellent opportunity to closely examine the Sheldon Jackson Museum’s collection of one hundred and twenty-nine Point Hope masks. According to Oomittuk, there are few remaining artifacts in Point Hope. He will share images of the artifacts studied at the Sheldon Jackson Museum during a community presentation when he returns to Point Hope. In the fall Oomittuk will lead a workshop in Point Hope for high school students using images of the masks in the Sheldon Jackson Museum as inspiration for the creation of new work. Kelliher-Combs spent her time surveying the museum collection drawer by drawer looking at design elements and motifs on historical Inupiat and Athabascan artifacts. She is partnering with the Alaska Native Heritage Center to teach information gained during her residency as an instructor for an after school program for Alaska Native high school students.

Art Oomittuk from Point Hope examining masks during collection study

The visiting artist program will continue into the summer with overlapping artist residencies between carvers Patty Lekanoff-Gregory and Tommy Joseph (June 12-16), and a residency focused on moose heart and bladder bag making with Selina Alexander (June 18-28). The final artist residency with Audrey Armstrong will include a fish skin basketry workshop (July 19-21). We hope that the visiting artist residency program will continue next year to extend the opportunity to study the museum collections to more artists throughout the state.

Thank you to the Alaska Humanities Forum and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian for providing funding for our visiting artist program and to all of the participating artists who participated in the program and shared their knowledge!

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Ask ASM

Question: I have a question about exhibit labels. Our museum has NO environmental controls and it gets really humid so papers will fall off the walls and/or curl up and get crinkly. First of all, I’m wondering if you could recommend a type of label material that would be resistant to humidity.

Secondly, I’m looking for some sort of adhesive that would reliably stick the labels to the walls, but not cause too much damage to the walls if we want to move them.

So, in sum, I’m looking for a combination of a water resistant label material plus an adhesive strong enough to hold the labels on the walls, but not so strong as to take off paint or damage the walls.

ASM: If you have a budget, you can have your labels printed on vinyl. Most any print/sign shop will have these capabilities. The vinyl is used for most exterior signage these days and would certainly hold up.

A cheaper option is the back to back laminating trick which was described in Bulletin 37 http://museumbulletin.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/alaska-state-museums-bulletin-37/#2

As for mounting, a good application of 3M 99 spray adhesive will hold the laminated label securely to most substrates. There are a number of options for mounting material:

4ply museum matt board
Gator board
Aluminum and PVC panel (aluminum composite panel) various brands, available at sign shops, Plexiglas panel Extruded PVC panel (Syntra or similar brand product) matted and framed in a molding profile that fits the house period style.

There is not a great answer for the mounting to the wall problem without knowing all of your details. A free standing label frame is one way. If there is picture hanging molding on the wall, that could be used to hang frames or panel mounted labels. We have mounted our labels on 3/8″ Plexi and hang them from the tops of cases with monofilament or fishing cable and crimps. This is quite attractive and is visually non obtrusive. Double stick foam tape works well for sticking up labels (again a quality 3M brand will serve you better).It is hit or miss for removal. Generally a very careful removal will do no damage. Sometimes soft spots in the paint or sheet rock make removal impossible without ripping the wall surface. A hard plaster surface might be safe for removal. I would not use this option on historic paint or wall paper. More information on exhibit labels can be found in this Bulletin article. http://www.museums.state.ak.us/documents/bulletin_docs/bulletin_7-8.pdf

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Shaking the Money Tree

MAP

The Museum Assessment Program (MAP) is an IMLS funded program available to small and mid-sized museums of all types. It provides over $4,000 worth of services and resources—including a review by an experienced peer reviewer, a MAP Bookshelf specific to your assessment type, access to a MAP online community with resources and discussion topics and access to AAM’s Information Center Resources. During MAP your museum conducts a self-study, consults with a museum professional and gains the tools to become a stronger institution.

“Without a doubt, MAP has had a big impact on our ability to fundraise. We used the MAP recommendations to create case statements for grants. I can directly tie over $50,000 in funding we received to the MAP grant recommendations regarding the facility.”
—Michael Shanklin, former director, Discovery Science Center and current CEO, Kidspace Children’s Museum

Did you know?

MAP reports and activities can be used in funding and grant requests
MAP can help you prepare for strategic planning
MAP is an extremely affordable way to get consultative advice specific to your museum
MAP can help you engage your community
MAP is a great way to improve communication between staff and board, getting everyone on the same page
The MAP process is customized to your museum’s needs
You have a role in selecting your peer reviewer
You choose one of three assessment types: Organizational, Community Engagement or Collections Stewardship.

Since 1981, thousands of museums have utilized MAP, and the program has been integral to these institutions achieving their goals. But don’t take our word for it. Get MAPped! Become the next museum to get this grant.

Apply today for the July 1 application deadline at http://www.aam-us.org/museumresources/map/apply.cfm.

IMLS

The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) Message:

Monday, June 4, 2012

URGENT MESSAGE!

If you have not yet done so, please respond now to the request from IMLS posted below. The AIC Board of Directors agrees that that the proposed new grant guidelines pose a real threat to conservation funding and the long-term care of collections. It is imperative that IMLS hear from the conservation community—from individual conservation professionals as well as from AIC as a whole.

AIC is submitting a response on behalf of the organization. Some points taken from it include:

By merging Museums for America (MFA) and Conservation Project Support (CPS), there will no longer be a funding source dedicated to conservation.

Although multiple applications will be permitted by IMLS, multiple submissions from institutions will ultimately compete against each other. Exhibition or education proposals, for instance, would be pitted against conservation proposals.

If museums focus their grant writing efforts on the support of exhibitions, education, and community outreach, the grants will provide important support for annual programming budgets, yet these funds will do little to support museum missions to preserve and make their permanent collections accessible in a more lasting way.

One January 15 deadline for all proposals puts a great burden on museum staff members, particularly for those working in smaller institutions.

While AIC applauds IMLS for considering changes to improve its grant services, combining the CPS and MFA programs and instituting a single application deadline will have unintended consequences that will result in museums placing less emphasis on conservation of collections. AIC urges IMLS to consider leaving CPS as a separate program or combining it with collections stewardship.

How have the collections for which you are responsible benefited from IMLS conservation support in the past?

What impact on collections care do you envision with the implementation of the draft guidelines being presented by IMLS?

Speak up! Now!

Thank you,
Meg Craft
AIC Board President

===========================

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 May 9, 2012

IMLS Press Contacts
 202-653-4632
Kevin O’Connell, koconnell@imls.gov
Mamie Bittner, mbittner@imls.gov

Draft Museum Grant Guidelines Available for Public Comment

Washington, DC—The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is seeking public comments on the draft guidelines for the FY 2013 Museums for America and National Leadership Grants for Museums programs. The guidelines for these programs have been revised to align with the IMLS Strategic Plan. We are seeking comments to assess how well these guidelines accomplish the following goals:

Make federal dollars more accessible by reducing complexity
Increase clarity and readability
Make it easier to see where a project idea fits best
Make it easier to articulate the impact of project ideas
Allow grantees greater ability to pursue comprehensive collections care projects by combining the purposes of the current Conservation Project Support and Museums for America programs
Allow grantees greater ability to pursue professional development activities by combining the purposes and funding for the current 21st Century Museum Professionals and National Leadership Grants for Museums programs
Provide greater ability for museums and organizations that serve museums to pursue National Leadership Grants that have broad impact for their communities and create models that can be adapted by others
Make it possible for IMLS to continue to support the full range of museums, large and small, and representing every museum discipline and every geographic area

To see the guidelines use these links:
Museums for America
National Leadership Grants for Museums

The comment period will end on Friday, July 6, 2012. Please send comments to comments@imls.gov. Final guidelines will be posted no later than October 15, 2012.

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Spotlight on Grant in Aid

The Alpine Historical Society (AHS) received a $2,000 mini-grant FY 2012 for outdoor exhibit improvements at the Alpine Historical Park in Sutton. The funds were use to remove two boilers that were part of an exhibit of coal mining equipment and have a foundation created to place the boilers on. The mining equipment was brought in from three former mining sites in the Sutton area in 1989 and placed on railroad ties which were rotting. One of the boilers had a prominent tilt.

Large boiler before

Small boiler before

The work began in October 2011 with the removal of the boilers, and pads cleaned for concrete foundations, one with a pedestal. The foundations were made before the ground froze in the autumn of 2011, and the boilers were lifted on to the new foundations in May 2012. They look very attractive and level on their new solid foundations. Fencing at the display will be replaced by a volunteer work crew this summer. The work crew will also clean up the debris of dirt, lichen, sticks and stones that have collected in and around the boilers. The AHS provided the funding ($900) for the equipment and operator costs to remove and replace the boilers once the foundations were completed.

Boilers after placement on cement pads

The Alpine Historical Park, managed by AHS, is located in the center of the Sutton community on the Glenn Highway, a National Scenic Byway. The park is a gathering spot for several annual community events during the summer. A new Sutton Community Library/Resource Center which shares a parking area with the Alpine Historical Park opened June 15, 2012, so there will be presumably more community members visiting the Park before and after their use of the library. The AHS has worked closely with the Friends of the Library to make this new and larger Community Center possible. This spring 100 high school students have already visited the park to view the exhibits through self-guided tours which focus on the former Sutton coal mining industry, local geology, construction of the Glenn Highway and the Ahtna Athabascan culture in the area. Maintaining and improving the exhibits is an important goal for AHS.

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ASM on the Road

Scott Carrlee ASM Curator of Museum Services traveled to Fairbanks to assist the Pioneer Museum with the re-installation of the Rusty Heurlin paintings which comprise the Big Stampede Show. The 15 paintings were removed over a year ago so that the theater could be refurbished.

Volunteers preparing the Heurlin paintings for re-hanging

Bob Banghart, ASM Chief Curator went to Valdez to help move ASM’s Hitchinbrook Island lighthouse lens which is on loan to the Valdez Museum. The whole assembly is 8′ tall and the base is 5′ in diameter. She tips the scales at just over 1600 pounds.

Bob with the lighthouse lens in Valdez. Andrew Goldstein in the background

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/trove-artwork-found-alaska-ivory-bust-prompts-buzz-art-world\

Alaska Museums in the News

Ketchikan Exhibit Explores Scientific Illustration
(A great article about merging science and art to create a beautiful, yet educational experience.) http://www.adn.com/2012/06/10/2498840/ketchikan-exhibit-explores-scientific.html

Sitka artist challenges conceptions of modern aesthetics and Native identity
(Discusses the historical context, stereotyping, and prejudice artist Nicholas Galanin addresses in his photographs.)
http://www.adn.com/2012/06/09/2498636/sitka-artist-nicholas-galanin.html

North to the Art
(Through a multi-artist exhibit, The Anchorage Museum attempts to reveal the true harsh winters of the far North, rather than typical idealized versions seen in most art)
http://www.ktva.com/home/outbound-xml-feeds/North-to-the-art-152046085.html

Pahl’s latest: A hammerin’ machine
(Owner of the Hammer Museum, Dave Pahl creates a contraption of scrap metal that will be on display outside his museum as a tribute to Haines Highway pioneers)
http://www.chilkatvalleynews.com/story/2012/05/31/news/pahls-latest-a-hammerin-machine/3297.html

Trove of Artwork Found in Alaska Ivory Bust Prompts Buzz in Art World

http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-04/news/31575135_1_paintings-bloomfield-police-illegal-animal

Pioneer Park offers taste of history, family fun

http://newsminer.com/bookmark/18463452-Pioneer-Park-offers-taste-of-history-family-fun

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Professional Development/Training Opportunities

Heritage Preservation, in cooperation with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), is presenting WebWise Reprise, online event based on the IMLS WebWise 2012 conference.

June 28 at 10 am AKST, will be “Oral History in the Digital Age.”

To join the webinar go here: http://www.connectingtocollections.org/meeting/

Connecting to Collections Online Community Webinars

Heritage Preservation, along with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH), is pleased to announce the schedule for the C2C Online Community’s newly-scheduled live chat events. Resources and further information on the following programs will appear in the Featured Resource section approximately a week before

• Wireless Dataloggers – Tuesday, July 17, 2012, 9 am AKST. Rachael Perkins Arenstein, Partner, A.M. Art Conservation, LLC.

To join any of these webinars go to http://www.connectingtocollections.org/meeting/

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Professional Time Wasting on the Web

Follow Museums like Others Follow Sports Teams

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-kolakowski/follow-museums-like-other_b_1554638.html

Smithsonian Team Visits Sitka for Field Study

http://www.kcaw.org/2012/06/04/smithsonian-team-visits-sitka-for-field-study/

Museum App Builder 2.0 has just launched! It’s a do-it-yourself app publisher that allows museums and historic sites to build a mobile app very quickly and affordably – without any technical knowledge.

www.toursphere.com/video

Cool Museum Website

http://www.meyvaertmuseum.be/it/Immagini

How do you create a Future-Thinking Museum?

http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2012/05/blueprint-book-club-part-1-how-do-you.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+museumtwo+%28Museum+2.0%29

Southwest Museum’s Conservation Project Draws Closer to Completion

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-ca-southwest-museum-renovation-20120513,0,1988934.story

Getty Research Institute Launches Free Online Search Gateway to the World’s Art Libraries

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=55320

Pride & Prejudice: (What) Can Nonprofits Learn From the For Profit World?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-dare/nonprofit-funding_b_1471726.html

Good Stuff on the Alcan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfWdLs3PPm8

A little known incident in a largely forgotten war

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Pips

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alaska Museums in the News, Alaska State Museum, Alpine Historical Society, Ask ASM, Sheldon Jackson Museum | Leave a comment

Alaska State Museums Bulletin 52

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Alaska State Museum Bulletin

ASM Wins Ross Merrill Award

The Alaska State Museum received the 2012 joint American Institute for Conservation / Heritage Preservation’s Ross Merrill Award for Outstanding Commitment to the Preservation and Care of Collections. The awards committee called the museum “simply stellar” in the care of its own collections and those of other institutions in the State of Alaska through its ambitious conservation outreach programs since 1976.

National awards are more than just a pat on the back for good work. They are a tool for your allies outside the museum field to leverage resources and support for your institution to meet its mission. Administrators, bureaucrats, managers, friends groups, board members, voters and politicians need sound-bite ready data to go to bat for your museum operations and programming. What better ammunition than the approval of a nationally-recognized professional organization? Just ask the Pratt Museum in Homer, who won the National Medal for Museum Service http://www.imls.gov/about/medals.aspx from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services in 2005, or the Juneau-Douglas City Museum who won the Award of Merit http://www.aaslh.org/cgi-bin/awards.cgi from the American Association for State and Local History in 2006 and again in 2011. The good work you do may well be invisible to folks who would like to support you. Many museums don’t realize that self-nomination is not only encouraged for these awards, but the nominee is typically the only entity who really knows enough about the organization to fill out the paperwork. Perhaps the most important aspect of filling out a nomination for a national award is soliciting letters of support for the institution. The Alaska State Museum was grateful for more than 30 letters of support for its Ross Merrill award nomination from museums across Alaska and even in the lower 48. Wonder what a successful nomination looks like?

The following is an excerpt from the nomination package for the ASM:

For more than three decades, ASM has undertaken the leadership role in Alaska for preservation and care of collections. ASM has led not only by example but also by direct assistance to more than 80 museums and cultural centers scattered around this vast but thinly populated state. This assistance has taken the form of site visits, conservation assessments, technical advice, analytical and treatment services, preventive conservation and collections care workshops, funding for conservation projects, loans of preservation equipment, facilitating conservation internships, publications, and connecting Alaska to conservation trends and services in the lower 48. Today, Alaska has an all-time high of three AIC-affiliated conservators. Two of them work for the Alaska State Museum, which is remarkable considering the museum only has eleven full time staff members.

THE CHALLENGE OF ALASKA

Many extremes describe Alaska: remote, vast, sparsely populated, ruggedly individualistic, and culturally diverse. The distance from Juneau to Barrow is about the same as from New York City to Orlando, Florida. Only four cities have a population greater than 10,000. The recurring preservation needs most frequently noted by the Alaska State Museum are:

Need for improved collections storage
Need for improved exhibition standards
Care for individual items of special significance to the community

2009 damage to the Eagle Historical Museum from an ice jam on the Yukon

Home of the future Tenakee Museum.

Collections Storage Challenges

ASM head curator Bob Banghart discusses crawlspace storage at the Pratt Museum in Homer, 2010.

Overcrowded, unorganized storage in a fledgling small museum.

Collections storage at theYupiit Piciryarait Museum in Bethel in 2003 before internship

Collections storage in Bethel after work by Conservation intern Dana Senge in 2004

Exhibition Challenges

Wire barriers obscure exhibitions in an attempt to protect them in Palmer

Dogsled suspended from ceiling and muskox at Palmer Museum and Visitor’s Center, Palmer

2008 “Before” shot of exhibit at the Native Museum in Fairbanks

2009 “After” shot of exhibit at the Native Museum in Fairbanks (recipient of Grant in Aid)

Individual Treasures

Conservator Dana Senge leads community condition reporting and cleaning of rare three-holed bidarka (Skin covered kayak) at the Baranof Museum, Kodiak in 2007

Scott Carrlee works with a local carpenter to install a Chilkat Robe at the Sheldon Museum in Haines, 2008

Commitment to Preservation

The Alaska State Museum was the first institution of any kind in the state of Alaska to create a staff position for a professional conservator. The position was created in 1976 through grant initiatives, and then made a part of the permanent staff. To put this in perspective, the mid-70s was a time when only a small number of professional conservators had graduated from any kind of training program (approximately 110 individuals according to the AIC Committee on Educational Affairs, 1977). AIC was only four years old with fewer than 700 individual members (Source: AIC Strategic Plan February 1990). Many large institutions nationwide had only just begun to differentiate conservation from general collections management. ASM was at the forefront, especially for museums not dedicated solely to fine arts. From the beginning, the ASM conservator was seen as a state resource committed to serving a constituency beyond just the state museum’s own collection. One could say outreach and assistance to smaller institutions is part of its DNA, since the ASM’s mission first written in 1900 states that “ASM assists and advises in the development of museums throughout Alaska.”

In a 1976 letter, the director of the Anchorage Museum wrote:

“It would appear that of the three major museums in Alaska, the Alaska State Museum alone has the capabilities to serve the entire state. The Anchorage Museum is municipally funded and is designed to serve the people in the Greater Anchorage area. The University Museum is research oriented and serves primarily as an educational institution. Of necessity then, the responsibility for meeting small museums’ needs through the state must fall under the aegis of the State Museum.”

This continues to be the case today. The Anchorage Museum, with a staff of more than 50, created the only other conservation position in Alaska in 2007. Conservator Monica Shah also serves as the director of collections and is able to perform limited outreach beyond the needs of her busy institution. The Museum of the North, affiliated with the University of Alaska’s flagship Fairbanks campus, has a staff of over 30 but has never had a staff conservator. Only six other institutions in the state have five or more full-time staff members. The remaining 70+ museums fall into the Heritage Health Index categories of “small” or “medium” sized institutions.

Sustained Institutional Commitment Internally

Over the years, even through difficult financial times, ASM has been successful at keeping a conservator on staff. Each one of them has been kept busy with a rigorous schedule of conserving the museum’s collections as well as statewide outreach duties. In 2006, Head Curator (Director) Bruce Kato moved conservator Scott Carrlee into the museum’s main outreach position, curator of museum services, where he could provide conservation outreach and advocacy on a full-time basis. Kato then hired Ellen Carrlee to the conservator position.

The museum is currently in the design phase of a building project, where more than $10 million has been spent in the development of a new unified State Library, Archives, and Museum building. The new building, with an estimated completion date of 2015, will house an expanded objects conservation lab and a paper conservation lab (a first for the state). The project has contracted with a professional lab designer and facilitated consultations with paper conservators to design labs that will continue the ASM’s commitment to preservation and expand the outreach into libraries and archives as well. The construction of these conservation labs will mark the first time new construction has included purpose-built conservation facilities anywhere in the state.

2011 plans for the new conservation labs: ECI/ Heyer architects, laboratory design by the Estimé Group, paper conservation advising from Deb Evans of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Sustained Institutional Commitment Externally

The institutional belief in conservation runs deep at the ASM, and support has been from the top-down. Since 1976, the ASM head curators (directors) have supported conservation as a fundamental part of museum activities and promoted the museum’s conservation expertise as one of the jewels in its crown. The exhibits department staff is knowledgeable, skilled, and most importantly, sensitive to conservation principles from case construction materials to proper artifact mounts and light levels. Temperature and relative humidity have been recorded since 1983, and IPM logs have been kept since 1990. Oddly, testing of sample construction materials began in the 1980s. Collections staff hold a deep sensitivity to the ethics of conservation in collaborative treatment decision-making and storage protocols consulting with tribal care takers when appropriate. The Museum Protection and Visitor Services team members consider themselves the front line against plants, pests, and food entering the museum. Conservation staff is always at the table in exhibition planning, acquisitions, and loan decisions. With a new unified facility on the horizon, ASM staff has spread the word about environmental monitoring to the state library and archive. 125 pest traps are now set at five different sites, along with a dozen PEM2 dataloggers. Library and Archive staff are now trained to monitor temperature, RH, and pests quarterly and report to the ASM conservator for advice and support. The ASM conservator also chairs a division-wide monthly committee meeting on emergency preparedness. Conservation concerns are the vanguard of integration for the new building.

While the collections care at the Alaska State Museum is excellent, it is the outreach and advocacy aspects of the museum’s activities that are outstanding and the basis of this nomination for the Ross Merrill award. The Alaska State Museum’s Outreach Program includes both site visits and phone/email consultations. The latter average 2 or 3 contacts per day for a total about over 800 consults per year. The ASM Outreach Program also loans collections care equipment such as a Nilfisk HEPA vacuum, blue wool fade cards, dataloggers, humidity indicator cards, and UV and visible light meters so that small museums can monitor and improve their preservation environments.

Scott Carrlee with light meter at Baranof Museum, Kodiak

Scott Carrlee, licensed in asbestos abatement, uses his training to assist in decontamination of paintings at the Pioneer Museum in Fairbanks in 2010

Volunteers for 2011 Museums Alaska Angels project make up artifact labeling kits at the Whitney Museum in Valdez

ASM curator of exhibits Paul Gardinier teaches a mount making workshop at the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, 2008

Exemplary Model

Four initiatives at the Alaska State Museum might serve as exemplary models to others, particularly conservators working at institutions in remote areas such as Western states or even abroad.

Grant-In-Aid Program: Since 1981, the ASM has administered the Grant-In-Aid program (GIA) as a way to award funding from the State Legislature to needy museums and cultural centers. Since its inception, more than $3 million has been awarded to Alaskan museums and cultural centers with much of the funding going towards collections care and conservation-related activities. Often the grant requests come as a direct follow-up from a CAP or MAP survey or from the advice of the ASM staff. This grant is often used to leverage funds from other sources such as private foundations or federal funding.

Scott Carrlee (center) assists with exhibit case installation following conservation treatment for Iditarod champion and husky breed foundation stud “Fritz” at the Carrie McLain Museum in Nome, 2008

2011 exhibition case upgrade at the Sam Fox Museum in Dillingham

Internship Programs: With a conservator in the outreach position, the ASM pursued grant funding from the Institute for Museums and Library Services (IMLS) for a 21st century Museum Professionals grant to place graduate-level museums studies and conservation students as interns in remote museums statewide. The internship program utilized ASM’s expertise to recruit, vet, and mentor the interns, filling the gap which often prevented small museums from using interns to provide much-needed expertise. After the initial three years of grant funding, the internship program continues through state funding as a separate program of the GIA. In addition to this program, the ASM conservation lab has hosted more than a dozen conservation graduate students. These relationships have led to additional contract jobs for several conservators after graduation, and a few interns have even taken permanent positions in Alaskan museums.

Conservation intern Fran Ritchie with collections storage upgrades at the Baranof Museum in Kodiak, 2011

Conservation intern Samantha Springer (seated) advises on the care of family heirlooms at a 2007 public program at the Sheldon Jackson Museum

Electronic Outreach: In a state as vast as Alaska, with most institutions off the road system, the internet has proven to be an excellent tool for connecting museums with preservation information. In 1998 the ASM established the first museum-related electronic listserv in the state as an effort to connect with small museums and provide a forum for information sharing. Ellen Carrlee’s conservation weblog (http://ellencarrlee.wordpress.com/), established in 2007, now has 83 conservation-related posts and more than 75,000 hits. The Alaska Fur ID website (http://alaskafurid.wordpress.com/), was established in 2009 with conservation intern Lauren Horelick, and What’s That White Stuff, (http://alaskawhitestuffid.wordpress.com/) followed in August 2011 with conservation intern Crista Pack. In 2009, Scott Carrlee began a monthly online Museum Chat (http://www.museums.state.ak.us/ASMChat.html), with approximately a dozen participants each session. The chat provides small museums in Alaska with direct access to a conservator on a regular basis to answer preservation, collections care, and other museum-related questions. The sessions are recorded for future use and a transcript of the written chat is sent out to every museum via the listserv. In 2010 the ASM Bulletin (founded as a quarterly publication in 1996) went from paper to electronic (http://museumbulletin.wordpress.com/), and increased frequency, reaching approximately 150 monthly subscribers. “Ask ASM,” a recurring column of the ASM Bulletin, functions as a kind of “Dear Abby” for museums and often carries collections care advice in addition to the Bulletin’s frequent preservation-oriented feature articles.

In 2011, Ellen Carrlee collaborated with conservator Ron Sheetz on a weblog posting for the maintenance of totem poles which has proven popular both nationally and internationally. They are treating the Governor’s totem pole

Ron Sheetz is applying Bora-Care to the YaxTe pole in Auke Bay

Ellen collaborated with head curator (director) Bob Banghart (foreground ) to write weblog postings on taking down totem poles and proper mounting techniques

Banghart has been involved in rigging and moving numerous totem poles in Southeast Alaska

Empowerment of Collections Caretakers: Since the inception of the conservation program at the ASM, there has been a philosophy of empowering collections caretakers to perform preventive maintenance and collections care themselves, with the knowledge that they could call the ASM anytime for advice and support. When possible, caretakers are guided step-by-step through procedures or activities. Preservation equipment is available for loan through the ASM environmental monitoring kit. When needs are beyond the abilities of local staff, the ASM has coordinated to bring conservation expertise from the lower 48, often through the auspices of the Grant-in-Aid program. To keep a finger on the pulse of statewide museum needs, ASM staff performs an average of 25 site visits annually. The ASM has been a presence at the statewide Museums Alaska conference every year since its incorporation in 1983, often providing training and workshops in preservation and collections care as well as underwriting part of the conference through the GIA program.

Exhibit designer Paul Gardinier teaches a mannequin making workshop at the Alaska State Museum during the 2006 Museums Alaska conference

Participants learn the Beilstein Test for chlorides in order to determine appropriate storage housings during a 2009 photo preservation workshop by conservator Jennifer McGlinchey

COMMUNITY UNDERSTANDING AND INVOLVEMENT

In addition to the outreach activities to museums and cultural centers listed above, the ASM strives to connect all its constituents to conservation information. One example has been the recent sustained efforts to increase conservation awareness among archaeologists. ASM conservator Ellen Carrlee participated in a panel discussion of “Curation Concerns” at the 2009 Alaska Anthropological Association Conference. The demand for a labeling adhesive more user-friendly than B-72 was relayed to the AIC Objects Specialty Group, and Ellen undertook a project with Anna Weiss (conservation graduate student at Queen’s University) and Samantha Springer (assistant objects conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art) to test alternate adhesives that archaeologists wanted to use. Results were brought to the 2010 Alaska Anthropological Association Conference, and posted online in 2011. Since then, information requests from archaeologists in the state have increased.

Polishing kit designed for the Russian Orthodox Church in Juneau in conjunction with the 2009 WAAC Angels project. Kit and instruction on “How to Polish Liturgical Brass” were posted online. Materials for the kit were paid for through the AIC Regional Angels grant written by Scott Carrlee

Bob Banghart and Ellen Carrlee working on conservation and mount making of an archaeological fish trap in a public gallery at the Alaska State Museum. The project was presented at the AIC conference in 2005 and won an AASLH “wow” award for the Juneau-Douglas City Museum

Local outreach to the community includes such activities as the ASM winter brown bag lecture series, which always features a conservation presentation and conservation treatments in progress displayed in public galleries, such as the Montana Creek Fish Trap project and the conservation of shipwreck artifacts from the Torrent. The ASM has also been involved in many Angels projects in conjunction with various conferences statewide. Angels projects led by conservators have included labeling artifacts, polishing liturgical brass, and moving collections.

Connecting collections to communities is multi-directional. On the left, Tlingit/Haida weaver Janice Criswell assists in the cleaning and analysis of a 4,500-year-old waterlogged basket in the ASM conservation lab.

Jan teaches preparation of basketry materials and weaving to conservation intern Samantha Springer. The two were among the co-authors of a paper about basketry preservation and cultural sensitivity presented at the ICOM-CC Triennial in New Delhi, India, 2007

PROFESSIONAL CONSERVATORS

Mary Pat Wyatt (ASM conservator 1976-1980) Mary Pat had been the curator of collections at the Anchorage Museum from 1972-75. Following 10 months’ training at the Smithsonian’s Anthropology Conservation Lab with Bethune Gibson, Mary Pat pursued grant funding (NEH and NMA) for a state conservation lab and found it a home at the Alaska State Museum. At the time, Alaska had fewer than 20 museums. She was involved in the seminal activities of the Totem Rescue Project which resulted in the establishment of the Ketchikan Totem Heritage Center. She wrote a National Museum Act grant to bring four conservators to Alaska in the summer of 1978: Alice Hoveman, Melba Myers, Susan Paterson and Thurid Clark. She resigned in 1979 after connecting with more than 40 institutions statewide, in order to complete her MA thesis, “Problems in Conservation of Alaskan Ethnographic Material.”

Alice Hoveman (ASM conservator 1980-1986) Trained in the George Washington University conservation program under Carolyn Rose. Alice was responsible for the publication of the Conservation Wise Guide (http://www.museums.state.ak.us/documents/wise_guide.pdf) in 1985. This publication can be found on the shelf of nearly every museum and library in Alaska and is available online in PDF format. Alice led the three-year cleanup of the ASM’s collections after a violent boiler explosion caused much of the collection to be contaminated with soot. As an indicator of how long ago this was, it was under Alice’s tenure that smoking was banned in the Museum(!) Alice also helped facilitate conservation work in Alaska by paper conservator Deborah Seibel, sculpture conservators Bob Marti and Phoebe Weil, and collaborated with CCI scientists on totem pole care in British Columbia. She was part of the team that oversaw new exhibits and storage created for the Sheldon Jackson Museum when it became part of the ASM in the mid-1980’s.

Helen Alten (ASM conservator 1989-1994) A graduate of the Institute of Archaeology, London program and AIC Professional Associate, Helen’s achievements in the position included state-of-the-art training workshops in basketry repair delivered directly to museum staff and Native basket weavers. These three-day workshops, held in 1991 and 1992, brought in such heavy hitters as Mary-Lou Florian and Dale Kronkright. Helen headed up the Save Outdoor Sculpture efforts for the State of Alaska. It was under Helen’s tenure that Integrated Pest Management was established at the ASM, and from there spread to institutions statewide. Helen brought conservation interns Renee Jones and Maria Sullivan to Alaska in 1993 for summer projects in Juneau.

Brook Bowman (ASM conservator 1996-1999) Brook’s most lasting legacy was the development of the ASM’s emergency preparedness capacity and spreading that training statewide. One of the most popular hands-on trainings ever offered at the Museums Alaska conference was her so-called “Hindsight Museum” disaster, where participants had to grapple with a mock fire and flood scenario including thrift store “artifacts” and participation from the local fire and police departments. Brook also was the first ASM conservator to interface with wood conservator Ron Sheetz, furthering the ASM’s role in providing totem pole maintenance advice begun by Mary Pat Wyatt and later continued by the Carrlees. Brook also conducted 10 site visits to museums in Alaska during her tenure as ASM conservator.

Scott Carrlee (ASM conservator 2000- 2006; ASM curator of museum services 2006- present) Scott has an MA in art conservation from Buffalo State University and is an AIC Fellow. As president of the Western Association for Art Conservation (WAAC) in 2009, he brought the organization’s annual conference to Juneau. Scott’s greatest contributions to conservation in Alaska have been his outreach efforts. In the past ten years, Scott has visited 67 of the 80 museums in Alaska, many of them multiple times. A gregarious personality, Scott’s reputation as an accessible and helpful resource led to his 2011 award for Excellence in the Museum Profession by the Museums Alaska organization. Recognizing that small museums didn’t need another daunting to-do list, but rather a skilled person to help get the work done, Scott initiated the outreach internship program. Scott is an advocate of the Standards in Excellence Program put for by the American Association of State and Local History (AASLH) which makes national museum standards accessible for small institutions. He is one of only a handful of conservators who regularly attend AASLH annual meetings.

Ellen Carrlee (ASM Conservator 2006- present) A graduate of the NYU conservation training program and AIC professional associate, Ellen honed her sensitivity to small museums as the curator of collections and exhibits at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum for five years. The presence of two conservators on staff at the ASM allowed Ellen to refocus on internal collections needs, and she has undertaken surveys of the basketry and natural history collections, as well as research into PEG protocols for the waterlogged archaeological basketry (research that has been published through AIC and WOAM with co-author Dana Senge, who was herself a conservation intern in Alaska as a student). Ellen’s outreach activities have included the creation of online resources and efforts to connect with the archaeological community. Ellen has brought conservation interns Samantha Springer, Molly Gleeson, Lauren Horelick, Siobhan Coop, and Crista Pack to Alaska for conservation internships, and conservators Dave Harvey (metals) and Catherine Hawks (natural history) for consultations.

“Outside” Conservation Expertise

In Alaska, the lower 48 is colloquially called “outside.” Scott has brought conservation interns Dana Senge, Lara Kaplan, Jennifer Dennis, Jennifer McGlinchey and Fran Richie to work at institutions around the state. He also facilitated the work of conservators Grace White, Seth Irwin, Dave Harvey, Carmen Bria, and Cathy Hawks in Alaska. Two of these in particular, paper conservators Grace White and Seth Irwin, were brought up through grant funding that Scott helped procure, and worked at 18 different institutions with paper conservation needs. It is the demand for the paper and photo expertise that will lead to a permanent paper conservation position at the Alaska State Museum. In 2009, with Scott as its president, the Western Association for Art Conservation held its annual meeting in Juneau marking the northern most venue for their meetings. The meeting was remarkable not only for the fact that over 40 conservators ventured to the far north, and 10 of them participated in an AIC funded Angels project at the local Russian Orthodox Church, but for disaster response at the State Archives as well.

Conservator Dana Senge works with Ellen Lester on a mannequin for a gutskin parka at the Baranof Museum in Kodiak. The project was ASM grant funded in 2010

Paintings conservators D. Hays Shoop and Camilla VanVooren from WCCFA assess the condition of icons at the Russian Orthodox Church in Juneau during the 2009 WAAC Angels project.

Paper conservator Seth Irwin teaching a tear repair workshop in Anchorage, 2010

IN-HOUSE COLLECTIONS CARE AT THE ALASKA STATE MUSEUMS

The ASM has been AAM accredited since 1975. When the conservation program began in 1976, collections were stored on open wooden shelves. Subsequent grants, cabinet upgrades, and improvements to storage mounts spearheaded by the museum’s conservators follow the trajectory typical of professional museums nationwide. 90% of our on-site storage is now in powder coated and gasketed museum cabinets, hanging on rolling art racks, or kept in a custom-built unit for framed artwork. In 2007, the Museum acquired off-site climate controlled storage for oversized collections, which allowed proper store of large items such as watercraft and industrial artifacts that had been always been on long-term loan to distant institutions with less-than-ideal facilities. Long-range and short-range (fiscal year) plans written by the conservator have driven much of the collections care at the ASM since 1976. All decisions involving artifacts have involved the conservator. The new museum building will include three times the storage area and state of the art climate control.

Scott Carrlee with rolled textile, Alaska State Museum 2009

Modu-Panel art racks for storage of fine art, two particularly delicate paintings covered with custom Tyvek envelopes. Alaska State Museum, 2010

Curator Rosemary Carlton, collections inventory at the Sheldon Jackson Museum, Sitka 2008

Thorne River Basket, c. 5,450 years old. The first of many waterlogged baskets treated at the ASM since 1995, with collaborative research presented and published by Ellen Carrlee and Dana Senge (WOAM 2009, AIC 2009)

SUMMARY

The Alaska State Museum (founded 1900) and the Sheldon Jackson Museum (established 1888 and added to the ASM system in 1986) are the two oldest museum collections in Alaska. The establishment of a conservation program in 1976 was pioneering for the period, and has penetrated every aspect of the Museum’s activities. But it is truly the conservation outreach activities of the museum that are of national significance, serving some of the most remote and vulnerable collections in the country. This outreach program contributes to the lifeblood of a statewide museum network and establishes conservation as a primary force for collections care.

When the 2005 Heritage Health Index report was released, it was a nationwide wakeup call to many that collections were in need. The four recommendations of the report are aligned with the principles that have guided the ongoing efforts in Alaska.

Commitment to safe conditions for collections: The ASM outreach program stresses that good collections care is a continuum; artifacts indoors are better protected than outdoors, on a shelf is better than on a floor, and in acid-free housing is better than exposed on a shelf. It is this incremental, step-by-step raising of the level of collections care that is one of the proudest accomplishments of the Alaska State Museum and remains the focus of much of the outreach work still taking place.
Emergency Planning: The ASM holds frequent workshops on emergency planning and emphases the Incident Command System. When disasters strike, the ASM provides expertise for recovery of collections and leverages anecdotal information from incidents to aid in future preparedness. In 2009, a storm tore off the roof of the State Archive and flooded collections causing damage to more than 1500 linear feet of state archival documents. There were five paper conservators in town for the WAAC annual meeting who pitched in to guide the recovery effort. By the time the meeting was over more than half of the attendees had helped out with the recovery one way or another. As one of the risk managers for the state remarked “it was like having a heart attack at a cardiologist’s convention!” Ellen Carrlee’s blog posting titled “Anatomy of an Archives Flood” (http://ellencarrlee.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/anatomy-of-an-archives-flood/) garnered national praise and led to Ellen presenting on a panel for an AAM / AIC- sponsored disaster preparedness webinar with more than 500 participants.

Emergency response to save soaked archival collections in Juneau, 2009

Recovery efforts spearheaded by conservators who came for the 2009 WAAC conference held in Juneau

Assigning Responsibility for Collections Care: In the 1970s and 80s, much of ASM’s preservation outreach efforts involved getting collections out of harm’s way and connecting caretakers without training to resources for building collections care skills. That fundamental work is still ongoing in Alaska, but has given rise to the recognition in museums built in the last decade and current building campaigns that collections care must be designed in from the outset.
Individuals Assume Responsibility to Leverage Support: The ASM leads the charge in communicating a strong preservation message, puts boots on the ground to help get it done, and even helps put money into budgets to make it happen. Site visits, skilled interns to assist in collections care, imported conservation expertise from the lower 48, electronic listservs and chats, blogs, publications, the annual museum conference, workshops, and grants all serve to emphasize the message that collections care is important and possible.

Nationwide, but especially in Alaska, there is a dire need for collections care and preservation expertise to be delivered to local institutions closest to the people. In Alaska, this recognition is at the heart of ASM’s preservation outreach strategy. This message of accessibility and relevance to even the smallest and most remote of collections is vitally important. The collections are important because they are important to people, and when museum professionals connect with and understand the needs and challenges facing the people, collections care can happen from the ground up.

Duncan Cottage Museum at the Tsimshian Reservation in Metlakatla, founded in 1972. participant in on-site assessment and museum internship program. Before the grand re-opening in 2010, few of the Tsimshian people would engage with the museum because of its association with a repressive past. Now it is seen as a place of healing and rebirth for their culture

Port Alexander Museum, recipient of Grant in Aid funds, museum intern, database training, numerous phone and email contacts. Majority of the community is pictured here at the grand opening 2010

http://cool.conservation-us.org/jaic/articles/jaic42-02-002.html

Ask ASM

Question: We have a textile that may have an insect infestation. We would like to freeze it but are afraid to because it has metal wrapped threads on it. Would it be ok to freeze it?

ASM: The research on low temperature treatment generally suggests most materials are safe in the freezer if they are properly packaged (i.e.in a sealed plastic bag with materials inside like tissue paper to control the amount of RH.) Metals could certainly have trouble if they are not kept in a bag following cold treatment for a day or so. Condensation will form on the outside of the bag as it returns to room temperature, and if the bag is not present or is breached the condensation could form on the surface of the metal, promoting corrosion.

Here’s a link to a low temperature treatment article:

In the specific case of metal threads, the layer of metal is very thin and therefore you might be concerned there is not much room for error. In this case, an alternate regimen of isolation and monitoring if you are unsure if you have an infestation might be the safest solution. Inspection with a flashlight and magnifying glass including the creases, seams and folds ought to reveal if there are insect parts, wings, legs, larval casings, webbing, cocoons or the like. If you find anything definitively dead and old, remove the debris to allow future monitoring. Either way, you would keep the artifact bagged for several weeks or even a couple of months to see if anything hatched out. Eggs are nearly impossible to be certain about their absence in a visual inspection. Repeat inspection after allowing for the hatching-out period.

If you know for sure you have an infestation, you should weigh the known threat to the textile from infestation against the hypothetical/potential risk to the threads and err on the side of undergoing a low temperature treatment.

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Shaking the Money Tree

CAP

97 Museums Will Participate in Conservation Assessment Program

Washington, D.C. -The Conservation Assessment Program (CAP), which assists small museums in providing appropriate care for endangered collections, has announced this year’s participating museums. In 2012, 97 museums in 34 states, Guam, and the Republic of Palau will have the condition of their collections and historic structures assessed. CAP is administered by Heritage Preservation and funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through its National Leadership Grants program.

The wide array of 2012 recipients includes the Seabee Museum & Memorial Park in North Kingstown, Rhode Island; the History of Diving Museum in Islamorada, Florida; the University of Guam Herbarium in Mangilao, Guam; the Soudan Underground Mine State Park in Soudan, Minnesota; and the Kansas African American Museum in Wichita, Kansas. To view the complete list of 2012 CAP participants, visit the Heritage Preservation Web site. 2013 application to be released October 1, 2012

IMLS

FY2012 Conservation Project Support awards:

http://www.imls.gov/grant_awards_announcement_fy_2012_conservation_project_support.aspx

Draft Museum Grant Guidelines Available for Public Comment

Make federal dollars more accessible by reducing complexity
Increase clarity and readability
Make it easier to see where a project idea fits best
Make it easier to articulate the impact of project ideas
Allow grantees greater ability to pursue comprehensive collections care projects by combining the purposes of the current Conservation Project Support and Museums for America programs
Allow grantees greater ability to pursue professional development activities by combining the purposes and funding for the current 21st Century Museum Professionals and National Leadership Grants for Museums programs
Provide greater ability for museums and organizations that serve museums to pursue National Leadership Grants that have broad impact for their communities and create models that can be adapted by others
Make it possible for IMLS to continue to support the full range of museums, large and small, and representing every museum discipline and every geographic area

To see the guidelines use these links:
Museums for America
National Leadership Grants for Museums

The comment period will end on Friday, July 6, 2012. Please send comments to comments@imls.gov. Final guidelines will be posted no later than October 15, 2012.

NEH

The National Endowment for the Humanities Division of Preservation and Access is proud to announce the launch of our completely redesigned NEH website (www.neh.gov)! Besides easier access to applying for, and managing a grant, the new site will showcase featured projects, news about NEH staff, and NEH-funded online content that you can explore.

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Spotlight on Grant in Aid

The deadline for project completion for FY2012 projects is rapidly approaching. All projects that were awarded last July 1 should be accomplished by this June 30^th. The final accounting for these projects is due by September 30. Final accounting forms were sent out to all grant recipients May 15. Letters can be returned along with copies of invoices and receipts by email to scott.carrlee@alaska.gov and can be in MS Word or Pdf format. If you need an electronic version of the form you can find one here http://www.museums.state.ak.us/grants.html

Remember you will need to provide at least one photograph that represents your project in order for your final accounting to be complete. Some of these reports will be published throughout the year in this section. If your project is chosen for the “Spotlight on Grant in Aid” you will need to supply this photograph in digital format.

All applications are due by Friday June 1^st. More information can be found at http://www.museums.state.ak.us/grants.html

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Conference Reviews

American Institute for Conservation Annual Meeting

Scott Carrlee, Curator of Museum Services attended the American Institute for Conservation annual meeting May 7-12 in Albuquerque, NM. Scott participated in several workshops on Collections Emergency Response and presented during a session on conservators whose career paths have gone beyond bench work in the conservation field. He also was a team member in “The Great Debate” where the topic was “Publishing accurate and complete “how-to guides” for conservation and restoration treatments online is the best way for us to care for cultural heritage in the 21st century.“

There were two other Alaskans connections at the meeting, Holly Cusack-McVeigh from the Pratt and Paper Conservator Seth Irwin (honorary Alaskan). Many of you will remember Seth from the 14 months he spent up here doing paper conservation and various museums and his workshops at museum Alaska.

Holly Cusack-McVeigh and Seth Irwin at the conference

Museum Trend: The Culturally-Specific Museum

By Ellen Carrlee

The Smithsonian Institution was founded in 1846. Today, there are 19 museums in the Smithsonian system. The National Museum of the American Indian opened on the national mall in 2004. The Museum of African American History and Culture is slated to open in Washington DC in 2014. Recently, a report to congress from the Latino commission recommended that a National Museum of the Latino be added to the Smithsonian’s constellation of museums, prompting a symposium about the trend for culturally specific museums. On April 25, I listened to a live video stream of the Smithsonian’s symposium “(Re)Presenting America: The Evolution of Culturally Specific Museums.” A central issue was controlling the authoritative voice of what identity means. Is your museum about people just like you, or does your museum speak about other people? Both? In a nutshell, here are a few paraphrased statements:

Where are we in this storyline? Why are we forgotten / marginalized / absent?

Who spoke for me in this timeline? Why wasn’t someone from my specific culture consulted?
Screw this, we’ll never get a fair shake here. We’re opening our own museum!
I’m a hybrid of 4 different cultures…do I have to go to four different museums and piece together a whole?
I’m American, and you’re American…the history and struggles of my people impact you whether you know it or not.

The Smithsonian has put the entire symposium on YouTube, and I thought the following segments were especially worth checking out, depending on the focus of your museum work:

David Hurst Thomas spoke as a member of the anthropological and academic community about the relationship between his profession and Native Americans. If you self-identify as an anthropologist or have had to deal with one studying you, this is worth seeing. (25 minutes)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-BXfWbTMXc

Among the most interesting aspects of a diverse panel discussion was the importance of social networking and online presence to Asian American youth and the political/ cultural needs of Latinos as expressed by Congressman Xavier Becerra. The most intriguing ideas for me came from Lonnie Bunch, who is the director of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture. (1 hour 20 minutes)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcVHMeb12MI

Wayne Clough, who is the current leader of the Smithsonian, gave his impressions about the future of diversity there, and I was most interested in the changes he mentioned for the National Museum of the American Indian. (22 minutes)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-bwB-fggvU

Kip Fulbeck! If you watch nothing else, watch this amazing 35 minute performance by artist, poet, filmmaker, and professor Kip Fulbeck. Watch it with a co-worker, or a spouse, or a friend. You will want to talk about what you see. This was the part of the symposium that stuck with me the longest, because as we all know, art has a way of talking on many levels and making us think in a way that a direct lecture style does not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voZsy1boYFc&list=PLADEF599C6214F327&index=8&feature=plpp_video

For a full list of all the video clips from the conference, see the playlist http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLADEF599C6214F327

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Alaska Museums in the News

IMLS on YouTube: Pratt Museum Explores the Science, Art, and Culture of Kachemak Bay

http://blog.imls.gov/?p=1135

Artist Dan DeRoux shares his history of Alaska

http://newsminer.com/bookmark/18574281-Artist-Dan-DeRoux-shares-his-history-of-Alaska

Grant allows State Museum to buy XRF Spectrometer

http://juneauempire.com/art/2012-05-10/grant-allows-state-museum-buy-xrf-spectrometer#.T7vhq0VfHng

Making art: University of Alaska Museum exhibit focuses on the creative process

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – Making art University of Alaska Museum exhibit focuses on the creative process

Time to Preserve Alaska’s History

http://peninsulaclarion.com/opinion/2012-04-16/time-to-preserve-alaskas-history

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Professional Development/Training Opportunities

Get a World Class Education in Your Living Room!

The George Washington University’s Distance Education Graduate Certificate Program in Museum Collections Management and Care application deadline is August 1, 2012.

For more information, please contact Mary Coughlin at musede@gwu.edu

or visit our website: http://ccas.gwu.edu/museum

Deaccessioning: It’s Not A Four-Letter Word

Thursday, June 7, 10 – 11 am AKST (login at 9:45 a.m.)

http://aaslhcommunity.org/office/ to attend. You only need to enter your name and city to participate.

Has anyone from your organization ever suggested that you should just throw away some of the collection to make room for new stuff? While almost every museum has some items that really shouldn’t be there, deaccessioning (the process of disposing of, selling or trading objects from a museum collection) should not be undertaken lightly. Learn about the process of deaccessioning, from making the initial decision to choosing the method of disposal, and everything in between. This Small Museum Online Community Event features Anne Ackerson from the Museum Association of New York and Kathleen Byrne from the National Parks Service.

Learning Times will host this online event. If you’ve never participated in a Learning Times Event/Webinar, please go to http://aaslhcommunity.org/tech-check/ right now to test your computer and ensure you can connect.

Connecting to Collections Online Community Webinars

• Security for Collections: Preventing Loss and Planning for Any Budget – Wednesday, May 23, 9 am AKST. Stevan P. Layne, Layne Consultants International.

• Collections Care and Conservation: How to Submit an Art Works Grant to the National Endowment for the Arts – Wednesday, June 6, 9 am AKST. Wendy Clark, Museum Specialist, National Endowment for the Arts.

• Care of Plastics – Wednesday, June 13, 9 am AKST. Christine Frohnert, Conservator of Contemporary Art, Modern Materials and Media and Odile Madden, Research Scientist, Museum Conservation Institute, Smithsonian Institution.

• Wireless Dataloggers – Tuesday, July 17, 2012, 9 am AKST. Rachael Perkins Arenstein, Partner, A.M. Art Conservation, LLC.

To join any of these webinars go to http://www.connectingtocollections.org/meeting/

Heritage Preservation

Heritage Preservation, in cooperation with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), is presenting WebWise Reprise, two online events based on the IMLS WebWise 2012 conference. The first event, on June 14 at 10 am AKST, will be “Sharing Public History Work: Crowdsourcing Data.” The second event, on June 28 at 10 am AKST, will be “Oral History in the Digital Age.”

To join either webinar go here: http://www.connectingtocollections.org/meeting/

Heritage Preservation’s Emergency Response and Salvage Wheel is now available free of charge on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad as the “ERS: Emergency Response and Salvage” app.

Apple users can download this free app from the App Store. Simply search for “ERS: Emergency Response and Salvage.” To download, your device must run iOS 5.1 or later. Complete technical requirements are available on the ERS page at the App Store.

NEDCC posts recording of disaster planning webinar

https://nedcc.adobeconnect.com/_a1012789439/p13dtqx65i7/?launcher=false&fcsContent=true&pbMode=normal

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Internship Report

By Logan Lott, UAS Anthropology Student

Logan helps mount exhibit labels

When taking Zachary Jones’ “Introduction to Archives and Museums Theory and Practice” last semester at UAS, I found that I had a real interest in museum studies. My degree program is in the social sciences with my primary concentration being in Anthropology, so I had been looking for a way to incorporate these years of education into some kind of tangible experience. At the end of the semester, the class was given an opportunity to apply for an accredited internship with the Alaska State Museum or one of the archives. Since I was a kid, I’ve had a love affair with museums and have visited many in my statewide and international travels. In acquiring this internship, I really felt as if this could be a possible gateway into a future in museum studies.

In my first few weeks of interning, I was able to assist Sorrel Goodwin, Paul Gardinier, and Jackie Manning in the de-installation of the Boreal Birch exhibit. I helped lift exhibit items, secure them into styrofoamed, Fairbanks-bound crates, kept a concurrent shipping catalog, and then aided in the sanding and repainting process of the temporary exhibit hall. This operation was then performed inversely with the installation of the Sailing for Salmon exhibit. These processes were as intricate as they were laborious, and demonstrated the level of care that went into each exhibit.

Many times people ask me, “What do you do at the museum?” My response is usually, “Whatever they let me do.” This internship was so versatile that I could really wander about the different departments and taste test each one for as long as I desired. Perhaps my favorite place in the museum was in the collections department with Sorrel Goodwin. Sorrel would give me a grocery list of items to find homes for in the collection shelves and then let me loose upon this archaeological candy land. Sometimes I feel like the coolest kid around, getting to open a drawer of harpoon heads or a rack of antique firearms.

Children’s activities were a fun diversion from the average school week. Lisa Golisek, the Museum Protection and Visitor Services Manager, had me aid in the creation of a giant, cardboard interactive life map in order for participating kids to learn about Juneau’s homeless community. Through this activity, the children were to unlearn pervasive negative stereotypes regarding homeless people. Kids built miniature homes for their miniature Lego people out of random materials they were given according to a throw-of-the-dice that was intended to rival the lottery of life. The kids’ creativity and gusto led to a two-way learning experience that was as fun as it was insightful.

Another memorable day was when conservator Ellen Carrlee and I went on a spring cleaning spree through the permanent exhibits. This cleaning spree saw me climb atop exhibits to vacuum the umiak, and scale the eagle tree where Ellen and I tag teamed dust bunnies with a backpack vacuum and a six foot feather duster. In what has become a popular Facebook addition, there is a photo of me and Ellen vacuuming the exhibit’s stuffed Grizzly Bear.

Getting a chance to work with museum professionals was a highlight of my scholastic time in Juneau and has increased my knowledge of the inner workings of museums immeasurably. I hope to continue a lasting partnership with the museum through volunteering or even a possible career opportunity. I am thankful to the museum staff for their calm demeanors and thoughtful insights during my time here. I hope this internship continues to advance students’ knowledge for museum studies as it has mine.

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Volunteer Viewpoint

Tuesday’s in Review: My Year at the Alaska State Museum

by Anna Thompson, ASM Volunteer

mu·se·um/myo͞oˈzēəm/ noun: A building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.

Who: Anna Thompson (that’s me!), a junior at JDHS and lifelong doodler.

What: An opportunity to volunteer and receive an inside glance into the mysterious, hidden world of museums.

When: Tuesdays, once a week during my sixth period off campus.

Where: The Alaska State Museum, 395 Whittier Street Juneau, AK.

Why: At the beginning of my junior year my American History class embarked on a photographic approach to history. Everyone in my class was given a picture taken in the early 1900s of Alaska and the people who lived here at the time. Each one was different and each told a different story. Our mission was to find the story. All the photographs were from the Alaska State Museum.

To expand upon our limited knowledge of pictures in Alaska my teacher arranged for my class to visit to the museum and meet Paul Gardinier, who works in exhibits. This was my first real taste of the museum. Paul helped to explain that no one really knew the true story of the people in the photographs, or even who had taken them. Few were labeled or had the photographer’s signature; our speculations were as good as his. I was hooked. The mystery was overwhelming, and the precise manner in which the pictures were displayed in the gallery pleased my “OCD” to no end. The thought of someday being a part of an institution that cared for the lost and the forgotten, caring for the objects of their lives was and is a huge honor. I wanted in.

I got in touch with Scott Carrlee, who is in charge of Museum Services, the next day. I explained to him that I was fascinated with the museum and was possibly considering a path in art conservation. He generously agreed to allow me to become an official volunteer at the Alaska State Museum.

How: How does anyone one become a volunteer? You offer a service and hope that someone accepts your help. I was extremely lucky, my help was accepted. I was able to see all different aspects of the museum, almost every week I worked in a different part of the museum. But there is no better way to get to know a museum that to help with its paperwork. My first and most daunting task, if I say so myself, was cataloging all the media in the museum that was not on DVD. I didn’t even know what a Betamax Tape was until I cataloged one! But I made it and I was able to catalog every media device I could find in the museum.

On weeks where I was not cataloging I was trained in artifact handling, helped with displays, found objects in the storage and archive rooms, filed old museum newsletter from around the state, and learned how to use shock paddles in case a tourist, or local, had a heart attack while visiting the museum. I also managed to set off the museum alarm when I got lost in the basement after looking for chenille stems for a kids’ day at the museum.

My Tuesdays never lacked spark or pizzazz, every moment was filled with a new experience and a new opportunity to learn. I am very grateful to the museum staff for giving me this chance to spy on the wonderful world that is museums. Pablo Picasso said “Give me a museum and I’ll fill it,” I just hope he meant fill it with opportunity for people like me.

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Professional Time Wasting on the Web

Chicago museum adopts smoking-hot Palin sculpture

http://www.adn.com/2012/04/18/2429158/chicago-museum-adopts-palin-sculpture.html

Amateur Sleuth Helps Stop National Archives Theft

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2018131402_apusnationalarchivestheft.html

SFMOMA uses Google Analytics

Google Analytics Case Study: SFMOMA

The Late-Capitalist Museum as Pre-Professional Museum

http://galleristny.com/2012/04/10/the-late-capitalist-museum-as-pre-professional-museum/

Love Fest’ is the latest example of the Museum of Art & History redefining a museum’s role in its community

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_20430708/love-fest-is-latest-example-museum-art-history

Italian museum burns artworks in protest at cuts

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17754129

Reach, Trust & Amplification: The Importance of Social Media in Nonprofit Marketing (STUDY)

http://colleendilen.com/2012/04/23/reach-trust-amplification-the-importance-of-social-media-in-nonprofit-marketing-study/

Lost Paul Revere Letter Found

http://www.nedcc.org/eblasts/2012PaulRevereLetter.html

Did you know you can search for artifacts online?

http://www.pastperfect-online.com/

Hands on collection from yesteryear

http://vilda.alaska.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/cdmg2/id/5075

The Power of Symbolic Participation: A Story of Skirball

http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2012/04/power-of-symbolic-participation-story.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+museumtwo+%28Museum+2.0%29

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alaska Museums in the News, Alaska State Museum, Ask ASM, Grant in Aid, Grants, Museum Career Development, Museum Interns, museum volunteers, Ross Merrill Award | Leave a comment

Alaska State Museums Bulletin 51

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Alaska State Museum Bulletin

Fungus Among Us: Mold Growth in Museum Environments

By Christa A. Pack, Conservator and former ASM Conservation Intern

“I’m like a fungus; you can’t get rid of me.”

-Adam Baldwin

(Editors Note: This article has been abridged from an independent study carried out to fulfill one of the requirements of the Additional Concentration in Preventive Conservation offered by the Winterthur/University ofDelawareProgram in Art Conservation. The entire paper can be viewed here: Crista Pack Research Paper)

Introduction

Mold spores are everywhere. It may sound dramatic, but there is no escaping them and there is no way to prevent them from coming into contact with collections. However, there are methods for managing the environment in order to prevent growth from starting and thriving on collections items.

Conservators at the Alaska State Museum (ASM) in Juneau, Alaska recently began a research project to study and document “white stuff” that is commonly found on objects in heritage collections throughout the State of Alaska. The common culprits discovered included salt efflorescence, corrosion, and fatty bloom. However, a few long weapons in the ASM closed storage cabinets were discovered to have an unusual fluffy white substance which had the appearance and characteristics of mold. These objects were comprised of wood, bone, ivory, feather, and stone; and the white substance was found on surfaces of each type of material.

Mold was not initially a suspect on any of these objects, as the collections storage at ASM is kept close to the desired ranges of 50% RH (± 5%) and 70° F (± 3° F). According to the Canadian Conservation Institute’s (CCI) “10 Agents of Deterioration” website (2010):

“At 60% RH visible mould growth is possible on some surfaces, but a stable RH at this value is rare, any intermittent period at less than 55% will stop growth” and “[for] clean plant based organic materials: mould rate typically requires 80% -85% RH before mould growth likely at all. E.g., clean textiles, clean paper, clean wood.”

Therefore, the finding of mold on ASM objects was perplexing, considering that the guidelines given to museums indicate that mold should not grow at the humidity conditions maintained by the ASM. The white substance appeared at some point while the objects were in ASM storage, because they were noted to be in good condition and without any kind of white substance on them when they came into the collection six years ago. Additionally confusing was the fact that the weapons are stored with other items that do not show any white, fluffy growth.

The question this research aims to answer is then, first and foremost, was the white substance on the ASM artifacts indeed mold? If confirmed to be mold, then what factors caused its growth? To answer this second question a more thorough investigation of mold was conducted. This study on mold also aims to answer questions regarding the physiology of mold, differences between mold species, and to determine if all species can be prevented with current guidelines for environmental control. The anticipation is that the answers to these questions may help refine current storage and environmental parameters. The findings of this research may also be useful to the Alaska State Museum since information gathered about the mold on these ASM artifacts may aid in future conservation treatments.

Experimental

The experimental procedures carried out for this research were performed with the goal of obtaining specific information regarding the types of mold found in collections and, specifically, the type of mold occurring on the objects at the ASM. Samples of mold from each of the affected objects were sent to the research labs at Winterthur for analysis. For comparison, samples were obtained from two storage locations at Winterthur as well. These were selected based on recommendations from staff.

Figure 1: Location of sampling area – blackish/brown accumulation on air vent in Winterthur Silver Study, Collection 1.

The first location chosen was Silver Study Collection I, located on the eighth floor of the Winterthur estate. This location had been monitored by a student during the previous academic year for relative humidity and temperature levels. During the year, a black substance was noticed forming on the air vent beneath the window on the exterior wall (Figure 1). It was suspected to be mold and therefore became a candidate for this study.

The second location was the storage closet located on the third floor of the Winterthur Research Building, just outside of the objects lab. This was suggested by Winterthur objects conservator Bruno Pouliot as an ideal location as it is used to house numerous organic artifacts, is a very small, dark room and has one exterior wall with a covered window. Mr. Pouliot was unsure of the air flow in the room, but it is a moderately trafficked room as it doubles as a space for students to observe objects under ultraviolet radiation. This means there are ample opportunities for the introduction of spores into the room. However, mold growth has not been observed on any of the artifacts in recent history. Sampling this room would provide an idea for the types of spores that can be present in a collections storage area, even when conditions are not met to induce growth.

Sampling

In late September, mold samples were received from the ASM. These came from four affected items that had been accessioned into the collection in 2003 (Figure 2). Each sample was packaged individually and sealed within a small plastic Ziploc bag to prevent outside contamination.

Figure 2: Three of the long weapons on which mold was found. From top to bottom: 2003-3-9, 2003-3-7, 2003-3-8

Within two weeks of receiving the samples, they were transferred to nutritional agar medium for regrowth. The theory was that if samples were transferred to a growth medium, and flourished, then the substance could be more definitively identified as mold. Additionally, if the transferred samples proved to be mold, then the growth medium would provide a way to greatly increase the amount of mold available for study without excessive sampling of the artifact.

Samples from storage spaces at Winterthur were acquired according to advice received from a consulting technician at Ward’s Natural Sciences, a supplier for science education. There are two commonly used methods for collecting mold samples: by rolling a sterile cotton swab over surfaces to be tested and then rolling those over the agar, or to leave a plate of agar open overnight in the center of the room to being studied. Both methods were utilized in this study.

For the purposes of this paper, an overall sample was desired that would provide an idea for what type of airborne fungi would be present in a museum storage environment. Therefore, a plate of agar was placed in each of the storage rooms being studied. These were left in place overnight while the museum was closed to visitors (approximately 15 hours). This method provided the best opportunity to determine what spores are naturally present in the room without risking contamination from museum guests. Due to the concern of a mold presence on the vent in the Silver Study room, additional samples were taken from the area where the black substance was visible.

Materials and Techniques

Mold spores can be found everywhere and the small amounts present on the ASM and Winterthur samples were not considered a threat. Nevertheless, strict precautions were taken to ensure people and objects in the lab would not be unnecessarily exposed. All work was performed in a fume hood set at the lowest setting. This was done to prevent spores from escaping into the environment, as well as to ensure that the suction was not too high to lose samples.

Before beginning the experiment, the fume hood was emptied of all items and cleaned thoroughly with a 1:1 acetone: ethanol solution to remove any contaminants. The samples were removed from their Ziploc bags and the samples transferred with the aid of clean stainless steel tweezers and/or clean cotton swabs. The agar medium chosen for this project was a sabouraud dextrose agar. Two samples were placed in each petri dish (Figure 3) and closed and sealed with Parafilm®M. All of the dishes were then placed inside a larger Ziploc bag and left in the fume hood for approximately 3 weeks.

Figure 3: Example of petri dish with two samples – 2003-3-6 on the left and 2003-3-7 on the right. Nutrient media: sabouraud dextrose agar. Sealed along edges with Parafilm® M.

After one week small circles of mold growth began to form in the petri dishes. Within two weeks these circles had spread and formed distinguishable patterns (Figure 4 and Table 2).

Figure 4: Agar plates with transferred samples, after eight days.

Table 2
Macroscopic Observation of Mold Growth
Sample Number	Observations after 1.5 weeks of growth

2003-3-6	Fluffy white circle with dark green center
2003-3-7	Dark greenish black, oval shaped, doesn’t have a “fluffy” appearance
2003-3-8	2003-3-8 and 2003-3-9 appear to have grown into each other. Large fluffy white mass with a slight light pink hue. Not symmetrical in shape.
2003-3-9
6^a	Large dark pink area, flat, not fluffy, somewhat symmetrical circles that have grown into each other
7^a	No visible growth
8^a	No visible growth
9^a	White fluffy growth at edges – dark bluish green center. Symmetrical, although grown into side of petri dish.
Silver Study	Concentric circles, nearly symmetrical, fluffy white on outer edge and middle, dark bluish-green in center
UV Closet	Symmetrical circular fluffy white growth

Sample “6” is a second, separate sample, taken from object # 2003-3-6. Sample “7” is from #2003-3-7, “8” from #2003-3-8, and “9” from 2003-3-9. The exact locations for these samples are unknown, but where taken from areas of heaviest accumulation to ensure large enough samples were acquired.

Results

After three weeks, most of the molds had filled the petri dishes and samples were running into each other. Samples were then regrown and analyzed by Nancy Gregory, Plant Diagnostician at the University of Delaware (UD). She transferred each unique sample to its own plate and utilized two different types of agar medium: potato dextrose agar and corn meal dextrose peptone. These had generally proven successful in the UD labs and had produced good results with most types of indoor molds. A few of the ASM samples did not respond in these nutrient mediums. A different agar was tried with these – carnation leaf agar. The results of these new cultures have not yet been determined.

For many of the samples, Ms. Gregory was able to determine the mold down to the genus. The results of her findings are listed in Tables 3 and 4.

Table 3
Genus of Mold Cultures from Alaska State Museum
2003-3-6	Chaetomium sp.
2003-3-7	Aspergillus sp.
2003-3-8	Fusarium sp. Transferred to carnation leaf agar
2003-3-9	Fusarium sp. Transferred to carnation leaf agar
6	Bacteria
7	No Growth
8	Aspergillus sp.
9	Aspergillus sp.

Table 4
Genus of Mold Cultures from Winterthur
Organic Object Closet	Not determined: transferred to carnation leaf agar
Silver Study, Room Sample	Sclerotinia
Silver Study, Swab Sample	Memnoniella sp.

The genera identified in these tables will be discussed and examined more carefully in relationship the overall taxonomy of the Kingdom Fungi.

The Fungus Among Us

The genera identified from the ASM collections items (Table 3) fall into these two orders of Sordariales and Eurotiales. The Chaetomium sp. discussed in relation to the order Sordariales was identified in sample 2003-3-6 and is characterized by darkly pigmented ascomata, which appear as the dark greenish center in middle of a dense mass of white, fluffy hyphae (visible in Figure 6). Colonies are medium-fast growing in an optimum temperature of 16—25 °C (60.8—77 °F) (Crous et al. 2009, 49).

Figure 6: Chaetomium sp. – darker pigmented area in center is likely from the ascomata

Fusarium sp. (Figure 7) is a genus belonging to the order Euortiales and was identified in samples 2003-3-8 and 2003-3-9. It is commonly found in soil or on plants, but has also been reported on items such as watercolors, old books and parchment, and frescoes in heritage collections (Florian 2002, 25 and Crous et al. 2009, 99). The survivability of this and other genera is impressive. Dried Fusaria have been found to survive up to ten years (in a sealed test tube) and Aspergillus up to 22 years (Florian 2002, 38; after Sussman 1966).

Figure 7: 2003-3-8 and 2003-3-9 – Fusarium sp.

Aspergillus sp. was found in sample 2003-3-7 (Figure 8), and samples numbered 8 and 9 (Figure 9). Some species of Aspergillus are known to produce hard sclerotia that can withstand inhospitable environmental conditions.

Figure 8: 2003-3-7, Aspergillus sp.

Figure 9: Sample number 9, Aspergillus sp.

These sclerotia are formed from masses of pigmented hyphae and store nutrients for survival. They can be seen within a fungal spot and may look like black fly specks (Florian 2002, 14). If a sample of the fungus can be observed under magnification or with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), the conidia can be examined. In the Aspergillus genus, the conidia cells form on the tip of long, thin erect structures called conidiophores. The conidiophore has a rounded head on which the conidia form; giving the overall structures a hairy look (Figure 10) (Florian 2000, 145).

Figure 10: Sample number 9, Aspergillus sp.

Aspergillus is a common airborne mold and is frequently encountered on cultural heritage artifacts, as evidenced in the results obtained from the ASM. Three of the six molds identified from the samples provided by the ASM were Aspergillus.

Common surface fungi such as Aspergillus sp. have been reported in literature to have conidia with a wide range of moisture contents – that is, if they are reported at all. However, there two moisture content groups that dormant conidia are generally believed to fall into: one is low, with a 6—25% moisture content, and the other is higher, at approximately 50—80% moisture content (Florian 2002, 33, 52). Those that fall into the latter category are considered xerophylic (dry-loving) fungi and can germinate even if they are in an environment with a relative humidity below 60% (Florian 2002, 33).

“The ability of the conidium to germinate under low substrate moisture content is attributed to polyols (alcohol sugars) such as glycerol, which are stored in the conidium of the xerophyllic fungus and act as water regulators by storing water. The significance of these xerophylic fungi is that they can germinate unexpectedly on dry materials” (Florian 2002, 33).

The fungi identified from the air samples at Winterthur (Table 4) were not from the same genera as those identified on the ASM objects. Sclerotiniaceae, identified from the air sample in the Silver Study collection is not a commonly identified fungal growth on heritage collections. Rather, it is a genera that is typically associated with fruit and vegetable crop pathogens (Dugan 2006, 63). This is likely a spore that enters into the building through the air handling system or on visitors, but doesn’t propagate on the materials within the building.

Memnoniella sp. is an indoor mold that is similar to the genera Stachbotrys – a common in indoor environments in North America (Barnett & Hunter 1998, 88 and Crous et al. 2009, 190). Memnoniella was not discussed in the literature as a possible threat to collections material. Stachbotrys was mentioned by Florian as having been isolated from wallpaper, as well as old books and parchment (2002, 25).

This small study of the Winterthur spaces suggests that the mold spores getting into the collections areas are not considered a threat to the artifacts. However, this experiment was very limited in scope and many more samples would need to be taken to make any valuable assessment of the air spaces. This also doesn’t take into account spores that have already settled on artifacts from previous environments.

Fungal spores that do make their way in can typically survive a variety of environments. The production of spores is often seen as primarily for distribution, but they are also important to the survival of the species. Spores allow the fungi to survive in the form of resistant cells that can withstand environmental conditions not conducive to growth (Blackwell et al. 2009). However, determining the proper environment may be easier said than done.

Figure 12: Time to the onset of visible mold at various RH percentages. Graph courtesy of Canadian Conservation Institute: http://www.cci-icc.gc.ca/crc/articles/mcpm/chap10-eng.aspx#toc

CCI states on their website that a minimum of 60% RH is required to start mold growth (Figure 12). Throughout the literature on the subject, most authors publishing environmental parameters do provide values in a range around 60%. However, while there might be a general agreement, the specific RH percentages do differ between sources. Table 1 shows a sampling of conservation resources and the values given.

Table 1
%RH Data Obtained from Conservation Literature[1]^{, [2]}
Author	Optimal RH% for Growth	Lowest RH% for Growth to Occur	Recommended RH Parameters

Downey, A. and M. Schobert (2000)	Above 65%	–	–
Florian, M. (2002)[3]	–	–	–
Michalski, S. (CCI, 2010)	–	60%	Below 55%[4]
Nyberg, S. (2002)	Above 70%	45%	45% – 65%
Price, L. (1994)	70% – 75%	–	–
Rekrut, A. (2001)	–	–	Below 65%
Strang, T. and J. Dawson (1991)	Above 65%	–	–
Wellheiser, J. (1992)	65% – 85%	–	–

[1] Each author did not give data for all categories listed in the table. These categories were created to show differences not only in the parameters given, but in how the information is presented.

[2] Data for Price, Rekrut, Strang & Dawson, and Wellheiser was obtained from the Larochette study (Larochette 2003).

[3] Florian does not give specific RH% parameters and instead argues that mold growth is dependent on numerous factors, including temperature, equilibrium moisture content of the artifact, and type of mold. She has nevertheless been included in the chart as a prominent source for fungal research in heritage collections.

[4]Michalski states that any intermittent period at less than 55% will stop mold growth.

Figure 13: Effects of RH and EMC on three different materials – wool, leather and cotton (image: Florian 2002, 51).

Nyberg amends her parameters slightly by emphasizing that while these are the values necessary to instigate growth, the relative humidity needed to sustain growth may be lower (Nyberg 2002, 2-3). However, no specific data is given for what these levels may be.

Florian goes into detail describing the other parameters involved in determining whether conditions will be right for mold growth. This includes temperature, pH, light, oxygen and carbon dioxide in addition to relative humidity and water relationships (Florian 2002, 41). In particular, the effects of temperature and relative humidity together play a crucial role. The equilibrium moisture content (EMC) is an equilibrium reached in an object between water vapor in the air and amount of water in the material. It is affected directly by temperature. If relative humidity remains constant and the air temperature decreases, then water moves into adsorbent organic materials. Likewise, if the air temperature increases, it moves out of the material, drying it, until diffusion equilibrium is attained with water vapor in the air (Florian 2002, 43). Therefore, an environment maintaining 55% RH in a 70 °F room is going to affect the EMC of materials – and its ability to support mold growth – differently than 55% RH in a 60 °F room.

The material itself that the fungus grows on also plays a major role, as different substrates hold water differently from one another. The chart in Figure 13 shows that when RH and temperature are kept constant, some materials will be more likely to support fungal growth than others.

Conclusions

This research helped to prove that the white substance growing on the ASM artifacts was indeed mold. It also provides a better understanding as to the types of mold that can be commonly found in collections and what conditions are needed for them to grow.

Most surprising is that mold prevention guidelines focus on RH control, while temperature and other factors play an equally important role in fungal growth. The wide range of recommendations for RH parameters in the literature may attest to a misunderstanding of the relationship between relative humidity, equilibrium moisture content and how fungi obtain water necessary for activity. Florian points out that “our choice of lower than 70% RH to control fungal activity is arbitrary. For care of heritage objects, lowering the EMC and RH is the best we can do for now until we can determine their water activity – another avenue for future research” (2002, 54).

Also important is the awareness of xerophyllic conidia that have higher moisture content. These conidia essentially have stored up their own water supply and not only survive but grow in drier conditions. Ultimately, it is the combination of environmental factors, material substrate, and fungal type that determine if mold will grow on a collections item.

The identification of fungal species is difficult and professionals with the experience and specialized knowledge can provide the most useful data in determining the type of mold forming on a collections item. Research that is species specific can provide information as to why fungi are growing on an object and may eventually provide data that pertains to the environmental and material criteria required to sustain growth. However, it does not necessarily influence treatment options. There are very good resources available that address treatment and storage issues for mold-infested items, some of which can be found in the accompanying bibliography. The considerations and options for treatment are numerous and therefore were not included in the scope of this paper.

The research presented here has additional limitations in that samples of the mold were not acquired in situ, directly from the objects. The samples were carefully packaged and sealed for shipping, thereby minimizing the potential for contamination. However, the abundance of fungal spores everywhere means maintaining a sterile environment between the time samples were transferred until they were transferred to agar is highly unlikely.

Additional air samples of the storage spaces in Winterthur would provide a more accurate analysis of the type of spores within the museum environment. Also, monitoring RH and temperature fluctuations during the incubation period of the samples of agar would provide more valuable research as to the influence of those conditions on growth. Finally, the observations recorded here were taken at the macroscopic level. Further studies exploring microscopic techniques and analysis would be beneficial, especially since a specialist for mold identification may not always be available.

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Ask ASM

Brilliantize is a squirt-on liquid Plexi cleaner, while CRL is an aerosol spray

Question: I just used Plexi cleaner inside this exhibit case. Can I close the case right away, or should I wait to let it air out? Could the Plexi cleaner vapors be hurting the artifacts? Answer quick! The exhibit is opening tonight!

ASM: If in doubt, air it out. But to find out more, we did a little mock up. We placed samples in jars with pieces of polished metal to see if the metal would corrode from pollutants.

Three metal coupons are used in the Oddy test for corrosive pollutants: silver, lead and copper

Museum folks sometimes call this an “Oddy test” http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/jaic/articles/jaic44-03-002_indx.html) after conservation scientist Andrew Oddy, who first pioneered this test at the British Museum in 1973. Rigorous Oddy tests involve controlled laboratory conditions to force a reaction in a short period of time. Ours at the museum are slower and simpler. We have two jars as “controls” to show the difference between a good reaction and a bad reaction. One jar will contain something we know ought to cause trouble, like a freshly sawn piece of low-grade plywood. The other jar represents a good environment, so we just put a piece of clean cotton cloth in the “good” jar. Then we loaded two scraps of cotton cloth with the two different kinds of Plexi cleaners we use. One kind is a liquidy cream that squirts on (brand name Brilliantize), and the other is an aerosol spray (brand name CRL). In each jar we placed three polished coupons of pure metals: silver, lead, and copper. Each metal is sensitive to many different kinds of pollutants. For example: silver is sensitive to sulfur, copper is sensitive to chlorides, and lead is sensitive to formates. All four jars were left sealed on a shelf for several months. When opened, the appearance of the metals placed with the Plexi cleaner samples was compared with the “good” and “bad” environments. There was no obvious difference in the copper or silver coupons, not even in the “bad” environment with the plywood. This suggests that the volatile chemicals that off gas from plywood is not causing corrosion on copper or silver. But the plywood did cause white powdery corrosion to form on the lead, probably lead formates. That indicated the test was working properly, because we saw damage to the lead that we expected to see.

In the jars with the Plexi cleaners, the silver and copper coupons were also unchanged. Only the lead in the CRL jar was different, and it was much darker than the one in the “good” jar. This suggests that something in the CRL reacted with the lead and darkened its surface, but not the same pollutant we see in the “bad” jar with the plywood. We cannot say what chemical is in CRL just from this test, but we can say there is something in it that was able to alter the lead, and therefore might also be able to alter some of the things our artifacts are made of. The coupons in the jar with the sample of Brilliantize looked exactly like the coupons in the “good” jar, suggesting that there is not enough chemical off gassing from the Brilliantize to alter sensitive surfaces of these three polished metals, and therefore is unlikely to damage our artifacts.

From left to right: lead exposed to plywood has powdery white corrosion, lead exposed to Brilliantize had little change, lead exposed to CRL had a significantly darkened surface, and our lead coupon from the clean jar for comparison.

We recommend using liquid-based Plexi cleaners when you have a time crunch, and letting your exhibit case air out well if you want to use an aerosol-based Plexi cleaner.

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Shaking the Money Tree

Alaska State Museums Grant in Aid

Deadline: Postmarked by June 1; email by 4:30 pm AKST June 1.

Applications and more information: http://www.museums.state.ak.us/grants.html

FAIC ANNOUNCES MAY 1 DEADLINE FOR TRU VUE OPTIUM CONSERVATION GRANT

Tru Vue® Inc. has partnered with the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) to offer grants to support projects in glazing applications for preservation of museum and library collections. Funds are to help defray direct project costs, including supplies and publicity. Projects must be supported by a conservator and demonstrate conservation goals. Up to four awards will be made each year. Each award includes a cash amount of up to $4,000 and donated Tru Vue® Optium® acrylic glazing materials. Guidelines and forms are available on both the AIC/FAIC website, www.conservation-us.org/grants and Tru Vue, www.tru-vue.com/museums/grants, or by calling the FAIC office at 202-452-9545.

NEH

Research and Development Program

The revised 2012 guidelines, which include new sample proposal narratives, can be found at: http://neh.gov/grants/guidelines/PARD.html

Deadline for submission: May 16, 2012

Grants in this program support projects that address major challenges in preserving or providing access to humanities collections and resources.

Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions

Program information can be found at http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/pag.html

Deadline for Submission May 1, 2012.

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Spotlight on Grant in Aid

Juneau Douglas City Museum Installs Kids’ Mining Interactives

The Juneau-Douglas City Museum used their FY2011 Grant in Aid to research, design, build and install an interactive cross-section of the Treadwell Mine cave-in to compliment a completely new installation in the museum’s northeast gallery.

Starting in fall of 2010 J-D museum staff de-installed the existing hands-on history exhibit in the northeast gallery and installed a new hands-on exhibit titled: “Drilling & Milling: Hands-on Mining.” The project began with the retention of Commercial Signs and Printing (CS&P) a local business, on contract, to research and design an interactive activity based on the collapse of the Treadwell Mine in 1917. Over the course of the Fall, with staff, the interactive was developed and installed. The final product is a 70″ x 89″ cross section of the Treadwell Mine on the days of the collapse. The model is based on a drawing by Livingstone Wernecke, the mining engineer in charge of investigating the collapse. The interactive includes two windows with 4 sliding panels each. Each of the sliding panels records events from the collapse that occurred above and below ground. Each sliding panel has historic photos, sketches, text, first person quotes and and narrative that illustrates what was happening in and around the mine as it collapsed and flooded.

In-kind grant funds were used for additional contract labor for the Treadwell cave-in model, materials to retrofit the room, and signs and graphic panels to compliment interpretation and reinforce the feeling that visitors are “going underground.”

This project has been a great success. It allowed the museum to reinvent and reinterpret one of Juneau-Douglas’s most important historic subjects. When visitors walk into the gallery, they get the feeling of entering a mine. There are many activities designed for kids of all ages to teach them about early mining technology through tactile experiences. The Treadwell collapse interactive anchors their experiences in the room through a true story about one of Juneau’s most significant historical events. The interactive and the “Hands-on Mining” exhibit improve the museum’s ability to serve the community by educating visitors about the history of mining in the Juneau goldbelt.

As the community moves into the future, the Kensington Mine expands and the City and Borough of Juneau explores the potential for re-opening the AJ Mine, this interactive and the exhibit around it will help to educate the public about the history of mining in the region. This project to reintrepret mining technology has allowed the J-D Musum to partner with Greenscreek Hecla, and now AEL&P, who will be helping the museum intrepret hydro-mechanical power and hydro-electrical in a hands-on panel that will be placed directly across from the Treadwell Cave-In Panel.

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Conference Review

Sheldon Jackson Museum Participates in the 2012 Clan Conference

The Sheldon Jackson Museum was pleased to be part of the 2012 Clan Conference in Sitka. One of the highlights of the museum’s participation at the conference was a visit by descendants of Rudolph Walton’s family to see artifacts in the collection that were made by Walton. Walton (1867-1951), one of the first graduates of the Sitka Industrial Training School, was a prolific silversmith and wood worker who owned Walton and Sons Shop in Sitka until 1920. The Sheldon Jackson Museum has thirty-five pieces in the collection that are attributed to Walton including silver spoons, bracelets, tongs and napkin rings, an ivory cribbage board, a model ivory totem pole, and a group of wooden feast dishes. It was a pleasure for staff to meet descendants of Walton’s family and to share the museum’s Rudolph Walton records and artifacts with them.

Another highlight of the SJ Museum participation at the Clan Conference was the museum’s involvement in the Smithsonian artifact scanning project organized by Eric Hollinger, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History archaeologist and repatriation officer, and his two assistants Adam Metallo, and Carolyn Thome. Hollinger and team documented the helmet using a Faro laser scanner. Such technology creates detailed digital records which can be used to make 3D “prints” of artifacts for educational purposes. Two Sheldon Jackson Museum artifacts were scanned during the clan conference including an example of Haida argillite sculpture, and Katlian’s helmet which was worn by the Kiks.adi warrior during a battle with the Russians in Sitka in 1804.

During the conference our museum also hosted a lecture on spruce root basketry by local Tlingit artist Teri Rofkar, and a model doll making class led by Mary Ellen Frank, Lisa Golisek, and Elizabeth Knecht (all from Juneau). The museum also welcomed visiting researchers and scholars who shared some of their expertise with us including Emily Moore, Robin Wright, Katie Bunn-Marcuse, Steve Brown, Peter Corey, and Tina Bruederlin. Thank you to all who stopped by our museum!