Equipment for collections care

Vicki Cassman <cassmanv [at] nevada__edu> writes

>Vicki Cassman and Caroline Sakaguchi-Kunioka at University of
>Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) are attempting to assemble a collections
>care equipment kit, for student training and use and also for loan
>out to local museums.
>...
>    1.  Have we forgotten anything?

Had you considered any equipment for pest monitoring eg insect
traps?  As part of this kit what about including a reference book
like The National Trust Manual of Housekeeping, published by Penguin
(in the U.K. anyway, I do not know about the USA).  It is quite a
compact book and could easily fit into the sort of kit you are
proposing.

There are a number of other good reference books on collections care
like the ABC's of Collections Care (from Manitoba Museums Service),
author Neal Putt; also Our for Keeps? available from the Museums and
Galleries Commission in London, England.

Probably the single most useful piece of "equipment" I have come
across is The Framework for Preservation of Museum Collections from
the Canadian Conservation Institute, <URL:http://www.cci-icc.gc.ca/>

In a 9 by 7 matrix poster it lists the nine agents of decay;  the
levels of control (building features; portable fittings; procedures)
in the three environments of display/storage/transit;  and the
stages of control (avoid; block;  detect;  respond;  recover/treat).
I cannot recommend the Framework too highly.

Ian Fraser
Conservator of Furniture
Leeds Museums and Galleries, Temple Newsam House, UK

                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:24
                  Distributed: Friday, October 8, 1999
                       Message Id: cdl-13-24-003
                                  ***