Ivory and shell

I would like to learn how best to store dental instruments that have
handles made of ivory and mother-of-pearl shell.  I'm interested in:
appropriate environmental conditions as well as whether or not we
should keep them in polyethylene Ziploc bags as we do now.  We do
this to keep abrasion and handling to a minimum within their storage
drawers (located in Delta Design cabinets).  We can mark large
artifact numbers on the bags to avoid picking up small artifacts to
determine catalog numbers.  I would like confirmation about whether
we should continue using the Ziploc bags.  Our storage room is
climate controlled to a 70 deg. F, 50% humidity level now and we
have many metal, glass, paper, wood and other dental history
artifacts in the same store-rooom. I'd also appreciate learning about
good conservation references for ivory, shell, bakelite.

Shannon O'Dell
Assistant Curator
The Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry
University of Michigan
School of Dentistry - G565
1011 N. University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1078
734-764-2293
Fax: 734-647-6805


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 17:39
                Distributed: Wednesday, October 29, 2003
                       Message Id: cdl-17-39-012
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