Service dogs

Juli McLoone <juli.mcloone [at] gmail__com> write

>Has anyone on the list had past experience with service dogs (or
>other animals) in special collections?  Assuming the dogs to be
>well-behaved and well-groomed, does their presence introduce
>additional environmental/preservation concerns?  If there are
>preservation concerns, what steps that can be taken to ameliorate
>the effects of the animal's presence?  I am interested in
>perspectives on these questions with regard not only to the reading
>room, but to workroom and stacks areas.

I worked for two years in a conservation lab (located within the
closed stacks of an archives) with someone who trained service dogs.
The dogs traveled throughout the archives space with the trainer on
a routine basis. The dogs were without fail extremely well groomed
and well behaved. The employee with the animal kindly swept the
floor of the lab once a week, as well, to take care of what little
stray hair there was. I never observed any negative impact on
collections, environment or treatments. In fact, I often forgot that
a dog was present and was amused to see other people also startle
when they suddenly realized, after they had spent some time in lab,
that there was a dog there.

Katie Mullen
Preservation Coordinator
Wisconsin Historical Society


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 25:38
                 Distributed: Monday, February 20, 2012
                       Message Id: cdl-25-38-010
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