Collections Care Series

After my first experience with surveying this summer I wanted to broaden my knowledge of surveying when I realized what a great importance it is to understanding our collections. The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento was hosting a three-day workshop series, provided by the Balboa Art Conservation Center, on a variety of subjects concerning taking care of our collections. I was lucky enough to be able to sign up for two of them.

My first day was Surveying and Assessing Collections Needs with Janet Ruggles, Chief Paper Conservator of Paper at the BACC. We started off with a overview of the different methods of conducting surveys for institutions and ended with ways to fund projects with different budget sizes. Lots of great resources that I can draw from in the future. It was great supplementation information to what I learned this summer.

The next day was Environmental Systems: From Understanding to Effectiveness with Kristin Smith of the Image Permanence Institute.

Coming out of this workshop I believe it should be recommended for every pre-program conservation student. The most important piece of information after both workshops is that what ever the item you are working on remember, a majority of its life is spent in storage. Understanding the environment is vital to our understanding of the decay of objects and what we can do to help them.

Kristin did a wonderful job of explaining from beginning to end explaining  what happens in the environment. While it was not meant to be an explanation of the chemistry of air, the explanation on temperature, relative humidity and dew point was fantastic. Understanding how each of these affects each other made my understanding of how to house collections that much more clearly.

Understanding how the outside weather affects your environment is essential and it is important to pay attention to the time of year, always have good communication with the facilities staff and make routine check ups on collections.

What was really great was sitting in with folks from all different kinds of institutions and hearing the problems they face. Some have historic buildings were renovations are not possible, others have HVAC systems that lack the ability to humidify/dehumidify and others have lack of funds to make changes at all.

Kristin talked a lot about the research help on the IPI’s website and I encourage other to check it out. The most awesome website she recommended for more information of photographic/graphic art materials was Graphic Atlas. It. Is. Amazing. Seriously, even for the just curious-about-the-world-type-of-people I know you’ll enjoy it. It has the information into print identification, which as someone who wants to work with paper for life, I have the hardest time deciphering between certain prints.

Highly recommended.