The Work of Image Permanence Institute Just Gets Better

Two years ago I wrote about Image Permanence Institute at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, and IPI's Guide to Sustainable Preservation Practices. This fall I attended a second NEH-funded two-day training by the IPI team and it was awesome; really awesome.

The first time I wrote about it I said: "If you're thinking about changing - or learning more about - climate control and energy savings in your collections spaces, then please get yourself" a copy of IPI's Guide.

That still holds true but now I'll be more specific: "if you have collections, get yourself a copy".

Even if you know all the stuff in this gem of a handbook, it can surely help you share this critical information with people who don't have your background, who are not as comfortable with the language, and who probably have something to do with the management or financial support of the collection you care for. Educating them is an important first step is doing your work well.

This is a gift to you from IPI and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Surely you have $25 (add shipping) left in your budget to do yourself, your collections, and the long-term sustainability of your institution a huge, huge favor!

If you're not yet convinced, let me tell you a bit about what's inside.

Diagrams:

• how general types of mechanical systems are designed to work in buildings
• how air supply is managed, and about "return air" 
• how humidification works
• what is Dew point - seriously, they have the best-ever description of this for non-HVAC folk

Recommendations with how-to's:

• collect baseline data
• environmental
• system documentation
• create an Environmental Management Team
• define the optimal storage environment for your institution (don't assume 70/50 anymore)
• identify and correct "sub optimal operation" of your system after you've established your appropriate environment

Clear descriptions of complex, important concepts:

• how environment effects material decay
• what data loggers do and how to choose the right location for your environmental monitors; 
• how to recognize all sorts of actors on your energy and climate situation: windows, lights, people, air movement, sunshine, and regional weather and climate

It also has a great bibliography that could be a valuable departmental book group reading list, worksheets, and lists of NEH grant opportunities and IPI products.

I strongly encourage any director, collections manager or curator, facilities manager and development director to get a copy and read it. And if you are lucky enough to find a workshop or a conference presentation by any of the IPI team - GO!

IPI's Guide to Sustainable Preservation Practices: What Every Museum Should Buy Itself for the Holidays

If you're thinking about changing - or learning more about - climate control and energy savings in your collections spaces, then please get yourself IPI's Guide to Sustainable Preservation Practices.

This is a practical what-is and how-to manual that will demystify the discussion on collections climate standards and HVAC systems for your staff, your HVAC vendor, your board, or an MEP engineer unfamiliar with museums. And it's the background you need for your next grant proposal on collections spaces and HVAC systems.

Diagrams explain about how general types of mechanical systems are designed to work in buildings; how air supply is managed, and about "return air"; how humidification works; what data loggers do and how to choose the right location for your environmental monitors; how to document your mechanical system so that you know what you've got - something we all must do and never get to; and how to recognize all sorts of actors on your energy and climate situation: windows, lights, people, air movement, and sunshine.

Understanding how your building works and how that affects your collection could not be made any easier. Here is the Table of Contents:

Section 1: What You Need to Know
1. Basic Elements of the Environment and Their Effect on Material Decay
2. The Factors that Shape the Storage Environment

Section 2: What You Need to Do
3. Document the Current Storage Environment
4. Document Each Storage Facility's Mechanical System
5. Understand the Role of Dew Point
6. Analyze Collected Data

Section 3: Institute Sustainable Preservation Practices
7. Create and Environmental Management Team
8. Specific Activities of the Environmental Management Team
9. Investigate Opportunities for Energy Savings

Section 4: Additional Information
(a bibliography, worksheets, NEH grant opportunities, and IPI products)

I'm using it in my role as sustainability advisor on an NEH Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections planning grant team at Dumbarton House in Washington, DC. It will be a boon to our work there.

So if you want the science behind the move to change the 70/50 T/RH guidelines; you don't understand Dew Point or humidity, really; or you are ready to bring your "collections care and facilities staff together to manage the environment to reach both preservation and energy savings goals", this is a gift to you from IPI and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Surely you have $25 (add shipping) left in your budget to do yourself, your collections, and the long-term sustainability of your institution a huge, huge favor!

 

Why I Love HVAC Guys (and one Gal)

Oh I've been in some pretty wretched basements and seen some strange heating systems, but I have never met an HVAC guy or gal I didn't like, nay adore. There is some serious practical knowledge there, with ideas for change that should not go un-noticed! The happy ones and the reluctant ones, the big and the small, the talkative and the not, all shared great information and great plans for saving energy in the museum.

These folks are getting a bit more recognition these days: whole building energy professional. It's not cosmetic. Now engineers to installers, techies to traditionalists have a name that fits their value. And so does their club: ASHRAE - the organization formerly known as the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-conditioning Engineers- is now just ASHRAE but with an aspirational tag line:  Shaping Tomorrow's Built Environment Today. 

That  matters.  Why? Because it reflects the difference they can make if we let them.

Every time I take a team on a tour of their own building, anyone who sees the boiler room or basement for the first time is made different by the experience. Oh I don't understand even a 10th of this specialized profession, and most who see that basement for the first time may never get in there again, but we all know and respect what goes on there, and from then on we include those Guys and one Gal in our work.

In my mantra for going green at your museum, the last line is "first thing you do, get an energy audit". That's how important it is. That's how important the HVAC Guys and one Gal really are. So if you haven't had that energy audit yet, if you haven't been down in your basement for a year, call your whole building energy professional and crawl around, stroll around, climb around your system. It matters.