Announcing Successful NEH Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections Proposal

I am delighted to share that last week, when the National Endowment for the Humanities announced $43.1 million in funding for 214 humanities projects nationwide, Saint Peter's Lutheran Church in New York City was awarded $350,000 as one of 14 grants under the Endowment's Sustaining Cultural Heritage program. Nevelson Chapel, From Entry to Cross of the Good Shepherd To prepare the proposal I worked with the Church staff members Jennifer Eberhart Powell, facilities manager Sam Hutcheson, and Pastor Jared Stahler. I also worked with the project art conservator Sarah Nunberg who is my co-PI on an NEH Research Grant on Life Cycle Assessment in sustainable collections care through the American Institute for the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. We developed an holistic approach to improved climate conditions and room construction to find a safer way to present, preserve, and protect the Nevelson Chapel and its artwork as it is restored. I will join that planning team for implementation for 2018-2019. When announcing the award, Pastor Amadus J. Derr wrote this to his parishioners and supporters:

Thanks is due in particular to our Project Managers: Debra Inwald with Christine Wahba and Jigme Pokwal of Works-in-Progress Associates. Debra, Christine and Jigme not only kept design of the project moving along, but were instrumental in ensuring and multidisciplinary environmental upgrade team submitted materials required by the grant application on time. The NEH's award is high praise for the work of Sarah Nunberg, our conservator, and this remarkable team:  Jane Greenwood with Jamie Downie and Marian Prado of Kostow Greenwood Architects; Michael Ambrosino of ADS Engineers;  Michael Henry of Watson & Henry Associates;  Ryoko Nakamura of LOOP Lighting;  Dominick Pilla and Elise Martos of Dominick R. Pilla Structural Engineer Associates;  Stephen Short of Lite-Trol Lighting Control Service;  Sarah Sutton of Sustainable Museums He gave particular thanks to the champion for the project, a man whose passion for the history and setting of this cultural icon made all the difference: Pastor Jared R. Stahler, whose organizing and administrative skills and unwavering passion for this project have played the major role in the success of these grant applications. [The project has also received significant support from the Henry Luce Foundation.] What a pleasure it is to work with an inspired team of passionate cultural professionals: climate and culture on the same team.  If you are on Lexington Street in New York City, in the vicinity of the old Citicorp Tower before work begins in mid-October, please stop in to the church, and sit and visit with the sculptural installation that is this remarkable gem of chapel in the hidden in the heart of the City. Press Release: Nevelson Chapel is the artist’s only remaining complete environment always open to the public. Restoration of this New York City treasure hidden in plain sight will conserve an important piece of cultural heritage for the future and secure Nevelson’s legacy as one of the most influential and celebrated sculptors of the 20th century.

NEH and Sustaining Cultural Collections

Dumbarton House, National Society of the Colonial Dames of
America, recipient of an NEH Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections Grant
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"Explore the Human Endeavor": the tagline reminds us that The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is about understanding ourselves and becoming our best selves individually and collectively.

And it does this work from the trenches all the way up to full public engagement. You might not realize the range of its achievements:

• Support teachers learning to teach more effectively and broadly
• Saving energy in museums and historic sites
• Caring for and sharing material culture
• Understanding past events and actions
• Engaging newcomers and old-timers and everyone in between.

What we've learned and done in the past teaches us so much about our capabilities, and our capacity for continuous improvement. That includes the study of how we do what we do in the museum field. The Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections  (SCHC) work is a featured topic in two parts (Part 1 and Part II) at the National Endowment for the Humanities. There is a summary from the SCHC session at the American Alliance of Museums' annual conference in 2016.

In helping us care for and share collections that illustrate our culture, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports us all -- whatever our backgrounds. 

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!

 

AAM 2011 Session: Sustainable Preservation Strategies for Museums

These NEH-coordinated sessions are so valuable. They bring together NEH program staff and the practitioners and participants in the agency's Sustainable Cultural Heritage Collections grant program. If you're considering assessing, planning and implementing upgrades to your climate conditions - in storage and on display - you owe it to yourself to attend (or buy the CD of) one of these sessions.

NEH's Senior Program Officer, Preservation & Access program, Laura Word describes this important grant program this way: As the field grapples with how to define guidelines for good collection environments, there is a growing acceptance that one size does not fit all; that striving for flat-lined conditions is not always necessary and is rarely sustainable. There is also growing interest in making the systems already installed work better and more efficiently, and in looking for passive and low-energy alternatives to complex, energy-intensive mechanized systems for managing environmental conditions. [National Archives Conference, 2011]

The environmental sustainability achievements from this are huge - not to mention the benefit of better, more thoughtful, care for collections.  I urge you to check out the website at http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/SCHC.html [2011 deadline not yet announced]

And just quickly - here are some tid-bits from this year's presenters. Note that though they discussed T/RH, it was not a feature of either presentations ... thoughtful, responsive, integrated design is what stands out:

Mike Henry (a marvelous preservation engineer who has provided services for many, many grantees)

• decisions about the best, most-efficient use of your space available is basic sustainable practice
• with those spaces, choose which are the best and worst for which types of collections
• remember that case exhibits buffer objects from the larger space's conditions
• but box within a box is not an "active" microclimate
• "if you use recipes you might overlook the opportunities"
• "go for the base hits; fill the bases then go for the home run"

John Childs, Historic New England (a grantee)

• follow the KISS principle (Keep it Simple, Stupid)
• if you can use off-the-shelf, do it - its simpler in so many ways
• the planning and design process should be inclusive: curators, registrars, directors, engineers, architects, preservationists all at the table at the beginning
• prioritize threats to the collection
• analyze and understand current systems
• consider phased approaches 
• and small and doable is better than big and impossible: "The Best is the enemy of Good"

If you would like more information on the early public discussions that led directly to this NEH program, there is great content here: May 2009 NEH-CNR Conference in DC.