Disasters can strike at anytime, sometimes with little or no warning. Experience has shown us that while natural disasters can leave a path of destruction there are also man-made disasters that can bring an area to its knees.
Being informed and preparing for those that could affect you are key to saving your site, building and collections.
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Preparing your collection for a disaster could greatly increase what survives. Northeast Document Conservation Center recommends to first prepare an emergency preparedness plan.
This will allow your staff to respond quickly before, during and after a disaster with explict instructions that will provide the best practices for preparing and salvaging your collections. For assistance in preparing a disaster plan please refer to our Disaster Plan section.
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If a disaster has affected your collection, time is of the essence. The following pages provide basic information on a variety of materials that may be part of your collection.
The Salvage at a Glance series is part of the NPS Museum Management Program’s Conserve O Grams.
Conserve O Grams are short leaflets that focus on caring for museum collections. For the full version or additional leaflets please visit the Museum Management Program.
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A good plan can determine whether a cultural collection survives a disaster or fades into memory. And while nature can be unpredictable, the online disaster-planning portal “dPlan” offers a streamlined, reliable way for institutions to protect their cultural collections. Created through funding by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, dPlan is a free, online tool that allows cultural institutions to complete a customizable disaster plan for their organizations. NEDCC, a nonprofit regional center for the preservation and conservation of paper-based materials, and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC), developed the tool.
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In the wake of recent oil spills, many in the public sector recognized a need for concise, reliable information to protect cultural heritage from the long-term effects of crude oil. In particular, government officials, archeologists, and preservation professionals wanted to know the risks associated with crude oil contamination on buried and submerged archeological objects and [...]
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The effects of oil spills in terrestrial and marine environments are a growing concern globally, but understanding and mitigating these effects is a top priority at NCPTT.
Bone is a material with which most of us are familiar. Bone is made up of a combination of proteins: minerals like calcium and potassium: and vitamins. Bones are [...]
Heritage Preservation has announce that registration is open for this Fall’s series of Webinars, the latest installment in the Connecting to Collections initiative. They are working with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) in developing the series.
These highly interactive webinars are intended to [...]
The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) is a multidisciplinary international organization composed of individuals and institutions who are interested in the development and preservation of natural history collections. Under the direction of the SPNHC Conservation Committee and its Research Subcommittee, the project coordinator surveyed the SPNHC membership by mail to develop an updated list of priorities for natural history collections conservation research. This report summarizes background information, development and implementation of the survey instrument, results and data analysis of this project.
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In this episode, Jason Church speaks with Curtis Deselles, an intern with the Materials Research program at NCPTT, discusses the use of eddy currents and eddy current technology in conservation science. Mr. Deselles has built several eddy current analyzers, custom software, and presented on this topic at a non-destructive conference in St. Louis.
NCPTT has been using eddy current technology in preservation and will be bringing this tool to the iPhone platform in 2010. Download Episode 8 as an mp3 or subscribe via iTunes.
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This project involved developing a new method for using the chemical content of freshwater mussel shell as a means of sourcing prehistoric, shell-tempered pottery and shell artifacts to their places of origin. By extension, this means that prehistoric trade and exchange networks can be mapped out.
Because each waterway is chemically different to some extent, and because mussels incorporate the chemicals into their shells, it is theoretically possible to identify where shell artifacts or shell-tempered pottery was made by chemically analyzing the shell.
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