AIC's 53rd Annual Meeting

Small cultural heritage institutions like community-based archives and museums rarely have preservation expertise. Best preservation and archival practices may not be their main focus – keeping and telling their story is. An outreach event, Preservation in Action, collaborates with organizations like this to implement aspects of collections care while balancing their community-centered mission. Organized through the long active Preservation Section of the American Library Association (ALA), the day-long outreach event takes place at the annual ALA conference. Preservation in Action (PiA) has a 3-prong approach to working with organizations representing an underserved community: 1) provide preservation training to staff; 2) introduce preservation to conference attendees whose jobs may or may not involve collections care; 3) rehouse collections with a “many hands make light work” model. PiA is specifically not a “service project,” but a collaboration between trained preservation librarians and these institutions that lack expertise. The training and hands-on activities with participants who have different levels of experience can be unpredictable but always enriching

A grant-funded archiving initiative at a Puerto Rican Cultural Center has led to a growing collection of posters documenting decades of social justice activism in the Boricua community. The colorful screenprinted posters fit into oversize folders and boxes, except for a group that had been glued to cardboard. The situation required on-the-spot decisions and conversations with the staff. In this case, the archivist decided to leave the newsprint posters on the acidic board and order more archival boxes later. We relied on each other to offer solutions

At a Chinese History Museum, we found extensively embroidered and beaded textiles during the group rehousing project. I wanted to bulk up any harsh creases, but the collections manager was concerned about losing box space with just one dress. Through joint problem-solving, we found a middle ground to protect the textile without taking up too much room. Other times our progress fades. At an organization with changing staff and strategic visions, the housing of photos and re-sleeving of a famous DJ’s LPs was later changed or undone. The artifacts’ uses evolved.

Over the past several years, I’ve learned lessons about organizing these events at archives and museums. A stable infrastructure is necessary. Logistics like monitoring a waiting list, delivery of supplies, and ordering lunch are time consuming. Having a local committee member is best to evaluate the collections and estimate supplies. A participant will always ask a wonderfully unanswerable question. While institutions learn from us, we also learn from them. Our strict best practices aren’t an option for many organizations. This provides us with an opportunity to be flexible, think creatively, and listen to those outside our profession.

In 2023 a major exhibition about Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) in Auvers was held at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in collaboration with the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the second venue for this show. A significant exhibition since it was the first to be devoted to Van Gogh’s final months, bringing together works from all over the world, some of which had never before been shown at the same time. The question arose if several works of the Van Gogh Museum, which due to their fragility were not allowed to travel, could be transferred to Paris for this unique occasion. There were serious concerns about the impact of shock and vibrations during transport on two paintings in particular, Wheatfield with Crows and Wheatfield under Thunderclouds, which suffered from heavily cracked paint layers and poor paint adherence. When the strain levels caused by transport exceed the elasticity limits of the canvas and paint layers, they can inflict or aggravate material changes such as cracking and delamination (Kracht 2011: 51-53), thus posing a great risk for those paintings. Reducing the excitation levels is therefore crucial. 

This research, which builds strongly on the experience gained from an in-depth study of the vibration behavior of selected Van Gogh paintings in the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo (Bisschoff et al. 2023), explores the vibration behavior of the wax-resin lined Wheatfield with Crows and Wheatfield under Thunderclouds. The panoramic, atypical format of these paintings (ca 50 x 100 cm height by width), which differs from the paintings studied in the Kröller-Müller Museum, and the permanent deformations in their support caused by lining are factors that contribute to their fragility. To establish the general difference in vibration behaviour between wax-resin lined, loose-lined and unlined Van Gogh paintings, the vibration response of View on Auvers, which has a loose-lining, and Garden of Daubigny, an unlined painting, was also investigated. The mechanical behavior of the paintings is explained in relation to their condition, conservation history and framing, the combination of which accounts for the paintings’ variable, non-linear vibration behavior. To achieve a more complete assessment of the transportation risk, not only the characteristic vibration modes of the paintings were investigated, as was done in the Kröller-Müller study, but their wave propagation behavior was examined as well. 

By combining an improved backing-board and framing construction with specific transport conditions, the mechanical stress in the two Van Gogh paintings could be significantly reduced during transport. A tailored method for transporting these fragile paintings is presented, while the possibility of its application to other paintings of the Van Gogh Museum collection is also discussed. In this research an ansatz is proposed to quantitatively assess the risk of vibration during transport. However, the results of this study should not be regarded as a formula or justification for sending paintings on loan that are too fragile to travel. Yet the presented measures of improvement can certainly be considered as a means to minimize the impact of shock and vibration when transport cannot be avoided. 


Kracht, K. Untersuchung des Schwingungsverhaltens von Ölgemälden in Abhängigkeit der Alterung. Dissertation at TU Berlin published at Shaker Verlag, 2011: pp. 51-53. 
 
Bisschoff, M., Leeuwestein, M., Kracht, K. Optimising the protection of the Kröller-Müller Museum’s wax-resin-lined van Gogh paintings from shocks and vibrations in transit. ICOM-CC Valencia 2023, 20th Triennial Conference.

The historic wooden columns currently on open display in the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) have been consistently shedding wood flakes throughout 2024. This ongoing deterioration has prompted the application of a targeted, multi-faceted strategy to identify the causes and mitigations made to combat them. For this organic material, the most likely potential agents of deterioration were identified as relative humidity fluctuations, pest activity, and physical force. To gain the clearest image of how and if these agents were impacting this object and a three pronged approach has been implemented.

The first prong of this strategy is analysing the existing data from the object environment, including environmental data and visitor number estimates. This will help identify trends in fluctuation of humidity, periods of increased physical force due to high footfall, and potential patterns in the degradation process.

The second prong employs Acoustic Emission (AE) analysis to monitor internal movement of the wooden columns and determine if movement is caused by humidity changes, pest activity, and external vibrations from urban traffic and gallery visitors. This analysis is combined with the innovative use of touch sensor alarms to alert when the columns are physically contacted by visitors, an area of concern that was raised during planning. The third prong uses Dynamic Vapour Sorption (DVS) analysis, conducted in partnership with English Heritage, to assess the structural integrity of the wood and its vulnerability to humidity variations.

There are multiple instances where these analyses are looking at the same agent of deterioration, for example all tests included consider humidity as a factor. This is not a redundancy in design, but an opportunity to consider factors that cause deterioration as a dynamic and interconnected system - rather than a roster of lone agents. This work aims to inform display strategy for similar heritage objects and to highlight the need for adaptive and interdisciplinary methodologies in preventive conservation.

Fire risks pose a significant threat to cultural institutions’ collections. Hundreds of fires start every year in museums. Recent examples include the National Museum of Indonesia, Copenhagen’s Historic Stock Exchange, Brazil National Museum…

Some destroy entire collections, others cause irreparable damage, and most could be controlled or prevented.  

To improve preparedness and mitigate damage, a comprehensive Emergency Plan should be adopted with a complete operations plan that outline procedures for responding to fires. Collaborate with experts and conduct regular self-assessments to identify and minimize risks.  

In case of fire, damage is caused not only by the heat of the flames but also water and smoke. 

After the Notre-Dame Cathedral fire, the French National Association of Firefighters requested to conduct a study on protective tools for artwork, notably passive protective covers.   

Aside from this study conducted by the CSTB (Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment), a series of other experiments were made, including one from a Danish Cultural Institution and Fire Department.  

Those experiments are not limited to testing different materials and technologies (Tyvek, Aramid fibers, PU or Silicone coated fiberglass, aluminized fiberglass…), in laboratories, but also simulate real fire scenarios.    

Results from those experiments show that priority should be given to using passive protective covers with an aluminized material over traditional fire-retardant materials.   

These lightweight covers reflect up to 99% of radiant heat away from artwork, providing superior protection. During fire exercise, those covers have been shown to allow the artwork to stay below 40°C – 104°F and thus providing maximum protection in an environment that can reach more than 500°C – 932°F.  

By implementing these strategies, cultural institutions can mitigate fire risks and preserve valuable artifacts with minimum investment required in terms of infrastructure.   Additional measures, especially operational aspect and ease of handling are key at the time of using this material in an emergency, making passive covers a practical solution for cultural institutions.  

Proper training and involving all implied parties are required to optimize use of covers during an emergency and should be done on a regular basis in institutions.  

For the last six years, fire preparedness in France has been growing. 

Parties like the Government, the Ministry of Culture, Industry Associations, Cultural Institutions, Fire Departments, Specialist Consultants… have been raising awareness on the importance of this topic and implementing measures and tools to maximize chances to safeguard cultural heritage. This led France to being one of the most advanced countries on the topic.   

This session deep dives in the way Emergency Response in case of fire is approached in France, going through what Emergency Plans consist in, how are they constructed, the way they are implemented and how do cultural institutions make sure they get as ready as possible in case an emergency occurs to avoid and minimize damages on artwork.

In August 2024, University of Arizona Libraries' Special Collections faced a water leak that damaged book and archival collections across two floors. The decision was made to close Special Collections for two weeks, allowing the department to focus on the remediation of damaged materials and spaces. Thanks to remarkable teamwork and opportune timing, all affected materials were successfully salvaged. The incident underscored both the strengths of our collective response and areas where our emergency preparedness could be improved.

Clear and timely communication proved essential during the emergency response and recovery. Daily posters with tasks and instructions helped the salvaging team adapt to shifting priorities. Bi-daily meetings played a pivotal role in maintaining communication and monitoring progress, allowing the team to work together effectively in the fast-paced recovery process. Ensuring staff wellbeing throughout the process—with check-ins, meals, music, and breaks—kept the team motivated and capable of sustaining the long hours required. However, standardized, pre-written initial messages calling an emergency and outlining required level of response could have prevented early confusion and hesitation, leading to a more streamlined initial response.

Since most affected materials were archival in nature, dissociation posed a significant risk during initial response and salvaging efforts. Within the first hour of discovering the leak, a dual documentation system was developed, to track affected items as they were relocated and unpacked. The same documentation was used to track progress during drying, checking, and rehousing. A flagging system to record damages and actions was developed in the following days, but a pre-established log form would have further reduced confusion and saved time as the salvaging process unfolded.

Affected materials were laid out to dry within three hours upon discovery of the leak. Assessment of levels of wetness, replacement of identifiers for collection materials, and removal of wet boxes from the recovery spaces were completed on the first day. Dehumidifiers were installed and interleaving of affected materials started immediately. The team acted quickly but carefully, never jeopardizing safety or materials. However, dry materials were not removed from the affected storage areas on the first day, leading to additional damage on the second day, further straining available resources. Furthermore, some pockets of wetness in the building went unnoticed for several days, highlighting the need for a more thorough and comprehensive approach from the incident management team.

The team’s willingness to help was a major strength, but the event highlighted areas for improvement in leadership and coordination. Establishing a clearer chain of command and designating team leads for specific tasks would have improved efficiency. Regular staff training in emergency response and leadership is essential to empower individuals to confidently assume roles and responsibilities in such situations, ultimately enhancing future response efforts.

The paper will offer valuable insights and practical tools that conservators and emergency response leads at other organizations can adapt to improve their own preparedness and response efforts. By sharing lessons learned and successful strategies, it aims to help other institutions streamline their communication, documentation, and leadership processes during emergencies.

Preventive conservation, often heralded as the cornerstone of collection care, encompasses a broad range of tasks critical to preserving cultural heritage. However, the responsibilities of those in preventive roles, particularly early-career professionals, extend far beyond routine tasks of monitoring temperature and humidity or designing storage solutions. These "other duties as assigned" are often not quantifiable but offer invaluable learning experiences that shape a conservation professional’s critical thinking, adaptability, and problem-solving skills. This abstract explores the unspoken and often overlooked side tasks encountered during my experience as a pre-program Preservation Assistant at the University of Arizona Libraries Special Collections.

Working in preventive conservation means consistently encountering unexpected challenges that require rapid learning, creativity, and a strong collaborative mindset. These tasks range from adjusting last-minute exhibition installations to emergently responding to a leak, each providing hands-on training in the essential skills of a preservation professional. Though seemingly peripheral, these tasks often become learning moments that reinforce core conservation principles.

One example is the creation of customized archival enclosures for materials with irregular dimensions and with high use in instruction settings. While this may seem like a routine technical skill, it becomes a nuanced problem-solving exercise requiring a balance between preservation needs, accessibility, and the available resources of the institution. Similarly, my involvement in exhibition preparation—installing, deinstalling, and fabricating mounts—taught me the value of adaptability. Decisions about object placement and long-term protection needed to be made in real-time, often with limited flexibility and strict deadlines. These experiences honed my ability to make informed decisions quickly, a crucial skill for any conservator.

Beyond practical skills, this work fostered collaboration with various departments, from curators and archivists to facilities staff, strengthening my communication abilities. Preventive conservation often demands interdisciplinary cooperation and consultation with those less familiar with preservation, and understanding how to effectively convey the needs of collection care to those outside the field proved vital. These instances also introduced the opportunity for me to develop creative methods of communication, such as an internal ‘Bug Bulletin’ for integrated pest management and a standardized quarterly report for climate data. The insights gained from these collaborative efforts are lessons that have implications far beyond my role as a Preservation Assistant, contributing to my broader understanding of conservation workflows and decision-making processes.

In this presentation, I will reflect on how these unquantifiable side tasks contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexities of preventive care. By sharing examples of these experiences, I aim to highlight the often-unacknowledged but critical role that "other duties as assigned" play in shaping the development of emerging professionals in conservation. Ultimately, these tasks, though small in scope, have had a profound impact on my ability to think critically, adapt swiftly, and collaborate effectively—skills that are essential in a successful conservation career.

“Understanding the Problem and Defining the Goal: Environmental Assessments in Historic Buildings and Collections in the NPS, Region 1”

 

Historically within Region 1 in the NPS, environmental problems within historic house museums were dealt with by either complete replacement of their HVAC systems or by the installation of new, sometimes invasive systems that could fix the perceived problem.   However, this problem was often not fully identified, or not well defined from what was originally perceived as the initial issue such as a mold outbreak, high or low humidity, or too high or low temperatures.  Additionally, the condition of the collections was not examined for evidence of environmental damage.  Now, the Historic Architecture, Conservation, and Engineering Center (HACE) in Region 1, has developed Environmental Assessments that, often with the assistance of contracted professionals, assess the historic building envelope, collect environmental data, and examine the condition of the collections contained therein, to determine any problems and to define the goal of the interior environment before a solution is implemented.

Too often, condition problems in historic house museums are viewed as solvable by the implementation of controlled HVAC systems.  Mold outbreaks or uncomfortable summer or winter conditions are the impetus for system upgrades.  However, without examining the current condition of the buildings and exhibited collections in greater detail, as well as the behavior of the building to the ever-changing exterior environment, we cannot know how to effectively solve any system problem.  These Assessments use targeted systems-wide evaluations of the building envelope and building systems to fully understand the current environment.  Evaluations such as envelope condition assessments, differential pressure testing, scoping of ductwork and chimneys, thermal imaging, pollution monitoring, temperature and humidity data analysis, moisture monitoring, and other data collection that might inform decisions and shed light on observed conditions.  

The objective of these assessments is to propose what environmental parameters can reasonably be maintained in the Region’s uninsulated historic exhibition buildings. This can be achieved by thoroughly understanding the building design, and the current quality of environment the building has been able to achieve.  This approach has been taken with numerous historic buildings in Region 1 of the National Park Service over the past five years, such as Lindenwald, the home of Martin Van Burren; the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, New York; and the Rockefeller Mansion in Woodstock, Vermont.   The projects are supplied with specific funding for the purpose of determining the best possible outcome of system replacement for these historic buildings.  Smaller condition assessments of collections have also been implemented as requirements for changes or upgrades to building systems of any kind to ensure that the interests of the collections and building fabric are considered during system design.  It is the hope of the author that these Environmental Assessments be viewed as baseline documents for any historic building, just as Historic Structure Reports (HSRs), Historic Property Project Documentation (HPPD), or Historic Furnishing Plans (HFPs).

Planning one storeroom with integrated preventive conservation controls is admittedly a complex endeavor. But how do large organizations undertake comprehensive storage planning, especially when they have fifty storage areas of 250,000sf in three historic Manhattan research centers (plus a giant high-bay storage facility in New Jersey)? How does an organization begin to steer planning to meaningfully incorporate climate action methodology and build resilience systems? What coaching, education, and facilitation are needed to redirect a storied institution from localized episodic planning to a powerful and pervasive strategy to protect collections?

The Research Libraries for the New York Public Library (NYPL) is building a foundation for dynamic storage planning for a changing world. Large institutions need to focus on global, values-based thinking when building or renovating collections storage to equitably incorporate sustainability and preservation concepts. With support from the Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections (SCHC) program of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), NYPL designed a collaborative pre-planning exercise to inform long-range collection storage planning. A project team of NYPL stakeholders and experts in cultural heritage architecture, preservation environment, and sustainability collaborated to establish a path toward a more responsive and ongoing storage planning model. The project included a week-long walkthrough of all storerooms, followed by several months of distillation of these observations. The project established in its report foundational planning tasks, maintenance tasks, and capacity concepts for exploration in future storage planning.

This talk will discuss building a unified momentum through sustained institutional messaging, risk-taking, and taking advantage of key moments. A specific area of focus will include relationship-building between collection management, facilities, capital planning, energy, health and safety, and curatorial staff to build trust and create space for planning. Discussion of the pre-planning exercise will highlight conditions NYPL is attempting to address, concepts the pre-planning team used for structuring their observations, and logistical practicalities of planning this type of onsite assessment. 

Building on the success of the pre-planning grant, NYPL received a second NEH SCHC grant in August 2024 to develop the Collection Space Construction Design Standard. NYPL will convene experts in architecture, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, fire protection, security, and sustainability, to create construction design standards for reading rooms, storage, and collection workspaces that will be made available to other institutions. This presentation will also include an update on this project, as well as collection storage’s high-level inclusion in NYPL’s new strategic plan.

The onset of Russia's war against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, demonstrated the country's government unprepared to protect its cultural heritage from destruction. And yet, in the early days of the invasion, members of the non-governmental Society for the Protection of Historical Monuments in Lviv rose to this existential challenge. They organized the city populace and, at their own expense, procured protective materials and implemented strategies to safeguard vulnerable cultural heritage sites. This grass roots effort then became a role model for other communities, quickly spreading throughout the country. International organizations also became involved, providing risk assessment strategies, additional materials, and sophisticated instrumentation to document war damage and implement a preventive conservation program. My talk will shed light on this evolutionary process, the role of conservators in it, and outline pathways for the future.

There are always challenges for collection care, particularly in a historic building. The Carnegie Museum of Natural History is no different. The building was constructed as a museum, music hall, and a library in 1898. There have been several expansions and reorganizations since then, including a major expansion in 1907 and an expansion for Art in 1974. The building complex now houses a public library, music hall, Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh (CMP) offices, the Museums of Art (CMOA) and Natural History (CM). The library and music hall are part of the complex but are separate entities. The museums and the music hall facilities are taken care of by the CMP Facilities, Planning and Operations (FP&O). The building complex is on the National Register of Historic Buildings.

In preventive conservation, we consider the building envelope as the first line of defense for collection care. Finding the time, resources (staff and money), and setting priorities for repairing gaps in the 125-year-old building is challenging. The roof, walls and windows leak and the numerous environmental systems undergo constant repair. FP&O does an incredible job, but their priorities often differ from ours.
 
We recently had the opportunity to prototype a new method for improving some of these leaks in the bird collection. The bird collection has large casement windows original to the 1907 building. The windows were covered with black-out shades. Cabinets were backed up to the windows and radiators, exposing collections to temperature extremes. When I arrived in 2009, the blackout shades were disintegrating. The windows behind the cases leaked – both air and insects. Working with the new collection manager (Serina Brady) and our head of operations, we developed a strategy to improve the situation, while respecting the historic structure. 
 
We approached the problem as a collaboration between the conservator, collection manager for the bird collection and new operations manager, discussing each step as we moved forward. Interior storm windows were constructed, and new blackout curtains were made, all in-house to save money. 
 
This paper will examine the efficacy of the strategy we employed. It will look at process, resources, and the advantages/disadvantages of what was done. Did the methods we used make the much-needed improvements to the environmental conditions of storage? Was the time and money we spent worth the effort? There are several other collection storage spaces that are faced with the same challenges. Can we use this strategy to make improvements in these spaces as well?

Heating ventilation and air Conditioning (HVAC) systems are an integral part of our collection facilities. We rely on them to acclimatize our storage spaces, keep our visitors comfortable and happy, condition our displays, and keep the moisture under control to prevent mold in our buildings. When these systems function properly all is bliss, however, even the slightest malfunction of these systems can have a major effect on a collection space. These effects can range from high moisture levels, the inability to achieve set points, to comfort complaints from visitors.

These problems can lead to thousands of dollars in abatement or remediation and potentially cause damage to collection materials.  Many HAVC issues are more common than most would believe, impacting collecting institutions as well as commercial facilities across the country every day. Compounding this problem is the fact that many institutions are striving to reduce their carbon footprint and be more sustainable. Unfortunately, inefficiencies can negate the benefits of any implemented sustainable strategy by forcing a system to use more energy to perform a task that it is struggling to achieve.  While these issues can keep staff members up at night, there are ways to avoid HVAC malfunctions and practical solutions to resolve many of them.

Collections staff may be the first ones to notice that something is amiss within storage and display spaces. Data monitoring programs and staff presence in the collections spaces often help them identify issues or concerns before the facilities staff can see them. This information can help the facility’s team resolve the problem.

This presentation will cover many of the common HVAC issues that collecting institutions encounter from leaking condensation lines to high dew points. It will describe the causes of these issues including, but not limited to, congested drain lines, cooling coil inefficiency, poor airflow and dew point problems in a space. The presentation will also elaborate on the risks these issues pose to the facility and collections, and some ways to avoid or correct them. Attendees will learn how other institutions work to solve these problems, how to collaborate with facilities and their administrative team to solve them, and what some of the solutions are that they can bring back to their organizations.

More cultural heritage sites across the United States are at risk of flooding than previously recognized due to the escalating effects of climate change. The National Flood Insurance Program, which is responsible for mapping and communicating flood risk to citizens, has had little impact on the cultural heritage stewardship community. As a result, there is generally low flood risk awareness, low flood insurance take-up rates, and minimal investment in long-term adaptation among site and collections stewards. More sophisticated, accessible tools for understanding flood risk are now available and should be leveraged to promote a culture of flood preparedness within the field.

As disaster planning is becoming increasingly integrated into cultural heritage site management, most preparedness resources focus exclusively on collections, largely omitting consideration for the historic structures which house and are the backbone of many sites and collections. This may be because strategies for preparing historic structures for flooding require specialized knowledge of historic architectural systems, building codes, and preservation standards that collections stewards do not have - particularly at smaller sites and institutions. 

The historic preservation community, conversely, has not sufficiently committed to developing and supporting preparedness guidance which integrates structures preparedness with the complexities of site and collection management. What guidance is available on flood preparedness for historic structures is written primarily for private property owners and is deferential to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards, which do not formally promote adaptation. 

This presentation, based on a larger masters thesis project, therefore examines what flood preparedness guidance for historic structures at cultural heritage sites does exist and recommends how the cultural heritage stewardship community can improve and promote flood preparedness before their irreplaceable historic museums and sites, and the collections they support, become functionally obsolete or lost due to flood risk.

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has recently implemented a novel lighting policy (discussed in detail in VanSnick & Gaspar, 2024) - seeking to strike a balance between the display of light-sensitive objects and their long-term preservation. This work offers an evaluation of the practical rollout of the policy, refinement of process, and stakeholder uptake.

This policy works by whittling down collection on display to those objects that have the most pressing light vulnerabilities, looking experimentally at those objects, and using that new information to inform how we select vulnerable objects in the future. The first step is determining light vulnerability on a broad material level, flagging objects on display made from materials academically known to be highly light sensitive. These broad strokes are of huge benefit as it ensures that the first action of this policy will target those objects with the potential to be currently undergoing massive light damage. The second phase invites curatorial colleagues to assign a relative value each object in the group of highly light sensitive objects, allowing resources to be targeted in on the most exemplar objects which are materially assumed to be highly light sensitive. Where possible, objects that are highly light sensitive will be rotated out of display in a time period dependent on their rating value. Where rotation is not possible objects are examined experimentally using Microfademetery Testing (MFT).

Objects are unique in their vulnerabilities and these vulnerabilities are not as linear, consistent and predictable as one might expect. Experimentally analysing objects using MFT has the potential to bring their actual current light vulnerability into sharper focus. Given the vast size of the V&A’s collection, it is truly unfeasible to experimentally analyse every object - however this policy allows precise targeting of experimental resources to the places in the collection where they are most immediately needed. The lessons learnt about discrepancies between the assumed light sensitivity and the current experimental reality found are fed back into the initial stages of this process, allowing us to redirect resources to more vulnerable objects. For example, MFT conducted on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean lacquerware as part of this process has found this material to generally be drastically less sensitive to fading in practice than was academically thought. Not only does this mean that these objects can have far greater lifespans on display, improving access and ensuring we are focussing on the collections that need us most. 

This is not a static system - it is a cyclical process that edits and allows a more accurate picture of the collection’s sensitivities to coalesce in each iteration. It allows us to learn about our collection today and to react as the composition and the needs of our collection evolves over time.

The light sensitivity of works on paper is an important issue for any paper-based collection with regular exhibition cycles. The main concern is to protect the media from light-induced color changes, and MFT is a proven in-situ method for predicting these changes. As a substrate, however, white paper and especially rag paper is generally considered to be quite stable, with the exception of wood-containing and colored paper, which are considered light-sensitive according to the lighting guidelines. However, within the broadly defined class of white papers – which have been the most widespread worldwide since their emergence – there are also lignin-free white papers that are affected by moderate exposure to light. Our research group – three conservation scientists and five paper conservators collaborating from a print and drawing collection, a conservation science research laboratory, and two universities – studied typical light sensitivities related to compositions of paper and the ability of MFT to predict light-induced change in a broad range of the most typical white paper compositions.

We prepared nine sets of 37 papers divided into four compositional groups that represent papers across time. Three sets were aged in UV-filtered museum and commercial gallery exhibition-simulated settings (LED, mixed fluorescent/daylight, up to ca. 2.5 Mlxh), four underwent cyclic light-dark aging with or without pre-aging, and two sets were micro-faded by two commercially available MFT devices, one with a xenon source, the other a LED source. Using this test setup, we evaluated the influence of paper components on the color development of the papers during these different natural and accelerated aging conditions and compared them with the MFT results. The color change data of all exposures are given in Blue Wool Scale (BWS) by comparison to co-exposed Blue Wool Standards. 

Most white papers in exhibition simulation fell into the relatively stable BWS 2.5–4, but aged rag papers and papers containing ligneous and OBA papers ranged at BWS 1.–2.5. The predominant color change tended to be fading, but highly optically brightened (OBA) papers of low quality darkened. Groundwood and other high-lignin papers changed to yellowing after initial fading. Iron-contaminated papers without a significant alkaline reserve also tendentially darkened. Previous light-dark aging cycles had an effect on the type of color changes caused by light. Both MFT types and the cyclic light-dark aging predicted the papers’ sensitivity adequately compared to the simulated exhibition exposures and identified the most light-sensitive gelatin-sized rag papers and lignin-containing papers. However, predicting the color change of OBA-containing papers proved to be much less reliable. The color change of the papers that were exposed to LED in the exhibition-simulation was better reproduced by LED-MFT than by xenon-MFT or cyclic light-dark aging.  

We hope that the research results of the recently completed project will provide a clearer idea of the role of white paper in predicting the light sensitivity of artworks on paper using MFT. 

Our collaborative project was funded by the Germany Research Foundation 2021–2024.

Preservation Programs at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) investigated the characteristics of iron gall ink (IGI) in low or no-oxygen environments. NARA has vast holdings of 18th,19th, and early 20th century documents with iron gall ink. With the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, conservators and scientists seek to understand more about long-term display of sensitive IGI documents. In the past, NARA has used sealed anoxic encasements for some permanently-displayed iron gall ink documents. However, recent research into IGI behavior in anoxia [1] as well as material and structural differences between the majority of paper-based documents in NARA's holdings and other treasured national records on parchment meant that the use of a low oxygen display environment needed to be examined. 

Scientist Bruce Ford previously demonstrated that fading of iron gall ink is somewhat reversible in the dark but that anoxia diminished this reversion potential. His experiments exposed ink to light levels equal to several decades of display exposure, followed by a period of darkness that allowed ink to revert overnight. We sought to conduct a similar experiment, but with a closer match between typical exposure and rest periods to exhibit conditions. Additionally, we wanted to know if IGI reversion potential could ever be exhausted or would change with past treatment history. Subsequently, we designed experiments using an automated LED MFT (2700K white LED, ~3.1Mlux) in an atypical manner. We repeatedly exposed 19th century, post U.S. Civil War era, non-record samples and paused for reversion periods in the dark on the same spot. We tracked incremental and overall change in color (ΔE00) and L*a*b* color space parameters. We also tracked and controlled temperature and humidity as much as possible to prevent movement during test periods (up to 1.5 weeks) and kept the dose for each exposure as low as possible (0.04-0.4 Mlux-hrs.), only inducing enough change required for reasonable signal to noise ratios. We performed mock de-silking and delamination treatments on historic samples to mimic the condition of many NARA holdings. Treated ink required higher dosages of light to induce the same amount of change as non-treated IGI. We conducted multiple cycles of low-dose MFT both in air and anoxia and were able to reproduce Ford’s result showing reversion in air, and significantly reduced reversion in anoxia. We investigated the nuances of reversion in each of L*, a* and b* under each condition. After several tests in anoxia, we reintroduced oxygen up to 2% concentration which showed a returned ability to revert. MFT results were also compared to an experiment with 2 klux LED lamps (up to 4.5Mlx-hrs) where no visible change was observed. This indicated reciprocal failure, however these results still have important implications for display design options for iron gall ink records.

Works Cited

1. Ford, B. 2014. “The accelerated light fading of iron gall inks in air, hypoxia and near-anoxia.” In ICOM-CC 17th Triennial Conference Preprints, Melbourne, 15–19 September 2014.