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Environmental Monitoring
The Need
Museums, libraries, and archives have long been without tools for assessing and managing collection storage and display environments. To answer this need, IPI, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, developed the Preservation Environment Monitor®, a sophisticated data logger specifically designed for environmental monitoring, and Climate Notebook®, associated software for data analysis.
Development and Testing of Tools for Environmental Analysis
The PEM is based on a general quantitative model of organic decay for environmental analysis called the time-weighted preservation index, or TWPI. It computes the TWPI values and displays them along with temperature and humidity. The PEM was designed to make data-gathering in cultural institutions simple and accurate.
Climate Notebook is the associated environmental monitoring software. What began as a simple utility to retrieve data from the PEM and calculate TWPI values, evolved into a sophisticated software application for organizing, analyzing, and reporting on environmental conditions.
These two tools were field-tested in nearly 200 cultural institutions in 2002. In 2004, IPI conducted a second field trial, which included training for preservation field service providers, advanced training for a group of participants in the first field trial, and the development of a service model for institutions without the time or expertise to conduct environmental monitoring and analysis on their own.
The design of these tools is based on strong scientific evidence that heat and moisture are the primary rate-controlling factors in almost every mode of decay. Control of these factors in the storage environment is of primary importance in preservation and is more broadly effective than other, more limited, preservation actions. It is also much cheaper to implement.
See the Tools for Environmental Monitoring
A Broader Approach to Monitoring the Environment
Too often, monitoring has focused on identifying “incorrect” temperature and RH conditions, or looking for “blips” on the charts that indicate unusual events. Target set points are frequently based on incomplete, incorrect, or outdated information. The building’s mechanical system may not have the ability to achieve or maintain what staff members ask for. Different materials require different environmental standards. Our research at IPI, and our work with data from hundreds of institutions, has shown that it is much more effective to focus on the long-term storage environment and seasonal fluctuations, rather than short-term variations.
Climate Notebook® software for environmental analysis is the first comprehensive tool of its kind for organizing, tracking, analyzing and reporting on environmental data. Specific metrics have been designed that allow users to compare the preservation quality of various storage environments, and to analyze the environment in terms of each major type of deterioration—chemical, mechanical and biological. The software also includes object-specific analysis and explains how different materials are affected by environmental conditions. Data can be imported from a wide range of monitoring devices, as well as the PEM. The latest version of the software includes the DewPoint Calculator, the Stored Alive interactive program, a detailed user manual and help file, plus a downloadable workbook called Step-by-Step: Achieving a Preservation Environment for Collections.
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