Sustainability – AIC Blog Archives: Conservators Converse

The sustainability of museum energy use

“Until a decade ago, sustainability and museums were rarely spoken in the same sentence,” states architect Joyce S. Lee (FAIA, LEED Fellow) in her article Energy Star Score for Museums: You can manage what you measure. The AIC Sustainability Committee formed ten years ago as the Green Task Force in order to provide resources regarding environmentally sustainable practices to the conservation community. Early research topics included LED lighting refinements, revised temperature and relative humidity HVAC set standards, as well as discussions about the conservator’s role (as advocate for the collections) during capital building projects. Collaboration with allied professionals, such as architects and engineers, has proven essential. A new phase of assessment has begun with the Museum ENERGY STAR project, which seeks to identify energy use improvements from data provided by museums of all sizes, types, and geographic regions. Read further on how your museum can take part. – AIC Sustainability Committee

Sustainability Committee seeks new Professional Member

AIC Sustainability Committee Seeks New Professional Member

Term: June 2018 – May 2020

The Sustainability Committee seeks a new professional member to join our dynamic, interdisciplinary team. The position is open to anyone in the profession including interim year members, Associates, PAs, and Fellows from any conservation specialty.

Committee goals:

Provide resources for AIC members and other caretakers of cultural heritage regarding sustainable approaches to all aspects of the conservation practice. Resources may be provided via electronic media, workshops, publications and presentations.
Define research topics and suggest working groups as needed to explore sustainable conservation practices and new technologies.

Note: The SC is working to expand our focus to include economic and social sustainability, whereas in the past we have focused on environmental sustainability.

Membership Parameters:

The committee is comprised of 8 voting members.
Members serve for two years, with an additional two-year term option.
One member is a conservation graduate student.
One member serves as chair for two years.
During the second year of the chair’s term, another member serves as chair designate, assisting with and learning the chair’s responsibilities.
As needed, corresponding (non-voting) members and non-AIC experts will be invited to guide research on special topics.

Tasks:

Monthly telephone conference calls with the committee members.
Participate in researching and writing group presentations, publications, blog posts, and social media posts.
Research, write and edit the AIC Wiki Sustainability pages.
Contribute to development and planning for the Sustainability Session at the AIC Annual Meeting.
Initiate and support committee projects to increase awareness of sustainable practices in the conservation community.
Collaborate with related committees, networks, and working groups.

To Apply:

Please submit a statement of purpose (1 page maximum length) and resume by March 1, 2018 to Geneva Griswold, Committee Chair, at sustainability(at)conservation-us.org with “Call For Members Application” in the subject line.

45th Annual Meeting – Sustainability, May 31, “Students for Sustainability in Conservation” by Caitlin Southwick

This talk was something I was super excited about since I am an emerging conservator myself. Having this type of platform for students and professionals in the field of conservation is something that will strengthen the communication about sustainability within the conservation world. Caitlin Southwick was such an animated speaker and really brought what she wanted to discuss to life. Southwick is a MA Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage student at the University of Amsterdam specializing in glass, ceramics, and stone. Through her many achievements and degrees in her art conservation education, it has spread to the conservation of the world around her. There are resources for large scale initiatives, but how as a student can she make her practice more sustainable?

The Sustainability in Conservation: Student Ambassador Program (SiC), formerly known as the Students for Sustainability in Conservation (SSiC), will help conservators, conservation treatments and labs become more ecofriendly on a smaller scale. One way Southwick has started this ecofriendly wave is with the recycling of nitrile gloves. The RightCycle Program is on a trial run at the University of Amsterdam and the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. This program is a propriety program from Kimberly-Clark Professional, which offers a range of high quality gloves under the KIMTECH brand that meet conservator’s needs. Nitrile gloves cannot be recycled the same way as other plastics due to their chemical makeup. Once nitrile glove recycling bin is full, the bin is picked up through the RightCycle program. The gloves are then broken down to a powder using cryogenic processes that make new ecofriendly products such as patio furniture.

Sustainability in Conservation has a wonderful website and can be found on Facebook as well as Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This is where the conservation community can ask questions about how they can make their practices and labs more environmentally conscious. There are SiC researchers ready to help find the answers you are looking for when you do not have the time to research in depth. Southwick and her team want to help bring these findings to you. As Southwick stated during her presentation, these are the steps “to address the issue of sustainability in a comprehensive and clear way.”

In her bio, she explains how she “hopes to continue conservation and make saving the cultural heritage also about saving the planet.” I definitely know she will be a strong voice in the conservation world about conservation practices as well as how to practice saving the environment through programs like RightCycle. Her discussion at AIC was an eye-opener as to what we as conservators can do to conserve more than just what’s on our benches, but also the environment around us. These small steps she has introduced have and will create a huge impact. Thank you for sharing your love for the world, Caitlin!

45th Annual Meeting – Sustainability, Wednesday May 31, 2017, “With Room to Grow: Design and construction of a new conservation facility at the University of Washington Libraries”, Justin P. Johnson

Having a new conservation space built is the greatest hope and fear of many conservators – such an opportunity to take advantage of, and also to potentially go wrong! Justin Johnson’s presentation about their experiences at the University of Washington Libraries in Seattle, WA was a great insight into the process, and, given they seem to largely be pleased with the outcome, demonstrates that you sometimes can get what you want, as well as what you need.

The previous conservation space was located in a basement, cramped at only 2000 sq ft, and had last been updated in 1963. A new conservation position, partly funded by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation, was the impetus to create a new conservation space with more up-to-date equipment and space for the now four full time conservators, plus up to three part-time students and interns.

One of the early things the conservation team did was to create future goals for their space. Some of these included:

increasing the ability to undertake major treatments on collection items, while maintaining general collection work
incorporate book, paper and photograph treatments in the same space
have the ability to teach and train student conservators and interns
have a flexible and open space that could be used for workshops and research as well as treatment

The team also consulted widely with conservation scientists and treatment conservators of many disciplines.
A new space on the rooftop was identified, double the size of the previous space at 4000 sq ft, with natural light from five skylights. However, there were limitations on HVAC and ducting placement for a fume hood. Services with restrictions were placed in the design first, with other equipment fitted in around them. The fume hood location was determined first, followed by the rest of the wet lab: sinks, exhaust trunks, microscopy, suction and humidification, light bleaching and materials storage.

A multi-purpose documentation room was designed, where curtains could screen off an area to allow for photography or artefact examination and low-tech analysis, but still allow the space to be open to the rest of the lab area.

At one end of the main space a storage, office and reception area was located, with the rest of the space being fitted out for the main treatment work, including space for 10 work benches and more storage. This space had an open focus to encourage communication and collaboration as well as reconfiguration, when required.

While an architectural team was engaged to create the space, the conservation team were heavily involved, thinking through the design of furniture (especially for storage purposes) and thoroughly investigating the departmental work flows and how they would work in the space.

The conservation team drew their workflow movements on paper and overlaid them on the design drawings and also used computer tools, such as Live Home 3D Pro, to visualise the space and move furniture around to try out new orientations. This software was very useful to ‘walk through’ the space, make adjustments to the design and then send them via pdf to the architects. It also facilitated communication between the conservators and architects and saved a lot of money in lengthy redesigns which would have occurred in a later phase of the project.

15 months after the initial bid phase, the team moved into their new space in February 2016.

Questions:

Q1) What is the climate and do you know the air exchange rate? A1) Aiming for 70F/50% but are still in the process of balancing the AHUs. They are finding that the fume hood competes with the HVAC.

Q2) Who did the lighting design? A2) It was done by a UWA group at the end of the project; the Live Home 3D Pro software has a large database of furniture and lighting which can be added to the design.

Q3) What was the total budget? A3) Got support from the Mellon grant, UWA donors and campus funding. A lot of money was saved in design fees by the proactive work of the conservation team.

Q4) What was the size of the benches and the area around them? A4) The benches both fixed and moveable are all the same height and measure 60” x 38” with 3.5’ between benches.

Q5) Detail on the skylights: specification and R values? A5) The lighting system has an automated system to take the daylight into account; the lights reduce on a bright day (which is rare in Seattle!).

45th Annual Meeting – Unique Objects/Unique Treatment, Weds. May 31, 2017, “Nanocellulose films: properties, development and new applications for translucent and transparent artworks and documents,” presented by Remy Dreyfuss-Deseigne

Remy Dreyfuss-Deseigne described research related to mending methods for transparent materials using nanocellulose films. His research has been carried out with several institutional partners, at the National Library of France (BnF, Paris, France), Research Center for Conservation (CRC, Paris, France), French Museum of Cinema, and during his 2015-2016 NEA fellowship in paper conservation at the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA, Philadelphia, PA).

Remy opened with some images of difficult structural problems: torn gelatin windows, animation cells, and architectural drawings on tracing paper. He then introduced nanocellulose, explaining how it is made, what its properties are, and its potential for use in conservation.

His work focuses on one kind of nanocellulose, microfibrillated cellulose (abbreviated MFC). Nanocellulose materials are produced for a variety of uses in electronics and biotech, and are being researched and manufactured by several universities including in Grenoble, France and at the University of Maine.

Nanocellulose is produced by mechanically shearing wood to rip apart the fibers until they are nano in scale. Cotton, spruce and birch can all be used as sources for nanocellulose. The amorphous parts of the remaining cellulose structure are treated with acid in order to dissolve them, leaving highly crystalline fibrils. There is a lot of ongoing research into the production of nanocellulose in the nanotechnology, renewable materials, and sustainable engineering fields.

Nanocellulose fibrils vs. crystals, image from: https://3dprint.com/69012/american-process-and-ornl-say-nanocellulose-will-rival-carbon-fiber-for-3d-printing/

For conservation applications, Remy compared the properties of nanocellulose films to lightweight Japanese papers like gampi and kozo used to mend tears on translucent artworks. Nanocellulose is supplied as a gel that can be cast out by pouring into a petri dish and evaporating out the water, creating films that vary proportionally in thickness related to concentration. Remy’s research investigates its properties in combination with different adhesives, and its response to artificial aging tests (light, temperature and humidity) as well as mechanical strength tests.

He found that the nanocellulose films were thinner than papers but quite strong (nearly as strong as Gampi), and mostly behaved like cellulose, a good thing for their use as a paper conservation material. Most importantly, mends made with the thin films are practically invisible in regular and transmitted light. These mends were demonstrated on translucent slides with tears from the collection of the French Museum of Cinema (impressive work!). Ongoing testing will include further analysis of the material, e.g. pH and mechanical strength measurements and fungal resistance tests.

While this was the first time I had heard about nanocellulose it has many potential uses, and not just for mending translucent materials. As a biomaterial derived from renewable forestry resources, nanocellulose has gotten a lot of attention over the past five years for its potential in industrial applications. Given its high ratio of strength to weight it has great potential for use in fill materials of all types, and has already found applications in industrial 3D printing as a substitute for carbon fibers in composites. Since it is compatible with many adhesives, it may find wide-ranging applications in conservation. I am looking forward to hearing more about Remy’s ongoing research and thank him for the excellent introduction to an interesting material. You can learn more about Remy’s work at his website.

45th Annual Meeting, Sustainability, May 31, “Fast, Cheap, and Sustainable: 3-D printing exhibition book cradles,” Fletcher Durant, Sara Gonzalez, Lourdes Santamaria-Wheeler

You could hear the mental wheels turning in the room as conservators scribbled notes and thought: “Where is my nearest makerspace? How many custom mounts will I need for my next exhibit? And how nice would it be to not wrestle with an overflowing closet of book cradles?” This talk provided a futuristic vision of an endlessly sustainable cycle of 3-D printed exhibit mounts that are created on-demand with precision and recycled for the next show – an elegant, zero-waste utopia. Of course, reality isn’t quite there yet, but Fletcher Durant, Sara Gonzalez, and Lourdes Santamaria-Wheeler have been developing prototypes at the University of Florida and are moving us toward the future.

When discussing 3-D printing it’s good to have actual 3-D printed examples on hand. The audience was lucky enough to get a feel for the size, heft, color, and surface texture of the Florida prototype. Thanks to my hand model, Suzy Morgan!

Fletcher presented on behalf of the team, starting with an overview of the standard book cradle options for library and archives conservators and the advantages, drawbacks, and costs of each approach. The University of Florida library system has a robust exhibit schedule, mounting 15-20 exhibitions a year, requiring hundreds of book cradles. Storing these cradles is a challenge and logistics are complicated by the fact that the conservation lab is off-campus. Commercially produced Plexi cradles are expensive, take up lots of storage space, and are not always the appropriate size and fit for the books. Custom mounts made of mat board are more functional than the Plexis, but there are costs and waste associated with creating them, an off-campus lab means complicated construction and transport logistics, and as Fletcher noted, they’re not always the most attractive things to leave the lab. Custom mounts out of Vivak® (PETG) are also popular, aesthetically pleasing and can be constructed/modified in the gallery space, but they cost $10-15 each and still have to be stored after use.

Florida has three 3-D printers available for student and staff projects. The machine is a Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) system, which is an off-the-shelf widely used consumer product. Students are charged $0.15 per gram of filament used, and the average projects require 100g, or $15.00. One important limitation to note is the size of the printer; it can only accommodate approximately 14” x 14” x 12.6”, so average-sized book cradles are fine but anything larger would have to be assembled from multiple pieces.

I’ll leave most of the technical details to the authors in the postprints, but here’s a quick summary of the process: An STL (STeroLithography) file is necessary to produce a 3-D print. You can download existing files; thingiverse is one online source for sharing 3-D print files. Lucky for us, the authors have made their book cradle design available to us all here. You can also scan an existing object with a 3-D scanner to create a file. Or you can create your own original design: Fletcher recommended tinkercad as a good design tool for beginners.

Fletcher did note that, if you’re not already familiar with 3D design and printing, the initial learning curve can be steep and it’s worth it to work with someone more familiar with the process at first, but once your initial design in ready, minor modifications to the size, face angles, and spine opening can be done quickly.

Materials mater, of course, especially to conservators. There are many, many kinds of filaments available to use in FFF printers, but they all vary in terms of their environmental impact and their ability to pass the Oddy test or meet other standards of exhibit case appropriateness. At Florida, they use Nylon PLA, a plant-based product with no off-gassing. In theory, after the exhibit the book cradle should be able to be shredded, melted, re-formed into filament, and re-used. The authors are working on establishing an in-house recycling program at Florida, but Fletcher noted that realistically you can only get five uses out of the nylon filament. They’re also hoping to Oddy test more filament options.

A few other notes and observations:

Printing a complete cradle takes approximately 10 hours; this is hands-off time (they set the printers to run overnight) but it does mean they have to plan carefully about when to print – since students are also using the printers, they try to avoid scheduling large print jobs during finals week.
A modification of the design could include slots for book strapping.
The surface of the cradle is slightly rough; if desired, it can be smoothed with solvents or by sanding.
They have also created mounts for objects (pictured below), which Fletcher thinks might be a more realistic use for this technology in library exhibits. He’s also excited about the idea of using 3-D scanners and subtractive technologies to carve Ethafoam for custom housing inserts.

Whether or not the zero-waste book cradle utopia ever comes to fruition, understanding the process of 3-D printing and the materials involved is important, since we will begin seeing (if we haven’t already) 3-D printed objects entering our collections.

AIC Sustainability Committee Seeks New Student Member

AIC Sustainability Committee Seeks New Student Member

Term: June 2017 – May 2019

The Sustainability Committee seeks a new student member to join our dynamic, interdisciplinary team. This one-year, potentially renewable position is open to current graduate students, including those in their internship year.

Committee Goals:

Provide resources for AIC members and other caretakers of cultural heritage regarding environmentally sustainable approaches to preventive care and other aspects of conservation practice. Resources may be provided via electronic media, workshops, publications and presentations
Define research topics and suggest working groups as needed to explore sustainable conservation practices and new technologies

Tasks:

Monthly telephone conference calls with the committee members
Coordinate the Sustainability Committee booth at the AIC Annual Meeting, with the assistance of professional committee members as needed
Research, write and edit the AIC Wiki Sustainability pages
Participate in researching and writing any group presentations, publications, blogs, and social media posts.
Collaborate with related committees, networks, and working groups
Serve as liaison between the Sustainability Committee and the Emerging Conservation Professionals Network

Membership Parameters:

The committee is comprised of 8 voting members
Members serve for two years with an additional two-year term as an option
One member is a conservation graduate student
One member serves as chair for two years
During the second year of the chair’s term, another member serves as chair designate, assisting with and learning the chair’s responsibilities
As needed, corresponding (non-voting) members and non-AIC experts will be invited to guide research on special topics

To Apply:

Please submit a statement of purpose (1 page maximum length) and resume by May 15, 2017 to:

Geneva Griswold, Committee Vice-Chair (geneva.griswold@gmail.com)

AIC Sustainability Committee Seeks New Professional Member

AIC Sustainability Committee Seeks New Professional Member

Term: June 2017 – May 2019

The Sustainability Committee seeks a new professional member to join our dynamic, interdisciplinary team. The position is open to interim year members, Associates, PAs, and Fellows from any conservation specialty.

Committee goals:

Provide resources for AIC members and other caretakers of cultural heritage regarding environmentally sustainable approaches to preventive care and other aspects of conservation practice. Resources may be provided via electronic media, workshops, publications and presentations
Define research topics and suggest working groups as needed to explore sustainable conservation practices and new technologies

Tasks:

Monthly telephone conference calls with the committee member.
Research, write, and edit the AIC Wiki Sustainability pages
Participate in researching and writing group presentations, publications, blog posts,
and social media posts
Contribute to development of and plan for the Sustainability Session at the AIC
Annual Meeting
Initiate and support committee projects to increase awareness of sustainable practices
in the conservation community
Collaborate with related AIC committees, networks, and working groups

Membership Parameters:

The committee is comprised of 8 voting members
Members serve for two years with an additional two-year term as an option
One member is a conservation graduate student
One member serves as chair for two years
During the second year of the chair’s term, another member serves as chair designate, assisting with and learning the chair’s responsibilities
As needed, corresponding (non-voting) members and non-AIC experts will be invited to guide research on special topics

To Apply:

Please submit a statement of purpose (1 page maximum length) and resume by May 15, 2017 to:

Geneva Griswold, Committee Vice-Chair (geneva.griswold@gmail.com)

Call for Submissions – Sustainability Committee Tips Session

Call for Submissions – Sustainability Committee Tips Session
45th Annual AIC Meeting May 28 – June 1, 2017 in Chicago, IL
The Sustainability Committee of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) invites submissions for its sixth annual session at the 45th Annual Meeting, in Chicago from May 28 to June 1, 2017.
Do you choose solvents because they have minimal toxicological effects? Have you found ways to minimize solvent use? Can your mannequins be reused and retrofitted from one exhibition to another? When making a new frame for a painting, is it made from sustainably harvested wood? Do you reuse shipping crates? Do you recycle gloves or other lab supplies? Get creative!!
The Sustainability Session will use a Lightning-Round Tip format to explore this year’s theme, “Treatment 2017: Innovation in Conservation and Collection Care.”
We invite abstracts that explore sustainability within conservation specialties (archaeological, architecture, book and paper, electronic media, objects, paintings, photographic, textiles, wooden artifacts). We also invite abstracts that explore sustainability within collections care, health and safety, research and technical studies, as well as how you incorporate sustainability into your private practice.
Tips will be grouped into blocks with a Q&A component.
The deadline for submission of abstracts is Friday March 31, 2017.
Please submit abstracts via email to sustainability@conservation-us.org .
Abstracts are not to exceed 500 words, not including title or biographical information.
All abstracts should be submitted in English.

TREASURED LANDSCAPES: National Park Service Art Collections Tell America’s Stories launch

The National Park Service Museum Management Program is pleased announce the publication of TREASURED LANDSCAPES: National Park Service Art Collections Tell America’s Stories (book) and a companion virtual exhibit in celebration of the National Park Service Centennial, 1916–2016. Artworks from over 50 national parks are featured in the book and the exhibit.
Landscape art played a major role in the establishment of the National Park Service and inspired national leaders to protect and preserve these special places for all Americans. Stunning paintings, watercolors, sketches, and works on paper from National Park Service museum collections are seen together for the first time. They capture America’s treasured landscapes from Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Death Valley, to works displayed in the homes of such eminent Americans as Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Laurence Rockefeller. Other works mirror American experiences, from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, to solitary Southwestern scenes, to wildlife in nature. These works of art convey a visual record of the Nation’s stories and reveal the remarkable diversity and engaging history of the National Park Service.
Book available through Eastern National eParks
National Park Service Virtual Exhibit