I agree with John - get rid of the infested packing material. The art can be inspected and cleaned as necessary and can be bagged and monitored to see if there is any activity. Any chance of something like an isolation room to do the unpacking?
I am posting this on the two lists. Emily From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of rosa lowinger Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 8:13 AM To: AIC Objects Specialty Group Discussion Subject: Re: [OSG-l] Quora, fora, and bulk processing Re: Cross Postings -- re. question about powder post beetles in large objects John, that would be my preferred solution, especially given the size of these pieces and their quantity. Has anyone had experience with this? On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 4:51 AM, John Scott <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Of course it will be good to get the broadest input from knowledgeable and even not so knowledgeable persons who happen to know something relevant, or who happen to notice and pass along worthwhile nuggets! As ever, for each of us it's a matter of time available to attend to and sift through gathered info, when usually the reason we appeal to listserves, etc is for quick relatively authoritative insights and options we would prefer not to dig up, work out or evaluate on our own. Quora and other venues could be great for discussions. The main point is to have places where diverse thoughtful and expressive persons visit to share and help. In the currently mooted case where beetles are thought or known to infest only the crates, cases and packing material of a huge collection of contemporary art, why are we so enthused about bulk freezing, heating, anoxizing (is "anoxizing" a word?) or fumigating, etc. all these packing materials and their contents? What about the effects on their non-insect contents? And is the collection certainly ALL infested, or is this a statistical judgement with a given confidence margin based on some given number of inspections? Will the collection be presumed infestation-free after the anticilpated mass processing (a common and often necessary approach in modern collection management), or will enough items be inspected to permit a statistical evaluation of effectiveness to some agreed confidence margin, or might everything need to be inspected post-process? Are we talking actual collection care here, or just our normal eagerness to book and complete big-budget projects? Presuming that in this case (very interestingly) only the packing materials are indeed infested, what is the cost-benefit comparison between mass processing to some acceptable level of certainty, and just disposing of all the packing materials and rehousing the collection, both options including with adequate inspection of the effective results? ~ John John Scott Conservator of Art and Architecture -----Original Message----- From: Richard McCoy <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> To: AIC Objects Specialty Group Discussion <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Sent: Tue, Feb 15, 2011 9:18 pm Subject: Re: [OSG-l] Cross Postings -- re. question about powder post beetles in large objects This is such a great discussion in which so many important issues are raised. I often find the specialty group listservs are unnecessarily restrictive if not completely confining when it comes to sharing knowledge amongst professionals. Not only because speciality groups cause our thoughts and information to be contained in vertical silos, but also because the information is often stored, finally, in the back acres of our collective ranches. What if we were able to discuss issues and approaches with other specialty groups, and even other museum professionals? For those of you who are also on the Registrars Committee of the AAM Listserv, you will recognize that those folks often pose questions and respond with thoughtful answers that are broadly applicable to conservators and other collections-minded folks. With this in mind, think for a minute then about opening the doors to folks that are neither conservators or registrars. In the case of Powderpost beetles, it would be awfully helpful to have expert pest management folks involved in the discussion and wood specialists too. If you're willing to go this far, then perhaps your willing to go all the way. What happens if we had this kind of discussion out in the open, out in a place where anyone and everyone could see it and respond, with their background attached to their response (kind of like my signature at the bottom of this e-mail). For a long time I thought this was too difficult, and that there was no real framework for it. But, I've been experimenting with a new web-based application that allows for exactly this kind of discussion. If you're interested, consider checking out Quora here: http://www.quora.com/Whats-the-most-effective-way-to-kill-powderpost-beetles-in-a-museum-context You'll see that I've posted the question that started this discussion and anyone that registers there can respond, comment on other's answers and even summarize the most salient answers. It's pretty clever if you ask me and might just be the place to which we can begin building an architectural framework of our shared knowledge. Richard McCoy Associate Conservator of Objects & Variable Art Indianapolis Museum of Art 4000 Michigan Road Indianapolis, IN 46208 317-923-1331 xt 150 From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]?>] On Behalf Of JP Brown Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 6:48 PM To: AIC Objects Specialty Group Discussion Subject: Re: [OSG-l] Cross Postings -- re. question about powder post beetles in large objects > By the way, where is the Pest List? http://www.museumpests.net/ -- JP Brown Regenstein Conservator for Pacific Anthropology The Field Museum 1400 S Lake Shore Drive Chicago, IL 60605 t: +1 312 665 7879 f: +1 312 665 7193 e: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> ________________________________ This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact Richard McCoy by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. _______________________________________________ OSG-L mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://cool.conservation-us.org/mailman/listinfo/osg-l _______________________________________________ OSG-L mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://cool.conservation-us.org/mailman/listinfo/osg-l -- ROSA LOWINGER & ASSOCIATES Conservation of Sculpture + Architecture Miami * Los Angeles * Honolulu 305.573.7011 323.377.8425 mobile www.rosalowinger.com<http://www.rosalowinger.com>
