I want to welcome you all. Connecting to Collections is a program of the foundation of the American Institute for Conservation. And we provide free training and resources for small and mid-sized cultural institutions. If you need answers to problems with your collection, you can go to the Connecting to Collections Care online forum and ask them. And there are people there that will help you get answers. And we have the community website. We're on Facebook, and we're on Twitter. And you can look at the over 80 webinars that have been done since 2010 in our archives. And you can always contact me. This is my email address on the online community coordinator. And we also are starting a new email list. So if you have registered for a class in the past or have registered on our website, you should be getting this. It's not a discussion list. It's merely to make announcements. And that's just been started. And it'll be still having the kinks worked out. And so next week, we're going to have a webinar on mannequins. And the following week, we're going to have a, or the following month, May 3rd, about a month from now, we're going to have one on hazardous collections, hazardous materials in collections. So be sure to sign up for those. You can do that at the website. And today's webinar is about artifacts in archives collections. And our presenter is Rebecca Elder. She's going to take over now. OK. Hi, everybody. Can you hear me? Yes. Perfect. So as Susan said, my name is Rebecca Elder. I am a preservation consultant based in Austin, Texas, where it is sunny and about 75 right now. It's hard to be inside while talking with you all when I could be outside. But we're going to have a good time talking about artifacts found in collections. I am pretty well suited to do this because I started out as a book and paper conservator. I went through a conservation program. When I got out of school, I ended up doing a lot of preservation assessments. And I started out in libraries and archives. But slowly worked my way into museums. So I've got an idea of what's going on the specific challenges that you all have, as well as the specific challenges that go along with materials, with objects. So as we go along today, I am going to do my very best to follow along with any questions that you have. So if you have questions about what I'm talking about, please go ahead and type them. If you have questions about how to take care of specific things, I have allowed. I think I'm going to talk for about an hour, which means there's going to be probably half an hour left at the end for you all to ask all of your specific, how do I deal with situation XYZ questions? And hopefully, we'll be able to answer everything that you have. But if you're questioned about what I'm talking about at the moment, please go ahead and type them. And we'll just try to get the answers as we go along. So my goal for today is to have you leave here feeling empowered to make good decisions for all of the oddball artifacts that wind up in your archives, whether somebody 50 years ago took them in, and now they are yours, whether you like it or not, or whether they're an important part of your collection, either way, they probably aren't what you learned how to store along the way. So we're going to talk about the preservation environment. We're going to talk about storage materials, what kinds of boxes should you be using, what kinds of packing materials. And then we'll get straight into small objects, larger objects, framed objects, textiles, and hazardous materials I'm going to put in my two cents on that. We'll wind up with some tips for handling, because handling objects in three dimensions is very different than handling paper a lot of the time. And we'll have lots and lots and lots of times for questions. So if you've been coming to these webinars, you've probably heard this a lot. I'll just add my iteration of it. The most important thing you can do to care for your collections is maintain a cool, dry, stable environment. That has the most effect on everything. The good news is that most objects found in archival collections are able to be stored at the same conditions as the rest of your archives. So we're looking at temperature, ideally 68 to 70, if that's maintainable, relative humidity, 35 to 50%, and minimal fluctuations. And I'm not going to do any more on that, because there is a ton of material out there on the environment. Storage materials are another way. Poor quality storage materials are a good way to cause irreparable damage to your treasures. Acidic boxes and paper will catalyze deterioration in the objects you're storing. Things that aren't padded correctly will lead to breakage. So we want to make sure we're using the best quality materials we can get our hands on. So you want things that are durable and chemically stable. And you want to remember that just because something starts out acid-free doesn't mean it's going to remain acid-free forever. As things get older, they deteriorate, and the older I get, the more convinced I am of it, because I know what my knees do when I get up in the morning. So storage materials will eventually need to be replaced in many cases. But buying good quality materials will make sure that that takes as long as possible. So some terms that you should know. If something is marketed as acid-free, it has a pH of 7.0 or higher. Brad wants to know how you know when you need to replace storage materials. There's a few things that I do for board, paper board in particular. A pH testing pen will let you know when things become acidic. Just periodically check them with a pH testing pen. The plastics that we recommend are much, much, much more stable and will be much less likely to be replaced. So if I saw visible signs of deterioration like discoloration, I would want to change my plastics. Oh, and thank you, Susan. Yes, Suzanne Morgan has put a link up where you can get a pH testing pen. They're amazing. I want to say they're under 15 bucks. And you can just make a little mark on your, on an ingot spiky spot on your box or on your tissue or on your file folder. If it's purple, it's alkaline. If it's yellow, if the mark is yellow, it's acidic. And when it becomes acidic, I would get rid of it. I would also replace when I'm starting to see where on the boxes. Like if I'm using a document box, that's an easy one to talk about when we're talking with archivists. If the lid to my document box starts to tear, that's another good time to replace. Julie, I'm gonna have Susan hang onto that question so we can talk about that at the end when we're talking about specific objects. And back to acid-free, 7.0 or higher pH. And just a high school chemistry refresher because it's been a little while. The pH scale goes from zero to 14. At zero, every molecule is acidic. At 14, every molecule is alkaline. At seven, you have an equal balance one for one of each. And it's a logarithmic scale. So something that has a pH of 10 is 10 times more alkaline than something with a pH of nine. Something with a pH of three is 10 times more alkaline than something with a pH of four. And usually when we're looking for things to store paper, we wanna be slightly alkaline somewhere in the seven and a half to eight and a half range if someone is telling you what the pH of the paper is. The next piece of terminology that you should know is lignin-free. And lignin is the component of wood that causes wood pulp paper to deteriorate quickly. If we didn't have lignin, trees wouldn't be able to stand up straight and tall. It gives the trees the structure. But without lignin, but lignin is responsible for creating acids causing paper to turn yellow. If something is marketed as lignin-free, it has a lignin content of 1% or less, which means that it will deteriorate much more slowly than something that's just acid-free. And then finally, alkaline-buffered. So if something is marketed as alkaline-buffered, it has a chemical reserve added to neutralize acids as they're created. It's great for storing a lot of things. It's not suitable for things like blueprints, color photographs, silk and wool are both problematic and artwork with dyes or pigments because the chemical in the alkaline-buffer will interact with your object and cause it to deteriorate more quickly. Plastics are another fantastic storage material. And there's three main types that we use in conservation. Polyester, which is also known as Mylar or Melanex, it's recycling symbol one. It's the same plastic that is in every soda bottle and water bottle in the world. So you know how bad that is in a landfill. It's that good in an archives. I always tell people that if you're using Mylar, it's probably not going to deteriorate in your lifetime. It will be somebody else's problem. Polypropylene, I'll usually think of polypropylene as kind of the clear, milky-clear boxes for holding audio-visual material. And polyethylene, which especially for artifacts, is used a lot in Ziploc bags. The plastic that you never, ever, ever want to use is polyvinyl chloride, which is abbreviated PVC, because it is chemically unstable under even good environmental conditions. And when it deteriorates, it releases hydrochloric acid, which is very damaging to many types of materials. And when you're buying supplies, if your manufacturer can't tell you what plastic you're getting, that would be a time to find another manufacturer. So for packing materials, you've got some great options. The things that we're thinking about using are going to be acid-free tissue, polyethylene plank, which is also a trade name, one trade name for it is esophome, polyethylene sheeting, which is a thin, flexible polyethylene product and a trade name on that is Velara. Things you want to avoid, newsprint. Newsprint, very acidic, will deteriorate quickly. Likewise, brown paper, styrofoam, off-gasses chemicals that will catalyze deterioration and packing peanuts, off-gas, plus leave behind a lot of dust and they're kind of a pain in the neck and a mess to use. So those are some options that you have. So now into what you're really here to hear about, how to take care, what kind of storage things we have for all these weird objects that we have. I'm going to be, in many cases, describing the ideals and the standards, the kind of the standards or the Cadillac solutions, but chances are there is going to end up being compromised between this and what you can afford to do. Elizabeth in Sioux Falls wants to know about bubble wrap. I tend to stay away from bubble wrap on it. I would use, oh, and Pamela also wants to know about bubble wrap. I would stay away from bubble wrap and instead use padding made out of acid-free tissue. Choroplast, yes, I believe choroplast is inert. So when designing any storage solution, things that I think about are going to be what kind of materials are safe for me to use with this object? I think about the orientation. Thank you, Brad, yet to don't source it from a printer, source it from a conservation supply house. Quilt batting, I wouldn't use just quilt batting. If I was going to use quilt batting, I would use it inside of something. I would use it to make snakes inside of some stocking net, but we'll talk about that in a minute. A little bit, I haven't missed any other questions. I think I'm up to date on it. Disintegrating choroplast, that's really interesting and I would love to talk about that later and try to figure out what's really going on with it because it should be pretty stable stuff. Okay, so when you're designing a storage solution, what materials are safe? Does your object need to be stored flat or in a specific orientation to keep things from falling off perhaps? Is my object fragile or deteriorating? And is it vulnerable to loss? Like if it's very small, that's something that could be very easy for it to just disappear accidentally because little things disappear. So small objects are pretty easy to store a lot of the time. The easiest, most elegant solution I have for a small object that you want to keep with a collection of archival papers is to use a spacer to create a storage area in a document box and that's what's going on here. We have a document box with a few folders in the front and a spacer which you can purchase from archival suppliers or you can make your own either way but you have this nice little cavity in the back of your box now that separates it from your object from the papers and that's a great solution for things like metals, cased photos, small books, random souvenirs and mementos. If you have something that needs some stability to it, you could use some epiphone plank to create an insert with a cavity to hold your object securely if it's fragile. So you could just use a knife to cut out the cavity, size it to the space in your box and there you go. It's elegant, it's simple, it doesn't take up a whole lot of space. If you have larger amounts of small objects, you can get flat boxes and either buy dividers or trays or make them yourself again. Those are excellent storage. And if you take pictures of each object in the box and adhere them to the lid, then you don't have to open the box to see what's inside, which is a really handy tip. It just cuts down on handling for the objects. If you have extremely large collections of small objects, maybe you have fossils or arrowheads or coins or buttons, those require a specialized solution. The one that I really like is to put each example into a small polyethylene bag and store them in specimen trays in boxes. And Samantha wants to know the best way to adhere a picture to the lid of the box with lots of tiny objects. I would go with PVA polyvinyl acetate glue. It's chemically stable, it's easy to use, it's inexpensive, just brush out the back of the paper, wrap it on your box and you're good to go. For larger objects, if at all possible, you want objects to be boxed. They protect your collection from light, dust, provide a micro environment that buffers against temperature and relative humidity shifts. So boxing is great. If boxes aren't really an option, if you have 5,000 hats and you're not gonna be able to buy 5,000 boxes at the moment, then supports on open shelving are a really good option. You can put more than one object in a box if you use packing material to protect it. And I would say not to let the box get too heavy because then it becomes awkward for carrying. So things that you can use for larger objects. This is a box that has a couple of artifacts packed in it and you see that they've used acid-free tissue to pad around the object so that they don't shift and they don't touch each other. So you can use acid-free tissue to make pads and snakes and in the resource list, Samantha wants to know about supports. I'm gonna show you one in just a moment. You can wrap things in Velara, which is kind of the closest analog that I have is sometimes when you buy electronics, there's a piece of a soft, gentle feeling plastic over your electronic screen. That's Velara or similar to Velara. And you can create custom housings, custom supports and I'm gonna show you one in a minute, but it's just something that holds things in place. In your resources, there is a instruction sheet on how to make pads and snakes out of acid-free tissue. And I'm gonna show you all this because, A, it's a support and it gives me a chance to talk to you about a really great resource that has a lot of information on supports. This is a custom support for a damaged basket. So it's a disc of some kind, it's probably a corrugated board and some white cotton tying tape tied through it. You put the disc underneath the basket, tie the strings around the top and you have some support for the bottom, some support for the edges. You don't have to handle it by the basket. The sound is cutting out. We're gonna take just a second and see if we can figure out what's going on on the tech side. And the hope who's doing our tech support is gonna be working with you all on that. So this support I found at a really fantastic resource called Stash C, which is on the resources list. It's a joint project of the AIC and Spinach, which is the Society for the Protection of, oh shoot, now I got flustered and I can't, it's a Society for the Protection of Natural History Objects. Yes, thank you, D, Spinach, SPNHC, Society for the Protection of Natural History Collections. And it is a really, really wonderful comprehensive site of reader, user submitted storage solutions. It's one of the absolutely best resources on storage out there. And if you have an ingenious storage solution, you can contribute yours as well and help out other people. So moving on to framed objects. Framed objects, there are a couple ways to deal with them. You can hang them on walls or support screens. And that's absolutely valid. You can also use storage bins like this one in the picture where you have a room for a couple of pictures in each slot. If you're using bins, it's a good idea to separate your paintings with acid-free cardboard or foam to prevent scratching of the frames. I think, wait, I think I missed a slide. I'm sorry, I did miss a slide. Framed objects, Lee, I'm gonna get to you in one second. I can overshot myself. So for framed objects, the first thing I can tell you is if you have inexpensive frames, like somebody bought in a dime store, I would just get rid of those. They have very little artifactual value, if any, and then you can store things like you would store photos or paper. If you have a painting or a piece of art that's fragile or damaged, it's best to store it flat, either in a box or a drawer, or the first preference is, if you don't have a box or a drawer large enough, then store it on a shelf. You want to store it flat so that if there's any media flaking, it stays in place and doesn't fall off. So now on to the bins. Yeah, my preference, Leanne, would not to be storing things, leaning that much. I would like them to stand up a little straighter, if possible. And you want to store them with as a free card or phone between, if options, store them frame to frame and hardware to hardware. Moving on to textiles. You've got a lot of possibilities there as well. You can store textiles flat in drawers, flat in boxes, rolled around the tube, rolled around tubes, or hung in wardrobe cabinets. One thing you want to think about a lot with textiles is what, if you can try to figure out what kind of fabric you're working with. If it is wool or silk or anything that comes from an animal. So alpaca, that you never, ever, ever want to use alkaline-buffered tissue with. That always wants to be unbuffered tissue because the chemicals in the paper pulp that buffer against the acid also cause proteins, which come from animals, to become brittle. If you have small textiles, you want to store them flat. Flat storage is ideal because it provides all over support. You have pressure coming up from the bottom along all parts of your textile that you're storing. If your textiles are sturdy, you can just store them between pieces of acid-free tissue. If you have fragile textiles, they may also require a support to prevent damage during handling. So you might need to, for example, cut a piece of acid-free board to the size of your object and store that with your object so that when people pick up the object when they open the box, they pick up the board, not your actual fragile textile. Things that really are good stored flat, velvets and fabrics with pile, because if you roll them or fold them, the pile will become distorted. Fragile or deteriorated surfaces or decorations. Again, if it's fragile, it needs all of that support. Anything brittle or stiff, anything heavily embroidered or beaded. You especially don't want to hang those because the weight of the embroidery and the beads can pull things out of shape and cause tearing. And Francis in St. Petersburg also reminds us that knitted and crocheted items stretch more quickly than woven textiles. That is so very true. I am a knitter, and I cannot tell you how true that is. So knits and crochets are also really nice to store flat if that's a possibility for you. However, there are some things that are just too big to store flat, so you have to roll them up. Quilts, rugs, large woven, and the easiest way to do that is to wrap them around an acid-free core. You want your core to be longer than your textile, so those edges are protected. There's some. They're not hanging off the edges of your tube. If you have very thin textiles, something with a two inch core is usually suitable. If you have thicker textiles, a three inch tube. At least let's answer that question at the end when we're talking about specific objects. When you are rolling things, you want to use tissue between the layers, and that'll provide just a little bit of a buffer between layers of the object. Then wrap them in muslin and tie them at the ends. After that, you can, if you are lucky and fancy, you can have a nice rack like this one from the National Park Service, but you can be cheap and just get brackets and dowels and hang things on the wall. It's better if you can hang them rather than put them on shelves, because if you put things on shelves, the pressure of the shelf from the bottom will cause those bottom layers to compact. Joshua wants to know if muslin will eventually deteriorate as well. Eventually, yes, but it will probably take a very long time. Muslin is just 100% cotton. Cotton is very, very chemically stable. So for costumes, you want to use forfitted constructive clothing, think Western clothing, dresses, jackets, blouses. That kind of stuff in good condition can be stored in a wardrobe cabinet or on a rack. If you have things that are unconstructed or fragile, so unconstructed, I'm thinking like cactans and kimonos and things without a lot of structure, that is what you want to store flat. Other things for flat storage, heavy-beated textiles, because the weight will cause the textile to tear. Bias-cut dresses and bias-cut means that it's cut on a diagonal of the fabric, which gives it lovely, lovely drape. But it also makes it prone to distortion when you have it on a hanger, so that flat. And men's pants also store flat very well. If you're going to hang something, you're correct, William, use a padded hanger. You can buy padded hangers. There are tutorials out there for making padded hangers. But a padded hanger will help keep your arms and shoulders in shape, and it will distribute the weight over a wider portion of the fabric. So those are important. And then if you have a lot of money to spend, you can go all out and buy beautiful museum cabinets that are designed for storing textiles. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that probably that's not where your budget dollars are going. And if that's the case, you want to put each item in a closed dust cover. Dees says her museum gets old bedsheets from hospitals and hotels for free, and those are an excellent solution a lot of the time for fabric. Close dust cover to keep things out of the light and out of the dust. And then you want to hang with space in between each object. And that is so that, say, beating on one object can't damage the fragile surface on another. Let's give them a little. And Kathy says she's been experimenting with noodles on coat hangers for padding. I have heard several people experimenting with pool noodles. I do not know what plastic they are. It's my only caution about them. If you can find out, though, and if they are polyethylene or polypropylene, they might be really fantastic. If something can't be stored hanging costume-wise, you can store them in flat files or costume boxes, either one. I'm assuming in an archive it will probably be a costume box. And you want to aim for as few folds as possible, because when you fold things, you run the risk of having permanent impressions of the fold in your object. When you're storing things in boxes, pad the folds, pad the shoulders, pad the sleeves with rolls and pads of acid-free tissue to help them keep their shape. And ideally, you would put a piece of muslin in the bottom of the box, a muslin sling, so longer than the box. And that way, you can use the ends of that muslin sling to pick up the piece when you're ready to get it out of the box. And Susan, can you put Jeanne's question over in the parking lot for later on? Accessories are another. They're out there in scads and scads galore. You always want to think about the appropriate support. And there are lots of options out there, from purchased things that are fancy, to homemade things that are very simple. This one you can find directions on for the Minnesota Historical Society's website. It's a moccasin support. And you can see how simple it is.  There go your moccasins. They're stuffed in the middle to help them retain their shape. And that's really, really quick and easy. So look around for any kind of accessory you come up against in your collection. Somebody has probably already designed a storage solution for it. All righty. I know that Caitlin says, would cotton tape damage the shoes? Let me go back to that picture. When I would be worried about the cotton tape damaging the shoes, is if it was tied too tightly. Because if you tie it too tightly, it'll squish the edges. And that can cause permanent distortion. But this one, if you look at it, it's just going gently around the edges and holding things in place. So that should not be damaging. And cotton tying tape is very chemically stable. It's some, yeah, I wouldn't have any problem with the chemical issues on that. As long as you're careful with not causing things to get squeezed, I think you're in good shape on that. But that's a really good question. So I know that in May, there is going to be a full-out webinar on hazardous collection materials. And I hope you will all attend that, because it's a really big topic for me. But in case you can't make that webinar, I want to talk a little bit about hazardous collections. Because if you're coming from a paper background, you don't think a lot about things being dangerous. Because paper is paper. So hazardous collection material, a nice definition, is any material that has the potential to cause injury, illness, or death, cause damage or loss, or inhibit operations. And we can break that down further into two categories, things that are inherent or things that are acquired. So inherent hazards are things that become hazardous at the time of manufacture and remain so over time. So that could be anything from the arsenic and taxidermy mounts to the poison tips on air heads or weapons, mercury in thermometers and 18th century mirrors, lead in bullets or stained glass or glazed ceramics or printers type, medical equipment, old medicines. There's a museum in Austin that has a delightful display of old patent medicine bottles that still have things inside them, which scares me quite a bit. You also want to be careful about the physical characteristics. Some things are sharp. And the list goes on. This is not exhausted by any means. I'm sure we could sit around and talk about this for an hour and come up with 100 more. Acquired hazards become added over time. So that's things like pesticides, preservatives, deterioration of your object, things like nitrate film becomes more dangerous as time goes on. Environmental contaminants like mold or frass, which is insect droppings or bird droppings, all of those are problems that happen later. Your number one concern when you're thinking about hazardous materials is your own health. We can get more stuff. We can get more stuff. And we can get more stuff. But we cannot get another you. So you want to think about taking care of yourself. To do that, you want to know how the body absorbs toxins. It can either do it through your skin. Healthy, undamaged skin is often an effective barrier.  And then you can get punctures and scrapes and cuts, which increase the rate of absorption. And once a substance is absorbed through the skin, it can cause systemic damage.  Gene, let's talk about that later. And Genie, probably not, they're probably on mylar. But without seeing them, it's hard for me to tell. Inhalation, hazardous substances are often airborne. The big one I think about, because I work with it a lot, is mold. You inhale it. It gets into your lungs. That goes into your bloodstream and gets distributed to your whole body. So be aware of things like coughing, burning sensations, having this in the chest, difficulty breathing. At this point of the moldy room, I can tell within five minutes that there's mold in there, because my voice starts to get froggy. Oh, there's mold. I better put on my respirator. And then you may unknowingly absorb small quantities of a toxic substance into your gastrointestinal system from food or drink or contaminated hands. If you touch something contaminated and then touch your face, which is a really common thing to do, if we were standing face to face, I would be looking around the room and there would be at least a third of you with your hands on your face. I promise you. You get the toxic substance on your face. It's easy for it to get into your eyes, nose, or mouth. Sharon wants to know, is there any way to get rid of mold? Do you just get rid of the item? Let me talk about that in a minute, because I'm going to, Brad said, if hands were on the top of the sea, I told you. Sharon wants to know about mold. Let's talk about that in a minute, because I am going to be talking about how to handle contaminated items. We can identify hazards in a couple of ways by how we know the material, by the history, that we know. We can do chemical testing, either spot testing or, I'm sorry, by either spot testing or using some fairly sophisticated equipment. Testing should be done by a trained conservator. And I think it's worth pointing out that Mac, which is the Midwest Art Conservation Center, their object conservator will do really inexpensive arsenic testing for us. You just use a swab to take a sample from your object, put it in a baggie, mail it up to her, and she will do the testing and let you know if you have something in your collection that has arsenic. And yes, the AIC Spinach Book Health and Safety for Museum Professionals is so good and so useful. Things that might make you think you have pesticides going on in your collection. Your material is in really good condition, much better so than you would expect to find it. That's often a tip off that something has happened. It didn't just stay beautiful, somebody was probably helping it along. Something might be marked or labeled with a poison tag. You might see a fine white dust, crystals, and better safe than sorry, suspect anything you can't easily identify. And Paola says you should also keep an eye out for things that may have been in contact with asbestos or contained asbestos. Absolutely, that's another one that is out there. Now that everyone is terrified, let's talk about managing the risk for a second. So in your dream world, in my dream world, if you had something that was moldy or if you had something that was contaminated, you would remove the object and replace it or substitute it with another. But you can also isolate the object and use safe work practices. If you need help, there are few resources for you in your local environmental safety agency. If you're on a college campus, there's probably an office on campus that deals with the science labs and their safety that can give you some help. OSHA also has a small business consultation service that will help you figure out how to be safe in your collections. But remove and replace. So you can dispose of the contaminated object. Way to dispose of the contaminated object. Make sure you're disposing of it safely. The easy one to tell is if you have deteriorating nitrate film, the last thing you want to do with that is throw it in the dumpster behind your archives. You want to make sure you're following the rules on that. You might also consider remediating the contaminant. That might be having a conservator treat something for mold. When you come across something you want that's potentially contaminated, process it quickly so that there's less risk for everything. The longer it hangs out, the more time you have for it to interact with other objects or with other humans. Oh, and we already covered that one, excellent. You can also isolate contaminated materials either in well-sealed bags or containers. Label things so that people know not to just go ripping open that Ziploc bag and sticking their hands in. Or if you have the budget, you can put things in drawers and put a piece of acrylic over the top to isolate. And finally, oh, we're doing perfectly on time. I wanted to spend a few minutes talking about handling objects. The first rule of handling is only handle things when necessary. The less you handle things, the less likely it is there will be damage from handling. So if you don't have to handle it, leave it alone. And the corollary to that is treat every object as if it were the most valuable piece in your collection. For objects, I usually use nitrile gloves for handling. Definitely if you're handling metal objects went to wear gloves because the oils on your finger can end up doing damage. But I use gloves most of the time for objects. And I prefer nitrile because they're disposable, they don't have the maintenance of cotton. And for anything that's slippery like ceramics, China, you don't want to wear cotton gloves because it makes it too easy for them to slip out of your hands. Likewise, don't wear any dangling jewelry. So no charm bracelets, no long necklaces, no ID badges on lanyards, no loose sleeves, no pens in your pockets, anything that could come loose or could hit the object and cause some damage. Use both hands when you're carrying objects and handle the object at its strongest point and think about where it might be most vulnerable to breakage. So you would see that teacup and think that the handle is the logical place or the pitcher and think the handle is the logical place to carry it by. But actually that is the most vulnerable point to breakage and you are better off carrying it by the base. If an area has been repaired, it's most likely weaker than the rest of the object. So avoid those areas. And avoid any, if it's a, oh, say it's an art piece that has spikes and protrusions coming off of it, those are something else to avoid because they break off easily. If you have an object that is in two pieces like a teapot with a lid, you're better off to handle it in two pieces. So don't put the lid on the teapot and move the whole set, move the teapot, then move the lid. When you're moving things, again, do you have to move the object? If you don't have to move the object, leave it in place. If you're moving something, know where you're going, know exactly where you're going to put the object before you pick it up, make sure that your space is ready for the object. If you pick something up, move it to the space, find there's something in your space, you have to move the object back to where it came from. It's complicated. You want to use trays, carts, and other equipment to move objects. It's safer than holding them in your hands. And if your object is large or heavy or awkward, use two people to move it. Mary Alice wants to know a vendor for oversized carts. I do not have one off the top of my head, Mary Alice. If you email me and remind me, because I won't forget, and I'm putting my email address in the chat right now, I will do a little research, and I'm assuming, Susan, if I get it, oh, there's some help for you, but Susan, if I get a resource, you can update the resources, but yes, I will work on finding you an answer to that question, and we will get the updated resource list to include it. Okay, so boy, I said I was going to talk about an hour. It is now 1.58, and I wanted to open up the floor to questions that you have about your collections. We have been storing what's come up, yet we've been storing what's come up, so we're gonna take that first, and then we have a hard time scrolling through them, so perhaps Susan, you can help me with, and scroll down in that, because I don't have control of that pain. And so I'm gonna start with the first one that I can see, which is Elise in Lakeland. We store leather in acid-free tissue for batting and in an acid-free box with a protein. I would use non-buffered tissue, and I think you are good. Sharon in Eagle Point, Oregon, wants to know about animal hides and fur, and those are things that I would box and use acid-free tissue with, but not buffer, just acid-free. Make sure that the stoles, if they're just stoles that are long, you can store them flat. If they have some shape to them, you may need to pad them to give them some support. Jean in Prince Rupert wants to know about identification tags. I label with number two pencil, and attaching them to items, it depends on the object. You want it to be non-permanent. And there's a lot of material about labeling out there that you can find. My head, remember the name of the book, but there is one that includes a lot of information on labeling. And I will look that up when I can get to my bookshelf and put it on the resource list as well. So, yeah, if you're using string tags, tie them around something stable. That's the best thing I have to tell you on that. Sharon wants to know about how to get rid of mold. Sharon, ideally you would work with a conservator on mold because it's a health hazard because you can do damage to the materials. Otherwise, if you wanted to do it yourself, my, so I would recommend a conservator. I realize you may not have the budget, and if you are willing to absorb the risk that comes with doing it yourself, my favorite tool for mold remediation is a soot sponge. But that's also a great question to talk about in the Hazardous Materials Workshop. And I think you should talk with that. Julie wants to know about newspapers, Julie, in Eagle Point. Newspapers are pretty easy. Open them out as far as you can, which is probably going to be so that there's one fold down the middle. Put them in acid-free, preferably alkaline-buffered file folders in flat boxes. I'm moving it back over. Boy, you guys have a whole lot of questions. This is awesome. John in Brooklyn has chemicals in plastic and glass bottles in the collection. Are they safe to keep in the collection? He's concerned with the plastic bottles. That one, John, we're not exactly what chemicals they are. It's very hard to answer. So I would say if you have access to some kind of an industrial safety resource, that's the person I would ask that question. So yeah, Susan says she will read the questions for me. That would be super helpful, Susan. So the next one that I see is from Barb Connor and I can only see need to advise. So what does Barb need advice on? Okay, so which one is the one you can't see? Oh, Barb Connor. Yes. Need to advise lay person with multiple paintings on storage. No shelving or bins available? Wrap in what? So no shelving, no bins. What should she wrap them in? Wrap them in. I would say I would go with probably something like Velara, which is a soft polyethylene that comes in rolls. Is it safe to store artifacts wrapped in acid-free tissue in old metal filing cabinets? I am not a fan of filing cabinets for a few reasons. They are space inefficient, but even more than that, they don't allow air circulation. So any acids that are being created by the object as they deteriorate have nowhere to escape to. All they can do is essentially cannibalize the objects, go back in and cause more deterioration, which then causes more acids, which then will cause more deterioration and it's a never-ending cycle. So if there is any way you can get it of the metal filing cabinets, that would be a really good thing to do. Okay. When buying quilt batting, it says make sure it's heat bonded and chemically, and not chemically bonded so there's no odd guessing or degrading. Do you have anything to say about that? No, I just think that's a really useful tip and I remember seeing that come across and thank you for saying that. Okay. We have photography developing containers in, did you already get this one? In plastic and glass bottles here is part of the collection. This is from John's Nereo. Yes, I think I've taken that one and that's the one that I am hunting to an industrial safety expert because I don't know exactly what the chemicals are. Okay, I'll keep that. We got that one. What do you do with moth-infested fibers? So I guess the first question is if they're infested now and if it's something that you can freeze, which is most textiles. You want to stay away from anything with metal, anything with beads, anything with glass, but most run-in-the-mill textiles you can put in the freezer and I would wrap it up in a Ziploc bag, throw it in the freezer and let the moths get frozen to death. And the other thing you can do is put them in a plastic bag and put them in something dark and put them in a closed car in the summer because they just need to get up over 104 degrees and you can do that for an hour and they'll be dead. And it won't hurt them. That's not long enough to really hurt something. Yeah, I had never heard that. Oh yes, it's very effective. I would imagine. And freezing, sometimes you have to do several times. Yeah, a couple of cycles is best for freezing. Yeah, is it always safe to go with unbuffered ash and pre-tissue if you don't know what something is made out of? Yes, if you don't know, if you are concerned that alcohol and buffered tissue is not the right choice, go with unbuffered. So yeah, when in doubt, unbuffered is safer. Okay, Deborah Stabber has, they have a 16 foot long, 26 inch wide at the middle, snake skin that's a little stiff. Do you have any suggestions? Wow, 16 feet, is that what the measurement was? Right, yeah. I've seen something like this wrapped around a very, yeah, I've seen something like this, it was somewhat not totally stiff, wrapped around a very large diameter, archival tube, so that it's not actually slightly stiff. Yeah, and that would be where I would go on that, I think. That's impressive, that's a really impressive snake skin. Yeah, right. What would you recommend for old scrapbooks with photos glued to that awful black construction paper? Is it worth leaving them glued to the paper? Scrapbooks are, I love scrapbooks. Scrapbooks and I have a, yeah, I love them and I hate them because they're kind of a pain but they're so beautiful and so wonderful. The first question on that is, can you even get the photos off? If you can get the photos off and there's no great artistry, I would probably take the scrapbook apart. If there's great artistry and taking the scrapbook apart ruins that. You just skipped it. I would have a harder time making that call. Oh, I'm sorry. So if there's great artistry, take the scrapbook apart. If it's just photos that are adhered to a page, then yeah, if you can take the book apart without doing damage to the photos, I think that's great. If you're going to take the book apart, before you do that, I would take pictures of each page or scan each page so you have a record of what it looked like. You just lost you again. So you had a record of what the pages looked like. Are you back? The next question that we have is I've also related to scrapbooks. It has to do with, what do you do with the scrapbooks from the 60s where they were in that horrible sticky stuff? And hope it's, am I back on? I think I am. Rebecca, I think you're off. Try- Susan, I'm hearing you just fine. I'm not hearing Rebecca, though. Rebecca, do you mind turning your audio up and back on? We're working on this. Oh, there you are. Okay. You're there, but you're going in and out. Yeah. Kate Hill in Kansas City says, we have some large metal chrome or chrome plated scissors that are currently sitting directly on a metal shelf for the few layers of acid-free tissue, be enough of a barrier until we can find a more permanent storage solution. Oh, Rebecca's reconnecting her audio. Hi, Rebecca. We're hearing you type. So, it looks like your microphone's on, but I don't know if, yeah, we are hearing you. Can you hear me now? Okay. I don't know what happened there. So, but apparently reconnecting fixed it. So, yes, to the chrome plated scissors. Acid-free tissue would work, but those sound pretty sturdy to me, and the tissue might get torn pretty easily by them. So, I would say if you had a piece of acid-free board, that would even be better. Okay. We have a question about a four-foot-long Nigerian ceremonial, I'm not sure what, from Alicia Nottingham in Port of Spain, Trinidad. So, Alicia, if you could write in again what it is. And then there've been a couple of questions about leather that's drawing out. And- Okay, yes. I see something about putting creams and oils and things like that. I highly recommend against any kind of a leather dressing for leather, because it can end up doing a lot more damage. And I think also- For leather with vinegar. That makes me nervous too. Yeah, right. What's the best way to handle a large woolen blanket that needs to be folded due to space constrictions? Acid-free tissue, between the layers and an acid-free box? Yes, absolutely. And pad up between the folds so that it's not a sharp fold, it's a softer fold, softer, gentler fold. Yeah. Okay, let me just, I'm gonna quickly go through here and see if we've missed any questions. Yeah, because I saw one about stained glass, but I didn't see what the question is. Okay, I'll see if I can find it. Since that person asked twice, I wanna make sure we get an answer. Yeah. And please go back to the leather question. The leather, I- Yeah, you're cutting out stuff. Well, it may have been me sort of struggling with how to address the leather question, because yes, I agree that the drying leather is a problem, but I also have seen too much damage done by leather dressings and oils and creams to feel comfortable recommending that for leather that's drying or dry, as much as I hate to have this be the best answer that I have is I, an objects conservator who can consolidate the leather, or if it's a leather book, a book and paper conservator will consolidate the leather, they'll paint a, they'll paint a consolidant on it which will hold things together. Unfortunately, leather is just a pretty terrible material and it deteriorates, we don't have a great solution for it, except for consolidation by a conservator is the best one I have. Yeah, so the question is, what does consolidate mean? Hold it all together. Yeah. So I don't want to use the word glue because it's not gluing it all together, but the consolidant will force everything to consolidate, will force everything to stay together and stabilize it. Okay. It says, does wearing nail polish have an impact when handling materials with nitrile gloves? It shouldn't unless, so I'd be worried if you have nails that are long and beautiful, I would worry about them puncturing the glove. And if that happens, having color from the polish offset onto your object, but otherwise I think the nitrile gloves are probably an effective barrier for nail polish that's not wet, which I'm assuming it's not gonna be wet at the office. Yeah, so Meredith Yall asked about what's the best way to store old guns and bayonets? We're actually gonna have a webinar on that in June. So why don't we have a look on that? Yeah, I'm gonna defer that to an expert on firearms. Yeah, and Guru Fateh is the one who asked about the best way to store stained glass. And I am seeing an answer from Paolova. Vertical, yes, I would say vertical. And make an enclosure with a soft center to protect the glass. I think that's a really lovely, elegant solution, Paolova. Thank you for taking that one. And then what about glassine? Glassine is usually pretty terrible paper. I would go with acid-free tissue instead. Okay, and I saw a question scroll past about flags. Yeah. And yes, I would roll flags like other large textiles. If they have any kind of applique on them or any surface decoration, I would roll that side out so that it's not squished when you roll it around the core. But yeah, that's, I think especially if you don't have a fancy flag storage solution, that's a really good way to handle that. And I'm keeping adding the evaluation web address so that you'll please fill them out. And I won't have to chase you because I forgot last time. Okay, so, yes. Brad says, if the flag is deteriorating flat is better, yes. Anytime something is deteriorating flat is the way to go. And there's one on how, what's the best way to store kites? And how to store for strings on kites. How to store for strings on kites. Wow, that's fascinating. Wow, so first, boy, I wish there was a way for you to send me a picture because there are so many kinds of kites out there. There you know, kind of the standard diamond shaped kites and there are box kites and there are fancy dragon kites and each of those could potentially have a different solution. But I would say box. Use acid-free tissue to pad potentially if you have some kind of a box kite that you need a little more structure to the support for and you could use corrugated board or cut a, boy, it would be so much easier if I could like show you what my hands were doing. But, right, because if you could see my hand, you would see I'm designing an enclosure for a box kite in front of you. But I'm envisioning perhaps some ethophoam cut with, no, I wanna store it. Man, this is really fun. What a great question. I'm so checking my good stash and see if anybody has done anything about storage of kites. Yeah, I think that's one that it's really, really specific and I'd love to talk more with you about it. If you shoot me an email, we can talk about it forever and think about it. Okay, Alicia Nottingham did it right back in. She says, we have a four foot Nigerian sword. It has a leather holster that's too big for any boxes, boards we have. Can you recommend, what are your recommendations for storage? And I'm concerned about the splicing a board together as the sword and holster are very heavy. How do you make sure the joints don't fail? Yeah, man, that's a really, really, really tough question, Alicia. I would also try to avoid splicing the board together. That's something where I would probably want to try to build a custom enclosure for it. But what I am hearing you say, or seeing you say, is that you can't get any board that's four feet long. You should be able to. Well, but she is in Trinidad, so I'm thinking it might be a shipping issue. Yeah, or you might be able to get a wooden building board and then cover it. We're gonna have two last questions.  Please do the evaluations. So one of the questions is, what's the best way to store plaster busts? Okay, plaster busts. I would probably just store them on a shelf. They're probably too big to get into a box. So store them on a shelf and make sure your housekeeping program is good so that they don't get dusty. Yeah, and the last one is we have carpet rolls. Can carpet rolls be used if they're wrapped with saran wrap? I don't think so. What are, I'm confused about what we're using the carpet rolls for, but saran wrap makes me nervous. Yes. I don't know what that plastic is off the top of my head but I do not trust it. Shrink wrap is sometimes a solution but it's also not very chemically stable. So my advice would be, try to find another solution if you can. Oh, Jean says Tyvek. Tyvek might work really nicely. Tyvek is very inert, very sturdy. It's gonna be way sturdier than saran wrap is. And it looks like people are logging off and I just want to thank you too. Yes, I wanted to thank everybody for showing up. I am impressed with how many people came and how smart and interesting your questions are. And we hope that we'll see you next week. Yes, come learn more about mannequins and then in May learn about hazards. And in June learn about guns. Yes. Well, we'll see you next week. We're in the middle of the April wall of Palooza. We'll finish it next week. Thank you all. Bye bye. Thank you all. For giving us these evaluations. Bye bye, everybody. Bye.


Hi, and welcome to the session. Let us discuss the following question. The question says, if Earth-fitting mean and geometric mean of roots of a quadratic equation are 8 and 5, if respectively, then obtain the quadratic equation. Let's now begin with the solution. Let A and B be the roots of required quadratic equation. In the question, it is given that Earth-matic mean of roots of a quadratic equation is 8. That means A plus B by 2 is equal to 8. And this implies A plus B is equal to 16. It is also given in the question that geometric mean of roots of quadratic equation is 5. That means square root of AB is equal to 5. And this implies AB is equal to 25. We know that quadratic equation is of the form x square minus sum of the roots into x plus product of roots is equal to 0. Now here, sum of the roots is 16. And product of roots is 25. So required quadratic equation is x square minus 16x plus 25 is equal to 0. Hence, our required answer is x square minus 16x plus 25 is equal to 0. This completes the session by Ntator.


In ancient times, there were extraordinary knowledge and building techniques on a colossal scale from massive statues to gigantic foundation stones. We still can't match these achievements today, but we have tried. In 2012, a huge sculpture was unveiled at the Los Angeles Museum of Art. The installation consists of a 340 ton boulder affixed above a concrete trench through which visitors may walk. The nature, expense, and scale of the installation made it an instant topic of discussion throughout the world. But this massive chunk of stone was first conceived in 1968 by Michael Heiser and he first attempted the construction in 1969, but all efforts had been abandoned after the biggest cranes at the time kept breaking under the weight of the rock. In 2006, he again began work on his project receiving tens of millions of dollars in private donations from the art world. In 2012, the rock was complete and ready to be moved. It was loaded onto a 290 foot long, 196 wheeled transport custom built by Emirate International. Because of the transporter size, the boulder could only be moved at a maximum speed of about 7 miles per hour. They had to travel a special 106 mile route through 22 cities and 4 counties in order to avoid overpasses and roads that could not support the weight of the boulder. The rock was wrapped in a high thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and an outer layer of super thick plastic before being loaded onto the transporter. The trip took 11 days and the stone is a 340 ton boulder. So now you guys are thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah, so what? Great achievement, but what's your point? The point that we are making here guys is that at 340 tons, the rock is nothing but a pebble compared to the biggest carved stones of ancient times. Carved stones of 500, 700, 900 tons are found in their thousands all over the world. So if it was extremely difficult to move a stone weighing a fraction of the weight of the ancient stones, then the question has to be how on earth was it done? Just wait till you hear this. At number 6, the axum stela, also known as the obelisk of axum. This huge obelisk is thought to have fallen around the 4th century. Now fully restored in axum in Ethiopia and weighing about 500 tons, it is a true marvel for that region. Dating back at least 2000 years BC, the carving, construction and the eventual raising of this piece is absolutely astonishing and is one of the heaviest stone carvings from ancient times. But it is nowhere near the heaviest objects as it is light years away from any of the others we're about to mention. Number 5 on our list, Solomon's Temple. The largest stone at the western wall stone from the western wall tunnel is estimated at 11.625 meters long and weighs between 700 and 900 tons. The wall had an original height of from 70 to 140 feet and places it is built from bottom to top of large squared stones, beveled at the edges and varying between 97.5 centimeters and 1.8 meters in height. The stones are laid without cement. The longest until now discovered measures 11.65 meters in length. The massiveness of the work is on par with the Egyptian pyramids and the perfection of the cutting and fitting of the stone is as equal. Again, the finished sizes and weights of these stones is on an industrious scale but not as big or as heavy as our next selection. In at number 4, the Colossae of Memnon. These two giants were built from a single piece of stone each. They are oriented towards the sunrise at Winter Solstice and they weigh over 1000 tons each. The statues are made from blocks of cortisite sandstone which was stone quarried near modern day Cairo and transported 420 miles over land. They are too heavy to have been transported upstream on the Nile and there was once a mortuary temple that once stood behind these two figures that has been completely stripped for its masonry. It is not surprising that the occasional eyebrows are raised about the past concerning the extent of the masonry skills used in ancient times not only were the structures superior in a visionary capacity but also in precision, design and execution. Ancient people in this region of the world heralded a time of extraordinary achievement. It was the age of the pyramid builders when some of the largest and most sophisticated structures of all time were built including the last remaining 7 wonders of the ancient world. The true age of most of these sites predates 12,000 years and built by a completely lost civilization that appears to have spread all across the globe. Although apparently spontaneous, the technology underlying these huge constructions was built on a foundation of science and mathematics which in turn has provided us with traces of their manufacturing processes which are proving totally astonishing. Cuts and holes on hundreds of stones indicating that the ancients drilled into granite with a feed rate that was 500 times greater and deeper per revolution of that of the most powerful modern day tools. In at number 3 on our list the Ramsesium Colossus. Although only fragments of the base and torso remain of this massive statue it would have weighed in at 1300 tons. In front of the ruins is the base of the Colossus. On the granite Colossus' shoulders is an inscription describing Ramses as the Sun Prince. These inscriptions were added during the reign of Ramses, but the actual site itself is actually thousands of years older. The statue fell into the second court and the head and torso remained there, but the other broken pieces are in museums all over the world. Only fragments of the base and torso remain of the Colossus statue which would have stood 19 meters high and weighed at least 1300 tons. The stone for the statue was transported 170 miles over land from Aswan to Thebes. This would have once been the largest statue in the world. Number 2. The Stone of the South Located at Balvik in Lebanon the so called stone of the south at the Temple of Jupiter is of incredible proportions. The highest estimates of this unfinished stone's weight have reached an incredible 2000 tons. Three other smaller stones under the grand terrace of the temple itself are also estimated to weigh from between 750 and 1000 tons each and there are several other colossal stones to be seen around the great temple of the sun at Balvik in Lebanon. There is even a rumor that an even bigger piece of stone weighing closer to 3000 tons has been discovered, but we were unable to confirm this. The stones were cut from red granite with the largest stone of the south still attached to the bedrock. All the large stones used for the temple of the sun at Balvik were quarried from the same location and taken over half a mile uphill to build the great temple. Crazy right? Dragging stones weighing up to 2000 tons each uphill? Is that even possible? And number 1 on our list the unfinished obelisk. This gigantic obelisk would have stood an incredible 42 meters high and weighed over 2700 tons when complete. This incredible stone is more than twice the size of any known obelisk ever raised and quarrymen apparently abandoned the obelisk when natural fractures appeared in its side. However, the stone still attached to bedrock gives important clues to how the ancients quarried granite. Much of the red granite used for ancient temples and Colossae came from quarries in the Oswan area 500 miles south of Cairo. The unfinished obelisk still lies where a crack was discovered as it was hewn from the rock. This is disputably the largest stone ever quarried and certainly on par with the unfinished stone at Balvik, Lebanon. This obelisk would have been taller than anything ever raised. The discovery of this obelisk and several others in their unfinished states allows us to see how they were made but not what tools were used which remains a complete mystery. Does it not just completely boggle your mind that we struggle to move a rock with modern technology a fraction the size of the six we have mentioned here? We think the ancient world was not as primitive as we're being led to believe. We may not have the answers but at least we have the questions. Oh, by the way, we have one more selection for you guys on our list. You could call this the bonus selection for all of our subscribers who take the time to watch our videos right through. Ok, so we have already had number one but we thought this video would not be complete without a notable surprise. So the real heaviest monolith of the ancient world is in fact almost 17 tons and is near 10 times as heavy as any other monolith from the ancient world. Wait till you hear this. This is the true largest monolith in the world, Yangshan Stele base. Stele base is an unfinished construction from the Ming Empire located near Nanjing, China. Its estimated weight is approximately 16,800 tons. Yes, you heard that correctly, 16,800 tons. That means the stele base is heavier than all of our previous selections combined and then some. The gigantic unfinished stele base that was abandoned in an ancient Chinese quarry could provide the answer to the question of how other monolithic stone blocks were made and other parts of the world. In scope and ambition, the stele project stands alone as the greatest undertaking humankind has ever attempted. The size and weight is almost unimaginable. It is heavier than eight statues of liberty combined and the purpose for which this stone was being quarried for is an absolute mystery. This stone is not as old as the other selections, but further investigation by experts is required. This is one of those sites that is not popularized yet guys. So remember the name Yangshan Stele base and remember where you heard about it first. It is one of these sites on earth that if properly investigated and understood then it could change our understanding of how these megastones were carved and moved. So there you have it, the heavier stones on the planet that we know of as carved by humans. We may not understand completely how ancient people achieved this, but no one can deny the existence of these colossal undertakings. We hope you have enjoyed our selection here guys, thanks for watching and remember the ways by which we arrive at knowledge are hardly less wonderful than the discoveries of these things themselves. We are at the granite quarry that has won in Egypt. Most of the granite used by the ancient Egyptians is from this site and you just saw a demonstration of how conventional archeology believes that the stone was shaped with that dolerite or diorite pounders. You can see my effort was futile. This is the ancient way that we know that the dynastic Egyptians extracted stone by putting wedges into these grooves after they cut them out. Probably wooden wedges, they were bathed in water so the wood would expand and then you would break off an uneven surface. However the unfinished obelisk which would have weighed 1200 tons had it been completed doesn't have a lot of those marks on it. Instead it has what one would call scoop marks and that obviously is a different form of technology that was used. We are again at the Aswan quarry where we have the famous unfinished obelisk and that is different stories about the cracks that we see on the surface. There was supposedly an attempt during dynastic times to cut this but I think these marks here are modern cuts. But for sure that there were modern earthquakes that did this, this is not the reason they stopped this. The crack as you know because you went in there last year is on the underside. So they are undercutting this with every intention of raising it and they find there is a natural crack on the underside so they know it will not go to resonance so they left it. And as our Egyptologist and tour guide Mohammed Ibrahim has said it appears that this could have been pre-cataclysmic. That they were doing this work and the cataclysmic could have stopped the work. And we will have definite proof of that when we go to the other obelisk in the back that it was not cracked. There was no reason for them to leave it there. They should have finished it and it just stops immediately. We believe that was the cataclysm that stopped the work here. So it's not only a question of trying to use stone balls to release this 1200 ton obelisk from its mother stone but the other question is how would you move it? Exactly. It's even major. You would have to lift it out and take it down. So here's your sense of scale. This is our Kenneth school group and this is the obelisk. And now I get the great opportunity of going down into the pit itself and that's where you'll see the evidence of the scooping device or whatever that did this work. Okay, here we go. Here's the mega obelisk and here is the entrance into it. So these obelisks were most likely resonance devices, energetic devices, which each one was a specific size because it was tuned to a specific frequency. But the reason why this obelisk was abandoned before it was finished is because once they had dug down to this point they found this massive crack in it and therefore it wasn't going to be of the proportions that they wanted so they basically gave up on it. We wouldn't go to resonance, that's the key, we would not go to resonance if it's a crack in it. Right. And here we have feeble attempts of later people trying to recycle the stone that gave up after about two inches. I actually think this is a modern cut, as Obama said in modern times they've been trying to cut this in half and they gave up at this point. Yeah. So again, sense of scale. This is only about a quarter of the size of the unfinished obelisk.


I'm invited to tell, to discuss something about the leader of this migration and protocol before starting first bid on myself. I'm a proud owner of this small enterprise now and on. It's now an office and owner of my name. Actively involved in own office work since 2004, a leader office. And now it's in the year, it's increasingly a leader officer from the number one department. We work in my training centre, the leader office training centre in my home track island. And apart from that I somehow got lost in software. There are a lot of things that I am more important to me in life. This is basically when I have a coach, I'm happy. That's one of the basic feelings of my league. I'm a small savings person.  Up there it's my wife and it's, how do you say, a daughter of my daughter? It's a great daughter. It's a great daughter. It's close from the year. And here at the bottom it's a voice for animals. It's not only because of the way we treat animals. It's not so fair but also because of the way we in general consume animal products into our health and to the health planet and so forth. So those are the other things that are interesting to me living just as a sort of introduction. Now, working has experience with migrations. You know the leader office migrations protocol. We know that it exists. Some do and we are actually taking notice of the content. So we have a good starting point. A migrations protocol is no longer a science. It's basically a kind of logic and a kind of experience. We're both together. We have the talk of Lothra half an hour before which is a game. Do it. Good examples of what one can expect in a migration. Why do we have a leader office migrations protocol? Why was it created in the first place? It gives a sort of reference and helps build a trust. It sort of showcases when people look at leader office and the document foundation and they see, okay, there is some experience. There is some advice and it helps building trust. But that's an important reason that we always have to keep in mind. When we look at the actual content of the migration protocol to be honest I have some versions of my laptop. But it has to be somewhere in the marketing section. We know on the website where it is actually to be found. Seriously there must be on the weekly at least. Everything is on the weekly. I'll make sure that I add it to the presentation before I make it available. When you get any headlines in the current migration protocol which is a sort of general section by leader office about migration and lessons learned step by step about migration. What I will do now is just walk through the current content of the protocol and give some explanation. I have some remarks myself. As I have announced with the short description of this meeting it's sort of a fantastic presentation. What I have announced is to wish to see if there are comments or additions that people say, oh, isn't it wise to get it or isn't there too much and it's important to the participants. More general issues so they can improve your stuff. So content. First it tells about this general introduction to leader office about leader office, the old management format that works. That tells about the connectivity features in the leader office. So what you see here is some general information about the leader office. It also directly goes into some details that are important for migration. The connectivity and CMIS features recently improved possibility to connect to one drive for the new Microsoft stuff. The next in the current protocol is about general migration and it explains that the office suite is an integral part of companies work. Most people use it more or less. So migration can be very complex, which means that you have to put a lot of energy in it. On the other hand, a positive side, it is an opportunity when you have to go through the processes, when you have to go through it through all kinds of stuff. It also is an opportunity for improvements. So to do some clean up, to remove all the stuff. As you know in the leader office we love cleaning up all the stuff. We do all the time basically. So also here you see the current document also points to some, let's say, some advantage that you can take if you step in a market. The next section in the current protocol, which is about seven or eight pages isn't that long. It owns out the features of the leader office. From experience we know that features of the leader office covers 95% or maybe more for people use. It also explains that there must be a good planning of migration and trainings. It's very common that people when they have had their trainings that they have the opportunity to start working in the leader office with what they learned and that we make sure that the first experience is a good one. So it's not that they have had their trainings and have seen the right certain things and that they have to wait for days or weeks before they are deployed on their own computer. And then when they start to find out that some faults are missing or the templates are not prepared or whatever. So the first experience will be a good one and as fast as possible, as soon as possible. Yes, also when we talk about resistance, yes, there's always resistance to change in every organization. It depends on how people work or what they're used to. And there's always loads of work and there's some extra work of extra attention to new stuff. It's a lot of things. So you must be very good aware of this resistance and you must pay attention to that too. You see there's a small star in that slide how we'll come back to that later. Well, it's different than I expected. Well, good. Okay. Then more in details by step through migration and here we see the word communication and communication is one of the key points of successful migration. And you have to do it in all kind of aspects. The hope, it starts with explaining, it starts with understanding because communication is the only explainer when also listening, understanding what people need or what they expect. Throughout the whole process communication is one of the key actions to take. And one of the things, if there's a message, once the choice is made, if you say, okay, communication, you communicate it's a strategic move of the organization. It's not just another office suite, but there's some reasoning behind it. And then in the migration protocol it's about starting the migration process and doing that with looking at the immediate features and doing some checking of processes, et cetera. Another important step in the whole process is also that the organization moves from the old documents towards the new open document standard by force because it's a key that you work with the document standard that's native for your main office tool. And also it supports one of the strategic advantages of the independence of the vendors. So switching to open document standards is also one of the key points of migration. Another thing mentioned is that you identify technology, the needs or key uses in the organization. One, the whole process is going on. It's training, et cetera. But you also meet people that are able to help fellow users. And many people that make use of, let's say, important features or special processes that have seen that it's good to them so that it can be your investors. So you need to identify those people basically, of course, in an early stage get them involved, make sure they are happy and they will have all they need so they can help the whole process which also is part of the case of strategic. And also the key uses can be in different layers in the organization. Can be people just doing the work but also in the middle layers how managers, team leaders, whatever. And you have to look at different positions in the organization. And, of course, providing training and support as one of the final topics to handle. So this is the current need short. I won't be taking five minutes. This is a short one in the current migration protocol. And, of course, it gives me more reasoning and some more examples. I have myself some remarks with this. What shall I do? If my own remarks or shall I just see if other people already have ideas things that are missing. I'll go back to you to be honest. When you look at the strike when I read the current migration protocol and under the have our resistance to change it must be handled. One of the points that is written there is that there is possibly a low trust in the organization's management or personal capability to completely manage the change. So what if you tune on that and if you think and you read that. Okay. Now if that is something that should communicate and many organizations that consider to move to leave your office and how would they how would they experience a message like that. Is it does it sound positive enough enough? What is your idea with Mark, for example? Is it a risk when some manager reads that and he says it's been tricky for me or maybe I'm considered to be in constant or things like that? I think in most businesses the employees view management in a not very positive way. So I think that's probably one aspect of the changes that you have to work with. Work in the employees and the trust and whether or not you can do this. I think it's true when stated there. It's honest. But I think you have to be careful on how much of it to move. So I'm not sure if it's it's really good to put it like that maybe it's okay. But it was one of the things that I noticed in current protocols and I say maybe it's something that we have to consider to put it in a more positive way. It's an opportunity for management to show how good they are. But many, many normal staff won't believe that maybe. So it's one of the things that I was thinking of. Another thing, what I noticed here when you see the star, it's possible to start a process by implementing an impact test. But it's mentioned after the moment that we have started a complication. When I have, for the first time I have contact with an organisation that considers doing migration to new office and we have some positive first contact. It's not that we start with a complication plan, but we first start looking at how reasonable our business that we can manage this migration. First to do some impact test roughly to make a scan or whatever you put on the or whatever day you put on it. And if that gives trust to yourself as a responsible company and to your partners as a responsible buyers of your services, that it makes a good choice. At that moment we say, okay, we start with how is our organisation and how can we manage complication. So this is another thing that I think quite needs some little clarification. One addition when you look at details of the migration process it makes mention of the documents, it makes mention of the tools, the tooling, additional software but it doesn't mention the whole workflow. It was one of the things that was mentioned also in this presentation when you sales people that need to communicate with other organisations or whatever people in an organisation that needs to complication with other people with documents forward and backward possibly whatever. It's really it's important to consider those processes clearly and maybe also to get those people involved because those processes are some of the key topics to tackle in your own process. Apart from those few remarks I think that the current migration protocol pretty well covers most of the content that we need but of course we can always put some more details in it. Any ideas about that? Most people don't you know the migration protocol? Do you have an opinion about the detail the level of details? I think the protocol itself is slightly simplistic in as much as it could point out more areas where potential problems can be found in any first look of a process people want to look at and go yeah then identify that I might have a hole here. These are the things I can see this is a thorough plan just do this do this without the drawbacks and the old side. It's a bit simplistic That's true I have some incomplete documents with some checklist for areas out of my head talk of my head I said I have a list of about 60 or 70 points so that's a bit more than the three or four I mentioned here but of course it's in many details but would it make I'm not willing to put all my intelligence in the blue perfect like here apart from the fact that it wouldn't make much sense because when you would you have to check this and that apart from the words the information needs experience and expertise maybe a bit more in details could be fine to make it more trustworthy pointing out where the risk factors are I think it's not just it's not just a process to say these are the steps that need to be taken these are the steps that need to be taken and be careful because this could be a problem it's pointed out where the thanks some of my ideas you mentioned this here it's a possible to start a process by implementing the impact test don't worry about understanding why the question behind this you asked should I first communicate or plan to communicate and then test the possibility to migrate or where are the main issues or the other way around yes or internally well is it right what is that when I read the current document it gives the impression that you first start to communicate yes but it gives it tells it tells yes I don't really care but there is a let's say that there is a political reason but I'll explain that but before you even made the decision with company which costs a very potential cost but then there is anything to communicate you must have the you must know that there are good jobs of making a successful process so it's a more forward-backward process which is not visible in the document right now yes no but I try to understand why it's written that way so it's written as a document there the document is based on the assumption that migrating to the pre-office is not just possible but migrating to the pre-office successfully migrating to the pre-office is a a given fact not being asked but a given fact because one of the issues that we are seeing and maybe is just Italian I don't know, I mean is that if you start with the impact test or the impact test for a reason you never get out of the impact test because with the impact test you will find problems and then you will go to the migration only when you are training all the problems as a migration we always have problems and it's an ongoing problem solving process so it's at your point and you have to be careful not to get stuck in that process and then a lot of things have to be before you have good qualifications present I'll take notes of that someone taking notes of me last week I had a funny for the meeting with a IT manager of an what, let's say Dutch health institute told me the week before and he said we have a problem we have about 600 700 licences at Microsoft office we sold there in 2003 we never made any reservations we have no budget and we have to make savings when we buy new versions a new license structure we need 900 of them and it's 225,000 euros a year which we don't have and we need to make savings so we need to say morning come to me because I've seen Libra office and I've found Libra for collaboration that's it, okay we have a meeting and some nice introductions kind of men we've put on and I say to him well of course the reason that you give it's quite common so we need to say morning but but then the good thing was then I found out and then the man already had done a lot of his homework he started let's say a half a year back to cut the wire between the mailing the collaborate and the mail and the office and he already planned or did some internal investigation in order to link that might link to the office suite so that's the positive thing if you have a meeting like that then you talk with some IT manager that calls I need to say morning help me but well so has a lot of understanding and knows that lots needs to be done and that's a good sparing part and let's say half an hour trying to do a lot of work and have a good understanding and then in some of these small steps before you can say ok we start with how do you communicate and that's what I explain to him ok once we are at this point we say it's good it's a way to go we start from here thanks but anyway of course we should consider the migration protocol apart from the fact that it must be that by definition this is just a kind of reference to attract people on the middle side of my person please I agree so looking at time I have only 30 minutes no problem I didn't say that the discussion this what we have so we might consider to ask two additionals about communication and then about details in here for the more things to discuss and apart from that in my opinion it's still a great document I've seen a version when it makes adaptance improved English which could make sense my English is quite well, regular not sped up but maybe more American English line is more Italian than yours I have no idea your English is more Dutch than mine don't miss what do you prefer now I would prefer Oxford English but I was more there we have people who can help with that so so then no more questions or remarks please I have one question I haven't got a protocol that doesn't exist but in how far is the person also looking at the artificial surroundings you have an office street which of course has to be somehow connected to the groupware co-op for instance is there some way that the migration protocol also takes this into account hardly the protocol in its descriptive that it explains you have to look at our software and you have to look at things that differ with which office documents because if you want to migrate from Microsoft how do you do this in a typical private office and that is the combination of groupware and an office street is the sweet marriage that is part of the process to be honest as far as I can remember the way you mentioned separately but as you say it's one of the important features that people always have to consider anyway in your in your situation where it was very difficult when you look at for example local industries in the Netherlands quite a few work with groupware from how do you call it that always forgot the name groupwires you have a lot of migrations from groupwires so in those situations the coupling between the office street and the caravan doesn't exist at all but it's good maybe it's an addition, a useful addition too as one of the main points that people that you mentioned okay and it's not mentioned to be a step-by-step handbook that anyone can use to do a success on migrations it's not a guideline and a communication strategy from the document that we show this is how we experience it it's good that it's there anyway in an issue to groupware you have all the let's call them two-party software you interact because you have for instance the first one is PRP so you have SAP you might have SAP you might have Salesforce you might have there might be many of those software and of course the underlying problem can be many the idea of the protocol is to show that we have a methodology but then of course you have to code someone to help you otherwise if you wouldn't write the 60 point checklist then everyone would do the migration by themselves and this is not our objective the objective is that they get community members they pay community members to do the migration because this is the only way that we can support the ecosystem otherwise if every company does the migration by themselves they think they can do it no we give the idea that we must keep the idea that it is feasible but not by yourself it might be also from a marketing perspective a very nice solution to also promote other research solutions to common problems might just be an idea sorry can you repeat from a marketing from a marketing point of view it might also be a good opportunity to promote some other broken standards of combining solutions in the architecture landscape of a company that might be an opportunity yes at least to manage that yes so and of course we need a lot of companies that hire people from the ecosystem and whatever professionals that support all the source because once every few years I need some extra painting of my ship as it was ok thanks for your attention


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