to be sure what you are writing about somebody is actually searching for it on the search engines. And the biggest search engine is anybody? Google, of course, yeah. So to do keyword research, we use some specific tools. For example, one of the most popular tools is HREFS. As you can see here on the top image, that's how it looks like. So when you feed some words into this software, it can actually tell you how many people are searching for this thing. For example here, I did put the words best laptops. That's what we call a buyer-interred keyword. Somebody who is looking for the term best laptops is somebody who is looking to buy a laptop, a good laptop. And as you can see, there are actually 59,000 people. This is the US. 59,000 people are searching for this keyword. But when you look down there at the difficulty, it is 72. That is something for a beginner you wouldn't go for. Anything above five, a difficulty of five on this software, is something you would stay away from. So that's what we call competitiveness. You have to also look at the possibility to monetize a keyword. Some keywords are very difficult to monetize, especially informational articles. For example, how to maybe plug in a bulb, or how to something like that. So you have to be sure what you are writing about is something you can monetize. For example, for laptops, somebody is actually looking to buy a laptop. So you can maybe become an affidavit to somebody who sells a laptop, for example, Amazon, and make some commission from it. So when it comes to domain hosting and WordPress, you have to be, when selecting your domain name, it has to be something short. Don't go for something very long. You have to be something people can remember easily, and something that reflects what you are writing about. For hosting, you have to choose a hosting that is reliable, maybe, and very fast. Some of the best hosting companies, for example, Site Groud, you can go for them. When you come to WordPress, you have to work with some very useful plugins. For example, you have to have your SEO. This will be helpful when you are doing SEO for your site. SEO for those who are not aware is what we call search engine optimization. We shall come to it later on. When it comes to content, the articles you shall be posting on your website, you have to work with something around 30% money articles. Those are the best, maybe, the best laptops, and about 70% informational articles. This will make your site more favorable in the eyes of Google Boats. Because if you fill your site with the bare intent keywords, they'll just see your site as something that is there to make money. So you have to work natural. When selecting the URL for a specific article, it just has to be short. The content should also be Google Ads long content. Somebody known as Neil Patel, one of the top guys who do SEO, did a research and found that the average length of an article should be around 1875 words. When it comes to the other thing is what we call Heading Tags. You have to have H1, H2, and HD. That's something technical. Maybe you can do some Google research about it. What Heading Tags do, if I can mention, is that they tell Google, the Google Boats, when the Google Boats are scanning your sites, they don't go through all the content, they go through the headings so that they can determine what actually your article is about. So you have to be very keen on your Heading Tags. You have to include your keywords in your Heading Tags. Then, of course, images. Images are very good for user experience. They are also very good for SEO. There is what we call Ad Tags. You shall actually be linking on some images, because some people are actually searching for images for certain content. When you come to SEO, this is the elephant in the house. This is what is giving most people who are doing after-rate marketing a big charge. So you have to do on-page SEO and off-page SEO. When it comes to on-page SEO, what actually SEO helps your site to do is that it helps one site to actually rank on top of the search engine ranking pages. And the most profitable positions to be is position one, two, and three.  So being on the first page of Google means money for you. So when it comes to on-page SEO, you have to do what we call inter-linking. You have to link between one article and the other between the home page and an article so that you can pass what we call the link juice. Because maybe one of your articles has received quite a lot of bug cranks, so you have to pass that link juice from one page to the other page. You also have to do what we call, I'm sure, some of your links are do-for-all and the others are no-for-all. What those does is that do-for-all links are what the search engines use when ranking pages. But they usually, you know, they're no-for-all links. So your affiliate links, those which are pointing to maybe commerce websites, for example, Amazon, you have to make them no-follow. When I was starting, actually, I was not aware of this. So all my links were do-for-all. So I was sending all my link juice to Amazon. Once I ran to that, I was able to increase traffic of one of my newest site by about, as you can see in the image, the other 5,095%. This is data from another keyword research to be known as SEMlash. So when it comes to off-page SEO, you have to do what we call guest posts. You request for posts from websites, then you have a link for your blog. You also have to build what we call PBMs, private blog networks. These will just be for posting articles and sending links to your main site. SEO is mainly about links. So Google looks at your websites and how many links are pointing to your website. The other thing is you can do blog commenting. You know some blogs have comment tab, so you can comment and leave a link. But those are usually not very useful because most of the links are no-follow. But they are good for signals. Then you can do forums in your niche. You can do social media. This is for what we call social media signals. And then you can also do other one redirect. This way you can get expired domains and purchase them and then redirect them to your site. This will tell Google that maybe the former site was redirected to your site. So all that link is used will be credited to your site. The other thing is about monetization. So I have my blog. I have done my SEO. I have done my content. So how do I make money out of my blog? These are some of the ways you can monetize our blog. Actually, some of them have been mentioned, for example, by Mr. Odwell here, Google Addesense. This is display advertising. This mostly applies to informational websites. This is where you just have ads from Google learning on your website. And you are paid per impression or per click. But for most of the niche sites, you shall be featuring products. So you'll have to apply to affiliate programs. For example, Amazon Associates. There is share sale. Jumiya, the other year, started the Jumiya affiliate and Kirimoil affiliate. If your website is targeting local traffic. The other thing you can do, you can do product adverts. People can actually sponsor some of your posts and pay you. The other thing you can do product sales.  Or maybe you do sales. And you can just feature your products and sell them from your blog after you start ranking. So this is an image of one of my earliest, an image from Amazon Associates. You can see the number of clicks you are getting, the products you have sold, the commission you have sold. This is one of my first niche sites. I started it. Actually, I have not been long in this area. I started some times October last year. You have to take some time before you start making money, because there is what we call Google Sardi Box. Your blog is usually affected. It doesn't rank well in the first three months. And in the rest, you are very rocky. So after three months, I started making around $48. After another two months, I was making around $600 and that $1. And that was in March in one of the sites. And since then, it has been growing twice, twice, and so forth. So the charges in this area, one of the biggest charges is what we call Google Penalties. Google is always upgrading its algorithm. So now and then, you shall be having, for example, in August, they had what we called the Google Medic. It was affecting sites, measuring in medic niche and finance, what they call your rightful, your money. What that means is that you'd rather, you know, some people are just there to make money. For example, somebody is not a doctor and he's writing helo-article. So if they realize, if the bots determine you don't have any credentials and you are doing a blog on medical maybe, medical devices or something, those guys are getting hit. There are very many algorithm updates that have happened before. There was Peguin, which was looking at duplicate content. And there was also another one on keyword density. So don't starve your articles with keywords. Actually, some people recommend you to have a keyword density of between 2% and 3%. There's also negative SEO. Actually, one of my sites was hit by negative SEO. So don't go delivering your niche to everyone, because not everyone has good intentions. So some people can send some spammy links, for example, from XX-related websites. And those will, of course, negatively affect your site. The other challenge is cost of some extra services. One of those extra services can be, for example, expired domains. To get a very good expired domain, maybe with very authoritative links. Not all links are equal. For example, links from such websites like BBC carry a lot of weight. One link from BBC is maybe more powerful than 15 links from local blogs. So getting an expired domain with very authoritative links can be expensive. Maybe costing even up to $10,000 or around there. So that can be a challenge for beginners. But you don't have to worry. You can just start with the basics. You just have hosting, which, for example, will cost around maybe $70 per year, domain $10. So with around $100, you can actually start a niche website and then start growing day by day.


for making these webinars possible through all of their technical wizardry and to IMLS for their assistance in the grant funding for this project, which made it possible to offer this free of charge to everyone today. I want to welcome you back to Caring for Photographs. This is a series getting into the preventive care of photographs, but Debbie will also be touching on a lot of the advocacy that she feels so strongly about. And so pretty much the webinar today and to Thursday will have a lot of similar content or they'll just weave back and forth with each other. So again, our final webinar in this series will be at one o'clock on Thursday. I want to just remind you that our website for this is at the ConnectingToCollections.org. Then click on Courses and then Caring for Photographs is sort of the one-stop place where you can find links that Debbie has mentioned in her PowerPoint. We have, after the presentation today, we'll have hand out and it will have the PowerPoint slides that she presented today, links to the homework, and a great bibliography that she's put together. And we want to thank again Heather Brown, one of Debbie's graduate students at the University of Delaware for answering your questions today in the chat window. So she's really helpful to keep up with the questions while Debbie's trying to get through quite a lot of material today. I've heard that you have until Thursday May 30th to get the homework completed and we have been looking over your homework assignments and they're looking great. Thank you for all the great stories about the significance of the photographs. It's very interesting and very sobering to see so much wonderful history and so many people's care. And we have one more assignment today that will ask you to think about long-term preservation and how you might advocate for those photographs. So again, a week from this Thursday will be when all those homework assignments are due. Again, if you have any questions about whether or not we've got your homework or any other course logistics questions, feel free to send us an email at infoatheritagepreservation.org. And a couple of you earlier in the hello box have mentioned some questions or possibly an interest in sending some photographs of your photographs to us. And if it's a large file, please use our Gmail account, which is heritagepreservationdc.org. And I will say Debbie's doing her best to include as many as she can in her presentation, but we do need to have them maybe no later than tomorrow morning just so that she has a chance to fit them into her presentation. So if you want to keep that deadline in mind, we'd appreciate it. But we do love seeing them, and you'll see some of your photographs today in her presentation. So I did want to just ask a few polls before we get going today. And this is just a little bit of a review. Debbie gave you a reprieve. We're not going to have the pop quiz that she talked about last time. But we did want to just quickly just get a little bit of a review. We've talked about a lot of different types of collections. And if you could just pick the one that at your institution that is most concerned to you, maybe have made too many options, I hope you're seeing this. Mike or Jenny, let me know if this isn't feelable on the slide. But feel free to just let us know what type of collections are of most concern, a greatest challenge for your care. And you can hopefully scroll down if you don't see the whole list. Just sort of getting a sense of when Debbie goes through her recommendations today. She might hit on some of these points a little more strongly. Oh, and Dennis, I haven't yet linked today's homework assignment, but I will. So by the time we get off this webinar today, you will see the link for today. And Thursdays will be put up probably Thursday morning. So thanks for that heads up. I'm not sure to do that. OK, I'm going to go ahead and close this down. Thank you. And then just had a question about what type of collecting and collections care policies and preservation plans and policies you might have in place at your institution. And you can check as many as you have. This list could go on and on. So this is just some of the key ones that you may or may not have, depending on your institution. I just sort of wanted to sense from you on the kind of policies you have, because that will be something we talk about today and on Thursday. Great, thank you so much. It takes a minute to read through my whole list here. And if something on this list has prompted you to ask why you don't have this kind of plan or policy, hopefully you can find some information on the Connecting to Collections online community. In our topics menu, we have links to lots of information. If you're not seeing it there, you're welcome to email us for a recommendation or post a question to your colleagues on the discussion board. OK, I'm going to go ahead and close this, and we have one last question. And that's just to get a sense of where you may have sought funding in the past. You may not be able to close it until... Yeah, there we go. People finish answering. OK, so we were just interested in what kind of funding you may have gotten at your institution to support specifically conservation and preservation. Oops, I'm sorry, I don't know where it went. OK, thank you. There we go, apologize for that. So thinking specifically on the care of your collections, conservation or preservation, if you could indicate what sources of funding your institution might have gone on for in the past. And if you don't know or, you know, if it hasn't been any of these things, that's fine. Again, just giving it Debbie a sense of your experience with the source of things. Oh, I said select all that apply. And I am seeing that it's not allowing you to, quick, on the draw. OK, I'm sorry. Please try to answer this one again. And I see the answer question about... I'm sorry, I'm just trying to see if this poll is open yet. OK, I apologize. I'm going to drag this away, but maybe we'll bring it back on Thursday. I'm sorry, we're having just some technical difficulties with that. So I apologize, and I do not want to delay because I know Debbie has a lot to talk about. And I did see Diane's question about, well, we have links to funding sources. There are some already on our website, and we can pull those out to the front so they're easier to find. But I do want to allow Debbie to get to today's presentation. So I'm going to turn it over to her. And I'm going to actually change this chat box to a Q&A while Debbie gets ready. So I'm going to turn it over to her, and thanks so much. OK, I'm on. I'm hoping that you all can hear me. And let me just say, good. Sounds good. Great. Well, welcome to webinar number four. Thank you all for tuning in and for doing such a fantastic job on your homework, which is most interesting really to all of us, allows us to ensure that the lectures today and on Thursday are at least addressing your needs the best way we can. I start again with yet another great song, Eight Days a Week, and a wonderful photograph, as you can see from 1964 of Paul and John. And in this case, of course, you all know at this point that this is a silver gelatin developed out photograph, i.e., it's black and white. The final image material is metallic silver. It's in a gelatin binder layer on a paper support or possibly a resin coated support from this time period. It's in wonderful condition, and it's a wonderful image as well. So we're going to be speaking today about preservation planning and advocacy. As Kristen mentioned, I'm going to sort of combine these lectures a bit. And I'm not going to rush through this lecture on preservation planning because clearly it's one of your greatest challenges, but rather get as far as I can today on Tuesday and finish it up on Thursday along with some more conversations on fundraising. No worries about the poll. We'll bring it back on Thursday where it will work well. And we will speak a bit about fundraising for preservation on Thursday, but also know that there are subsequent sessions that are planned for the fall on public outreach and also on fundraising. So you'll be able to learn more about fundraising certainly a little bit in the next three days, but certainly more in September. Okay, I have to change this picture, unfortunately, and I will do so. And I also would like on Thursday, as time permits, to talk a little bit in terms of advocacy and outreach about the work that we're involved in around the world, particularly work that the University of Delaware is doing with the Arab Image Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty Conservation Institute, and others in the preservation of photographic collections from the Middle East. And here are some of our students in a recent workshop in Abu Dhabi. And what are they doing? They're involved in the identification of photographic print materials, and that certainly was the focus of our second webinar. We also have another wonderful collaborative project that I'm so proud of that's been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and involves a number of organizations such as Lyrisis in Atlanta, the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Art Effects in Philadelphia, the Image Permanence Institute, which I've spoken about quite a bit in terms of their really cutting edge and innovative research in our field. And others, the HBCU Library Alliance and others who are involved in this initiative, which is working with historically black colleges and universities to preserve their photographic collections, which are rich and deep and really, really wonderful. And in doing so, what I love about this project is that we are working with undergraduates from those schools to help preserve those collections. So there are many, many really wonderful projects going on around the world, and I'll talk a bit about those or at least show you a map that documents some of this work on Thursday. I do hope that you have had a chance to look at the various resources, both the books that are available for you as well as the information online. We've talked, and I've referred to both of these books especially, but many others as well. And I think now that you've sort of gone through some of these discussions, some of the questions that you have can be elucidated and you'll be better informed by sort of looking at the material that's in both of these books and many others as well, including when you're talking about negatives. And I mentioned this book last week, this wonderful brochure that's online, sort of a booklet by Maria Fernanda Valverde, which I think will be most helpful to you when you're dealing with negative materials. I want to thank Heather as well who is online again today and answering your questions as she can. And as we've done in the past, I'll take breaks now and then for Kristin to pose questions that are emerging. I also urge you to go back to the Connecting to Collections online community website. There is so much material here. It's really mind-boggling. I've been using it myself for a variety of different projects. And here I encourage you not just to focus on our course, which, of course, as Kristin has said, has many links that are associated with each of these webinars. And I know you'll find that helpful, but also previous courses that deal in many ways with some of the topics that I'll be addressing. So the general workshops that talked about emergency planning and preparedness and response or environmental monitoring, housekeeping, these kinds of topics I think will inform your decision-making as you begin to think about the preservation of photographic collections in your institution. And we certainly have spent quite a bit of time talking about the various different processes, the negative and print processes, that you're likely to encounter in your institution, and we've tried to focus our homework around those assignments as well. What you're seeing here is just a detail of a student actually from the Middle East involved in printing out a photograph. So you see the light-sensitive paper, which has been exposed to light here in – I'm going to try this pointer. Oh, sorry. Here's a light-sensitive paper that's been exposed to light in contact with a film-based negative and printed out into the sun until the image appears. You'll notice the color is very reddish in tone. This is prior to gold toning. This is typical of these printed out silver images. And again, if you sort of go over your notes and try and put all this into context, the printed out process is popular in the 19th century. In this case, this is a silver gelatin printing out paper, but certainly albumin paper, salted paper prints, and also chlorine chloride photographs were made using this technique, this printing out technique. We're going to talk today about priority for preservation and identifying needs and thinking about planning and try and help you begin in your mind to formulate a short-term preservation plan for your photographic collections. At this point, I hope you have a better sense of the types of materials you have and some of their challenges. And you're beginning to think more about what are your most urgent needs, prioritizing their value and their significance. And when you are thinking about preservation planning, you also want to focus on strength. But I mean the strength of your collection. So when you're starting to develop a plan and particularly linking it to fundraising, you want to really highlight those areas of your collection that are in need but also are particularly significant and valuable. And at all points, it's important to involve experts. Certainly we're doing everything possible to try and inform you to the extent possible. But I think you'll find that it will be useful, certainly to consult with conservators and others, to help you better formulate a short and long-term preservation plan. Now, in thinking about the priority for preservation, there are a number of things that you have to consider. And we have alluded certainly to some of these in your homework assignments and some of the discussion prior to this webinar. But one very important issue is the level of access. How is your collection used? You want to focus your attention probably on those parts of the collection that are heavily used or you predict will be heavily used in the future, either by online researchers or perhaps in exhibitions, used by scholars, enjoyed by the public, whatever that might be. But you need to think about this issue of access as you identify where to start.  But at times it seems that everything needs to be preserved and how can you possibly do this on a limited budget with very few staff members in a short period of time. And the reality is you may not be able to do that entirely, but so you need to sort of think about where do I start. And one thing to consider certainly is the level of access. You also need to think about what are the materials that you have, and this is where we focused a lot of attention. What is the type and the format of these materials? How might they deteriorate over time? What needs to be done to preserve them? And we certainly have talked quite a bit about photographic print and negative materials. The albumin print, which you see here in beautiful condition, by the way, this is just a gorgeous albumin photograph with beautiful details in the highlights, as well as negative materials. And here's a glass plate negative from Iran, a gelatin dry plate negative. You can see even in this image the difference between the printed out silver of the albumin print and the developed out silver black and white image of the silver gelatin dry plate negative. And here is an example of a Kodachrome slide, Chromogenic Color in which the final image material is color dyes. We know that these color dyes fade in the dark and the light. So in thinking about type and format and priority for preservation, one needs to be thinking perhaps in this case about cold storage. Because as we've talked before, the only way to sort of minimize the deterioration of these colored dye images is to store them in low temperature environments. By the way, I showed you, I think in webinar one, my grandma who was Norwegian and loved coffee. And this is my Nana, Helen Medici, with me actually in 1957 who was just a wonderful mentor to me and always very, very encouraging. So I wanted to show you as well and she always wanted to be sure that I was dressed appropriately. So you can see and you can see Nana with her purse and her hat and everything always matched beautifully. She was a hard worker and she was such an inspiration to me. You have been sharing images so I thought I would just show you a few of them just under the discussion of format and type. Many of you have sent in images of lantern slides. These are some from the North Carolina State Museum. And I wanted to show these to you because we talked about lantern slides and I mentioned that many of them are very similar to a silver gelatin dry plate negative, but it's a positive image. In other words, these are silver images on glass in a gelatin binder layer and then they're sealed with a cover glass and decorative mats usually and a paper tape around the outer edges. But I wanted to be sure that you recognize that not every object in this format is actually a silver gelatin developing out lantern slide. Some may be hand colored, some may be early additive color, very early color processes. And in fact, I'm suspicious that this particular lantern slide on the left of your screen. I can't move the pointer again stuck like maybe you can release that at some point. But the, thank you, the image here to see this sort of banding, which is unusual and it could be simply an artifact of the photography process. But I wonder if in fact this is early color photography additive color plates were introduced around 1907, I believe there are a variety of different processes. These are based on early color theory, additive color theory. I don't have time to get into that. You may have heard about the autochrome process, which is an image on glass that's comprised of dyed potato starch grains. That's one of many additive processes. But just be aware of the fact that some of these early lantern slides could in fact be early color photography. Many of you submitted examples of tin types in your collection, so I just show you two here on the right in really very good condition. Again, the tin type was often varnished and the varnish protects that silver image from degradation. But as you see in the image on the left, this particular tin type is a little bit more deteriorated. It's almost hazy in tonality and I have to wonder if in fact it may not be coated. But of course it's impossible to tell entirely from images. One thing you can tell is you can see the formation of rust. Remember the tin type introduced in 1856 is actually on an iron support that's coated on both sides with a black lacquer. So I believe what you're seeing here is the beginning of iron corrosion. Many of you submitted examples of prints, albumin prints, silver gelatin printing out papers. It is sometimes hard to tell from images what these photographs are. In this case, although I think it may have been identified as an albumin print, I suspect it could be a silver gelatin printing out paper because the whites of the highlights are so white. And as you remember from the albumin prints, they do tend to yellow over time and that yellowing is caused by the degradation of that egg white binder. Many of you also submitted photographs that look more like this. This is really a wonderful image, so I wanted to show you it just because it's such a great photograph. But also it's typical of silver image degradation. As silver images deteriorate, they begin to fade. They sometimes take on the sort of greenish-yellow color that you see here. Sometimes this deterioration is caused by improper processing during manufacture. In other words, this particular photograph was not properly fixed and washed, causing it to yellow and deteriorate as you see here. But that's hard to predict. It could also be caused by simply exposure to poor environmental conditions. Nonetheless, it's a good example of silver image deterioration. It is probably not an albumin print. This is typical of what happens with silver gelatin developing out and silver gelatin printing out papers. And I would suspect, based on the date of 1894, that this is more likely printed out than developed out. But it has so severely faded in the image areas particularly that it almost begins to resemble an albumin print. And I show you this just because this process identification can become tricky when you get into photographs like that one and this one from Puerto Rico, where they're so badly faded that you no longer can really differentiate the original tonality. This very well could be black and white or printed out. It's hard to say. But one thing that's certain is that it has faded quite significantly. Anyway, understanding the type and format is important as you begin to establish a preservation plan and also beginning to evaluate the protection that those materials have. Are they well protected in enclosures and cabinetry as you see here? This is a glass plate negative collection that's beautifully protected in these cabinets. Or are they in need of additional protection? And this was an image that was submitted in the last couple of days from the University of Colorado Library. And here, this is a collection of oversized glass plate negatives. I'm not sure about the date. And I'd be interested to know exactly the date. Sometimes the date in this case can help us determine whether, in fact, these are wet plate, collodion negatives or silver gelatin dry plate negatives. But nonetheless, they're oversized negatives that are housed in these slotted boxes that you sometimes see in your collections. And whereas the box is providing these negatives with relatively good support, and they're separated one from another, which is nice, the problem is that the box itself is giving off pollutants and oxidants that will cause silver images to fade and deteriorate. And for that reason, there's strong physical protection but challenges associated with chemical degradation. And in this case, it would be a good idea to start planning for rehousing these glass plate negatives in paper enclosures of some kind and probably flat in acid-free boxes. I'll be talking much more about storage, but while we're on the subject here since it relates, let me just say that with glass plate negatives, they can be housed vertically until they get to a very larger size as you see here. So negatives that are maybe 12 by 14 inches or larger should be housed flat, whereas those that are smaller can be safely housed vertically. I just want to be aware of the fact that these boxes can get heavy, and they want to be marked so that someone reaching for an acid-free box that has glass plate negatives housed vertically in paper enclosures ideally is aware of the weight that will be in that box. So thinking about format is certainly important. Here's another example. This is a collection of cellist nitrate negatives prior to rehousing. So one has to evaluate what are these materials? How will they deteriorate? How are they housed? What needs to be done to improve that housing? And then finally, of course, you've got to think about the value, too, when you're trying to prioritize because there's just so much to be done. So what is the value of that collection to your institution? Does it have strong artistic value, strong artifactual value, financial value, whatever that might be? What is its significance? Beginning to look at all of these things, access, format, current protection, and value, will help you begin to identify where you might start. And you want to start with sort of a short-term and long-term plan, but then demonstration projects, and we'll talk a little bit more about that on Thursday probably, because that's how you begin to raise money and attention to be able to demonstrate to others what can be done in terms of preservation to make these materials available online or to the public or in exhibitions or whatever that might be. And so all of this often is done through some kind of a needs assessment survey to develop a preservation plan. And as you work towards this planning following this webinar, again, please consult with and confer with conservators who can help you in the nuances of these plans. I'm just trying to present some of the sort of bigger topics that I hope will be helpful to you. So what I'd like to do is share with you sort of a generic, what I'm calling a generic 10-point preservation plan for photographic collections. And this is generic in that what I'm sort of saying is, okay, let's assume that you have a nice variety of photographic materials in your collection. You have prints and negatives. You have albums and scrapbooks. And in fact, it was interesting to note in the poll that so many of you identified scrapbooks and albums as one of your highest priorities. So you have framed materials. You have both color and black and white. You have materials housed in different parts of the institution, in acid-free boxes in some cases, but perhaps not in all cases. Where do you start? So what I've tried to do is just sort of put together a 10-point plan that might help you to start thinking about these issues, but recognize, again, that this is generic. So I'm not able to sort of speak to access or speak to significance, which is something that you really need to focus on. But no matter what, and no matter where you're located, and it's really exciting to see where you are located, because it's all over the world, probably your most important issue to address is environmental assessment and control. And some of the earlier Connecting to Collection online seminars deal in great detail on the topic of environmental assessment and control. And so I urge you to review them to learn how to monitor your environment, because clearly you need to monitor your environment to determine what are the relative humidity levels, what are the temperature levels, so you know what needs to be done to adjust it. And I don't have time in this webinar to get into that, but that has been covered, and so you'll have that information available to you. What I want to focus on in this 10-point plan is material that's specific to photographic collections. Consider that conversation of environmental assessment and control. Please recognize that these collections should be housed in a stable relative humidity, ideally in the range of 30 to 50%, as you see in this slide. And that's because many of the deterioration mechanisms that we've seen over the course of this webinar are really accelerated by high relative humidity conditions, the growth of mold on gelatin, the yellowing of albumin binders, the fading of silver images, the flaking of gelatin materials. This is really controlled by relative humidity and fluctuating environmental conditions. So you're aiming to try and control the relative humidity and to certainly house materials in a stable temperature as well. Room temperature storage is fine for photographic print materials and for many of your photographic collections, actually, with the exception being color photography, which really will benefit from cool or cold storage. Why is that? Again, just a reminder, these color photographic images are comprised of organic dyes, and these dyes fade in the dark and they fade in the light. And the only way to slow down that degradation is to lower the temperature, therefore slowing their rate of deterioration. So color photography is one sort of group of materials that benefits from cool or cold storage. This is certainly also true of acetate and nitrate film. And we talked about that in some detail last week and the fact that these materials are inherently unstable, they will deteriorate over time, and the way to control that is low temperature, low humidity environments. Now I draw you to this really wonderful resource also available online. I mentioned it briefly last time. I want to mention it again here because I think it's something that you should all examine and study carefully. It's a media storage guide produced by the Image Permits Institute. It's available online but you can also purchase it, in which case you'll get these dials that are a little bit more interactive and can be helpful. But what this does is it just provides you, as it says here, with a quick reference for the environmental parameters that are best suited for different kinds of materials, photographic materials. So what are the best environments for silver gelatin dry plates as opposed to acetate film or nitrate film or color photography or black and white photography? And this will help you as you monitor your environment. This document will provide you with the information you need to determine what environmental levels you're aiming for. And it's designed in this way, differentiating room storage at 68 degrees Fahrenheit or 20 degrees centigrade from cool, cold or frozen storage. And it begins to recommend what is most appropriate for different kind of media and how is the different kind of deterioration that you see accelerated by these poor environmental conditions. And so, you know, please take a look at the storage guide because I think it will answer some of the questions that you've raised in your homework and also online by providing you with the detail that you need and sort of the generic environmental parameters that you're aiming for in the preservation of your collections. Now, in addition to environmental control, another big area that you need to be thinking about is this whole issue of handling housekeeping guidelines, the need for an emergency plan. I was encouraged to see that so many of you noted that you have many policies actually in place. Not every institution has all the policies that Kristen shared in her poll, but it was good to see that many of you are working towards these policies. And these will be most helpful because these impact your entire collections, not just photographic materials. Handling guidelines are important, obviously, and we often refer to the need for staff and researchers to wear gloves wherever possible. Cotton or latex gloves are fine. And in this case, I just wanted to mention one thing here. We often think that photographs that are in plastic sleeves, as is true with this albumin print, are well protected. But, and although the individual here is holding a glove, there is still the potential for damage, and the damage is more physical damage. When photographs are in polyester sleeves, as you see here, if they're held in this way tightly, you can crease the photograph, and I just wanted you to be aware of that, that even though these photographs are housed in good quality sleeves, plastic or paper, and we'll talk more about that for sure later in this lecture, or if not, if we don't get to it today, we'll get to it on Thursday. But just be aware of the fact that you still have to be careful in handling these. You can crease these images quite severely at the outer edges. And so be aware of that. Let me go back to, and just mention one more thing about handling. I'm not going to go into sort of basics, but you want to be sure in your institution that if you have scholars or researchers using your collection, that obviously they're using pencils, that they're wearing gloves, that they're monitored in some way, that they're not drinking coffee. All these kinds of disasters that can happen very quickly in a reading room or in an institution, and these kinds of things can be prevented. There are other emergencies and disasters that are much more difficult. We're certainly seeing the results of that on TV today. It's a horrible, just horrible disaster in Oklahoma, and our hearts certainly go out to everyone there as they begin to recover from that. But there are other emergencies within an institution that you can prevent, and being sure that you have careful handling guidelines in place can certainly be very important. You also want to be sure that you have exhibition guidelines for those institutions among you who do have exhibitions from time to time. Some of you are fine art institutions and exhibiting your collections quite routinely, and others are historical museums and houses that may in fact be exhibiting facsimiles. But if you are exhibiting original materials, be sure to think about those exhibition conditions. What are the light types and levels? How long are these materials exhibited? What are the environmental conditions? And how are they presented and protected to the public? In that vein, I just wanted to make sure you're aware of the fact that there are all different kinds of lighting devices that are available to you, as you see here, fiber optic, LED fluorescent, incandescent. And you need to study these and be aware of their pros and cons, their costs, their energy efficiencies, which do vary their intensities and determine what's most appropriate in your institution. Again, there's been quite a detailed and helpful discussion on issues relating to lighting on earlier webinars hosted through this website. So be sure to examine those. In the case of photographic materials, just a few tips. You want to be aware, of course, of the potential damage for extended exhibition. We typically recommend that photographic materials of all kind be exhibited for three to six months. Nine months is a long exhibition time, and particularly for sensitive materials and many, many photographic processes are highly sensitive. This can be damaging, causing binder layers to yellow paper to deteriorate, dye, certainly dye images to fade. You can assume that almost all photographs are light sensitive in some ways. The silver image may not fade upon exposure to light, but other components of that photograph may be deteriorated. And ultraviolet light is more destructive than any other kinds of light. So it's important that you find ways to filter out ultraviolet light, either through ultraviolet filtering, acrylic glazing, or filtering out the windows or the placement of your objects in your institution to protect them from daylight and the harmful effects of ultraviolet light, particularly. There are, on the website, links to very good publications on lighting and how to control lighting in libraries and archives and in historic houses so please refer to those both through Library of Congress and here's a site in the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts website with a series of PDFs that provide basic information. This is material that was developed through the Historically Black College and University Initiative, and these are sort of guidelines for a number of things that I think you'll find most helpful, but particularly you can see the guideline here, I don't know if you can read it on your screen, but for exhibition light levels. So this provides much more detail about some of the issues that you need to be thinking about in the exhibition of photographic materials. I want to remind you, in all this, that exhibition and the effect of light, the effect of relative humidity, the effect of high temperature has everything to do with these different components. And we've talked at great length again about the variety of photographic materials, the different supports, the different binder layers, albumin or collodion in the 19th century, gelatin introduced at the end of the 19th century but certainly dominating the 20th century, and then these various image materials from organic dyes to pigments, platinum, gold, iron salt, silver. These materials will interact with light in different ways and that's why fundamentally, as you think about the exhibition of these materials, you need to be sure you understand what they are. Here are silver gelatin, a silver gelatin developing out photograph on the left and what appears to be a printed out image, probably albumin on the right. Understanding what these materials are, how they might deteriorate upon exposure to light is important. Silver does not necessarily fade upon exposure to light but the gelatin binder can yellow, the paper support can deteriorate. Similarly, albumin as a binder, this egg white binder will yellow upon exposure to light and so light levels should be low and monitored. When you have hand colored photographs, as you see here, the daguerreotype on the left, salted paper print on the right, you're worried not just about the deterioration of the image material but the colorants that have been used to hand color these photographs. So this is yet another example of processes that require low light levels in order to ensure their long term preservation with controlled exhibition times and monitoring as well. And then finally, of course, color photography where the final image material is organic dyes. I've mentioned a number of times that these dyes fade in the dark and they fade in the light and so you want to control the light levels in order to begin to preserve these materials. But one fundamental issue with color photography that I want you to remember is the most important thing really is to control the temperature and where you can store these materials in low temperature storage. That is ideal. I realize that's not possible in all cases but, again, if you go to the National Park Service site on cold storage, it provides you with strategies, cost effective strategies for cold storage of collections. There are many projects being sort of pursued really around the world. This is just one of many at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where they are systematically monitoring and measuring the color of images prior to and following exhibitions. So we begin to have a better sense of how individual objects, individual photographs, individual processes are affected by short term exposure to exhibition conditions and also recognize that when we talk about exhibition, it's not just light levels. My comments right now have been focused on light but you have to be worried about controlling the environment within that exhibition space and certainly security is another major issue with protecting photographic collections on exhibition. But there are many studies that are being done on measuring color and they are helping to inform us about the sensitivity of these materials over time. Before I go on to talk a little bit about emergencies, let me take a break and ask Kristin if there's any questions that have come up. I can see Heather's been busily answering questions as she can. But Kristin, is there anything that I should respond to at this point or try to? Sure. Let's see. Jack at the start of the hour asked about photos that are stuck to the frame, to glass in a frame. And I think we have determined that that conservator should deal with that. Okay, yes. This is a common problem and we've talked briefly about it in earlier webinars. And it's something that we see with a variety of photographs, particularly photographs in which the binder layer is gelatin because as these framed photographs are exposed to high relative humidity conditions, the gelatin will swell. And if the photograph is not matted, but actually sort of held against adjacent to the glass, it can begin to stick to the glass. And that's a common problem with color and black and white photographs. As Kristin, as you mentioned, and I think Heather did as well, this is something that should be attended to by a conservator. In some cases it is impossible to remove these photographs adhered to glass, particularly if there's inscriptions if there's mold damage. But in many cases we have developed successful techniques that involve humidification, localized humidification, the use of vapor barriers such as Gore-Tex, localized exposure to moisture or steam. But it really depends on the photograph, its condition, the extent of its damage, how it's adhered to the glass, whether they're inscriptions, as to what might work. And so this would be a great example of something that should be brought to the conservator. In the meantime, however, it may be possible to scan that image if you handle it carefully, be aware of the fact that it's probably not overall attached to glass. So you have to be careful so you don't tear it. But you might be able to at least scan it to capture the image. But I would definitely refer that to a photographic conservator. Okay. And there's no way, I think you had discussed this in a previous webinar, that there's no way to restore a faded silver image. That's not a reversible process. No. Unfortunately, yeah. Unfortunately, it's not a reversible process. There are chemical techniques that one might read about that were used particularly by photographers to intensify images that have faded. This was really done by photographers in the 19th and 20th century, particularly with negatives, because they're to create a negative that was printable, that could be used. So there are references to techniques often referred to as chemical treatments or bleach and redevelopment. But it's not something that can be done by a conservator. They're totally unpredictable. Yeah. The one question I see here, I just want to mention, because it's a good one, and it's skipping around a bit, but just in case I don't get to it, is, you know, what do you do? And so many of you said you had photographic albums. And what do you do with the Victorian or 19th century sort of albums where the photographs are split into those slots? And in many cases, these will be corrective as eats or cabinet cards, tin types of human prints, printing out photographs typically. And it can be very difficult to remove those photographs from the slots without damaging the pages. But for very good reasons, individuals and institutions are interested in looking at the back of these mounted cards because that will include informational. The photographer, sometimes there's inscriptions. Anyway, this can be done by taking two pieces of polyester film or what we call Mylar or Melanix. And if you can find a way to sort of seal it or fold, carefully fold a piece of Melanix so that you have two pieces that are sort of one piece that's folded. And if you can slide the polyester film under the photograph or on top of the photograph and under the mat of that page on both sides, on the front and the back. So now what you have is sort of polyester film that's protecting the photograph on both the front. There's typically a photograph on both sides on the front and the back. The film will protect the photograph and provides a little bit of a slip. And so you can often gingerly push these photographs out of the page without breaking the page, damaging the page, and without damaging the photograph. So it's just a tip that may work for you if you are anxious to try and remove these photographs. I just urge you to put them back really because the value of these albums is a chronology and the images that are included within the album. One thing that institutions have a tendency to do or certainly have done in the past is to remove all their photographs from the albums in an effort to preserve the photographs. The problem is you've lost the context of the album. And in many cases, the photographs are actually in relatively good condition. So you should avoid doing that, but there are situations such as using these Victorian albums where you are anxious and for good reasons to try and get a sense of what the information is on the back. I don't know if that makes any sense if that's useful, but it's a technique that can be done without damaging the album. Okay, I think that's helpful. What about those magnets? I know you're going to get into scrapbooks in a little bit, but those magnetic albums from the 70s that I have. Yeah, we talked. Yeah, I mean, they were the rage in the 70s. And as is true with all albums, the problem is when we start disassembling them, we fear that we're losing history and their context, how these objects follow one another, the inscriptions on the pages, the magnetic albums often have stickers and other things included as well. So we should make every effort not to disassemble these. Now, with the magnetic albums, sometimes it's impossible to do so anyway because these photographs are just permanently adhered to these pages. These are pages that are coated with a pressure sensitive adhesive of some kind, the adhesive typically yellows. And either the photographs all start to fall out because the adhesive fails or they simply can't be removed. I think that, again, what you'll find when you look at these magnetic albums is as deteriorated as the outer edges may be, that adhesive often yellows. The photographs are probably in relatively good condition. If they're color photographs, they may have faded. They may be a bit magenta in color, a bit red in color. But honestly, that fading probably has very little to do with the magnetic album and more to do with the inherent instability of the photographs themselves. And therefore, I would leave these intact and not begin to disassemble them. There are some institutions that have used the magnetic albums to house their photographs from the 19th century. So in the 1980s, they bought these albums and all good intentions began to incorporate albumen prints and cyanotypes and all kinds of photographs into these albums. And that would be the exception where I think they should be brought to a conservator and perhaps these photographs if possible should be removed because the adhesive can cause damage and fading. But for the most part, I think when you look back on these albums, you'll see that the photographs are in relatively good condition, both black and white in color. I wouldn't use them now, and they're harder to find, certainly, because ideally, you want to use something where it's not adhesive-based like that. Okay, can I ask you two more questions before we go back? Yeah. Yeah, just everyone realized that we might not get through all this, but we will finish up certainly on Thursday. Okay. So I guess it's a little bit related to the philosophy between keeping an album intact. We talked about earlier in the series about separating out different types of photography, say in an archival collection, and should color and black and white photos be separated. And the way Heather discussed it in the chat was that maybe negatives or things that are very sensitive should come out and go into cold storage, but otherwise it is acceptable to leave mixed photographs. Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. You want to try and simplify your life in terms of storage of photographic materials. So whereas it's very nice to know if you have albumin prints, or collodion chloride prints, or platinum prints, or salted paper prints, or silver gelatin developing out, it is not necessary to separate them. So typically, photographic prints of all kinds can be housed together. Negatives should be separate from prints. Glass plate negatives should be separate as well because of their weight and their fragility. Film base should be separated from glass plate. In this case, acetate and nitrate ideally should go into cool or cold storage to slow down their deterioration. This is also true with color materials. And then you might identify a few standard sizes, because the other thing you want to avoid is very large prints with very small prints. But those kinds of separations are useful and important, but you want to minimize the number of separations because you need the collection to be used, too. And if you separate it out too much, again, just like an album, as Kristen, as you said, you lose that context. So those decisions are sort of based on the fragility of the materials, their susceptibility to deterioration, and how they may be handled. That's one thing to sort of pursue. I did mention about glass plates that certain plates can be house flat versus vertical, and someone has asked how many in a stack, and you can ask that about prints as well. Those are hard questions to answer, really. You need to use your good judgment and determine at what point is that box manageable? Is it too heavy? Photographs can be stacked, I would say. Glass plates get pretty heavy pretty quickly when they're oversized. They might even go into sink mats of some kind to give them a little bit more protection. But as is true with all storage issues, you need to sort of set up a system, try it out, use your best judgment, think about how the collection is going to be used, and do what you can to try and preserve those materials that are most vulnerable to handling or chemical deterioration. Does that help? Yeah, that's great. I think I'll let you go ahead, because I think you're going to get to some of these other questions in the next section. Yeah, and I certainly will get to. I see there are a number of questions. It's nice when I can take a little break because I can look at the questions. But there are a number of questions on enclosures, and I do have a section on that. So we may get to that today, actually, which will be nice, so try and get through that. I wanted to say a few things, though, about emergency response as it relates to photographic materials. And certainly you are probably well aware of the Heritage Health Index, which Kristen actually worked on quite extensively. And this was a survey of the state of preservation of our nation's collections. It was done in 2005, and we intend to do this again to evaluate sort of progress that's been made. And during the Heritage Health Index, we learned quite a bit about preservation. And certainly one of the most alarming areas, I think, my point of view, was the challenges that we faced with disaster planning and preparedness. And we learned, as you can see here, 2.6 billion items are at risk. And are not protected by an emergency plan. And since that time, we focused considerable energy as a nation within the Heritage Preservation, within the American Institute for Conservation, and many other organizations, ensuring that small, medium-sized, and even large institutions have a disaster plan. And there have been a number of webinars in this series that have been focused on disaster planning. And I urge you to take a look at that because the effects on photographs are significant.  It was so sad last night to hear people talking about going back to their homes after this tornado. And of course, as is always the case, they're looking for their family photographs. And I have every intention after this to start sending out emails to see how we can help with their recovery of these family photographs because they mean so much to individuals following such horrific catastrophes. Here are images from Hurricane Sandy where you can see a film-based negative on the left that's been water damaged and the emulsion is actually civilized, which is what you're seeing. Oh, Mike, can you grab that pointer for me again? Thank you. You can see here where the emulsion is actually dissolved. And this is caused by exposure to moisture and certainly the staining that you see in the baby photographs that I think we've seen before. So I just want you to be aware of the fact that there is considerable information available to you about the recovery of water damage photographic materials. Ideally, you have a disaster plan in your institution. And so some of these issues can be mitigated by proper planning. But be aware of the fact that if these materials do get wet, they can be, in many cases, recovered. It's hard to say. You can't say that everything can be recovered. But recognize that photographic collections can be safely frozen and then you might be able to air dry them at a later time. That freeze drying is also an option with photographic collections. There are advantages and disadvantages that I can't get into. Perhaps we can do a separate webinar at some point if you're interested. Certainly in the evaluation, let us know on issues of the response and recovery of water damage photographic materials. But I do want you to be aware of the fact that you can freeze these materials. Freeze drying is an option. At all times, you want to document the materials carefully and recognize that these surfaces when wet will be very fragile and tacky because of these binder layers that we've been talking about at great length, particularly gelatin. It is best to air dry materials when you can when the disaster is small and you have the space and the personnel to do so. That's probably the best option. But sadly with photographic materials, in many cases, you're dealing with large collections and a major disaster. And air drying is simply not an option. But you can see a collection here that's being air dried of variety materials, primarily print materials, color in black and white. And this is simply done by just laying them out on absorbent papers, blotter, paper telling, whatever you might have available screening and allowing them to dry and they will cockle and they will physically distort. But that's not an issue at this point. You just want them to dry out. And then you can bring them to the attention of a conservator and develop techniques for humidification and flattening where needed. Some of these materials might dry out flat depending on their support. And also, let me just mention without going into too much detail that if you are recovering these photographs that are wet and they're been immersed in dirty water, you might actually want to rinse them first with cool water, not warm water, certainly, because that could solubilize the binder layers, but something to remove as much dirt and ground from the surface as possible. But be very careful about touching the surfaces because they can be very fragile. And what you see here is the effect of water damage on acetate film. So acetate film, as you remember from last week, is actually salis acetate film base with a gelatin binder and a silver image material. And remember, we talked about the fact that this base can channel or cockle. It begins to shrink, begins to smell like acetic acid. And as it does that, the gelatin binder will begin to distort. And when these materials get wet, sometimes they will start to disintegrate, as you see here. So you need to be aware of the different materials you have in your collection and what their vulnerability to moisture may be and how they should be recovered and how they should be protected. There is some very good information that's available online. And we've posted that on the website. I wanted to particularly be sure that you're aware of this field guide to emergency response, which I like very much because it's basic, which is what you need. And it also includes a DVD in it, which will show you how to recover, not just photographic materials, but a wide range of materials that are likely to be damaged following, you know, hurricanes, tornadoes, and any water-related disasters. And tornadoes sometimes are followed by water pipes and all kinds of things. So, you know, it's hard to say exactly what kind of emergency you're going to encounter. And it's important to understand that too in the planning process. Begin to predict the kinds of emergencies that you will encounter in your institution and in your geographic region so you can plan accordingly for those. But this is a great resource. I think you'll find it very useful. Of course, it's important to be thinking about all this ahead of time and to have played the DVD and to be aware of the salvage techniques to try and do some training. If you can, to bring in a conservator. This is a wonderful thing to do. Bring a conservator to your institution who will work with your staff in recovery techniques so you feel informed and you have sort of a plan in place. It's very important because as we talk about all these issues, you can only imagine what an emergency or disaster can do to a collection. In terms of this generic plan, so back to that 10-point plan, this is point number three. We've really talked about the environment that's critical to control it, understand the resources so you know what you're aiming for. All these different policies, handling policies, accessioning policies, a disaster plan, exhibition policies, loan policies. You want to be sure that you have those in place because that protects not just your photographic collections, but all your collections. In terms of photographic materials, you may also want to inspect your film-based negative collections to see if you have acetate or nitrate. We've talked about how to differentiate these and some of the challenges associated with these materials, but this may be very important because these materials are so vulnerable. You need to know, do you have these materials on your premise? How significant are they? How are they used? How will they be used in the future? And just as a quick review, there are many ways to differentiate acetate from nitrate from polyester film. Polyester film is much more stable, certainly, than salis acetate or salis nitrate. And some of this can be done by dating, stamping, and the deterioration characteristics. This is salis nitrate, and these films have deteriorated, and they are in fact stuck to the glassine enclosures, which were once white, and are now because of the nitric acid that's being given off, are very embrittled and deteriorated themselves. And yet it's important to preserve them to the extent possible because the information that they contain on these enclosures. This is another thing that makes negative so challenging. In an emergency, for example, if these materials were to get wet, not only would they likely be soluble at this point, that is, they would be very fragile if they're immersed in water, but also you need to preserve not just the negative but the enclosure so you don't lose contact, so you can begin to document the importance of these materials. But this is salis nitrate, and this, of course, is salis acetate, both of these negatives, where we're seeing the images actually in relatively good condition, but that characteristic channeling caused by the shrinkage of the acetate film. So understanding what you have is important in beginning to establish short and long-term goals, long-term being something along the lines of the need for cold storage. If you are moving into a cold storage environment, you do not have to separate nitrate from acetate film. They can all go into a cooler cold storage environment, but you may start to think about duplication. How can you digitize those collections that are heavily used, both film-based and glass plate, to make them available to minimize handling and to make these images available to the public or to future scholars? And so along those lines, as you are examining your negative collections, think about the duplication and options for duplication. We are not really focusing on that in this webinar. Ideally, future webinars will talk about issues relating to digitization of collections, but there is information online as well that will provide you with some guidelines in terms of best practices as it relates to digitizing these collections to make them available online and for researchers and also for exhibition purposes as well. But in all cases, please pay careful attention to the original materials. Just because a collection has been digitized doesn't mean that it's preserved. So digitization, as you see here, is often designed to make materials accessible, but may not ensure the long-term preservation of the original materials. Okay, so now we are at point number five, which is one that you've been asking a lot about. So let me talk a little bit about this, and then we can take some questions. As time permits and maybe get even beyond five, which would be ideal. So rehousing of photographic prints is what I want to talk about first. So as you, again, this is point five, so you sort of begun to assess your environment. You thought about policies. You understand what kinds of inherently unstable film-based materials you have, where they're housed, how they're used, how deteriorated they are. You're thinking back to those five stages of deterioration that we talked about with acetate and nitrate negatives. Now you're going to start looking at your prints, how are they housed, how are they protected, how are they accessed, because a lot of this can ensure a long-term preservation. So some general recommendations, some of which we've certainly talked about, where you can separate out print and negative collections. Use standard-sized enclosures, and these will be determined by your institution, by the type of collection you have. Don't use too many different sizes. Try and standardize it. Think about what will work best. You can use plastic or paper-based enclosures. I'll talk more about that in a minute. There are standards, ISO standards, that are available to you, and there are links to this information as well online, that begin to articulate in great detail the qualities that you're looking for with good quality enclosures, the pH of the paper, the stability of the materials, and you might want to review that so you better understand what's considered appropriate and safe for the storage of historic and contemporary photographic materials. And wherever possible, you want to house these materials in protective boxes for extra protection. You know, your goal is to minimize handling, certainly, to protect these images directly, but also through boxing to protect them from fluctuating environmental conditions. These various levels of protection, from the enclosure to the box to the cabinet, will protect your collections over the long term. Here's another example, actually. This is from Baghdad, the rehousing of their photographic and library materials at the National Library. So, okay, when you look at photographic storage of print materials, you may consider two options. One is the use of paper-based materials, and the other is plastic-based. So you are probably looking for an acid-free material, which means that it is acid-free at the time of manufacture, but it may, in fact, become acidic over time. And so you're often looking for a paper or board that has buffered in some way that has some kind of a buffering salt, calcium carbonate, typically, that will protect that board and prevent it from becoming acidic over time. You also want to find something that's ragboard, lignin-free, a museum board of some sort. And there are many different archival companies. I think I have a slide listing some of them later on. There's certainly information online that you can go to, particularly in the United States. I recognize that this is a problem around the world, and you can't always be ordering these proven materials readily. And so I'll talk a little bit about some of the characteristics that you're looking for in general. But where possible, where you can order these from companies, you want to do so. And at all cases, what you're looking for is paper materials that pass the photographic activity test. This is a particular test that's been developed over time that begins to assess the long-term effects of particular papers and boards on photographic materials by looking at silver image degradation, dye degradation, the effect on gelatin binder layers, the effect on paper supports. And it's not a test that you necessarily can run in your institution, but most manufacturers are running these tests. And so you simply want to look for materials that have passed the photographic activity test. And this will be documented in the various catalogs. And this will then ensure to the extent possible that these materials, these boards and papers that you're purchasing to protect your photographs will not adversely cause them to fade into color over time. And so that's an important characteristic that may not be available to all of you, because what's again so wonderful about this webinar is that you're tuning in from all over the world. Where you can order materials from various companies, be certain that these papers and boards have passed the photographic activity test. There are certainly plastics that are also possible for storage photographic materials, and plastics have the advantage, of course, of being transparent and clear. Therefore, these images can be seen and handled. They aren't opaque, as is true with paper enclosures. And some of the plastics that are considered acceptable for storage include polyester, polyethylene, and polypropylene. Avoid polyvinyl chloride or PVC and avoid acetate enclosures, because they're dimensionally unstable. We've seen this with the acetate film. And they do, as they deteriorate, they may give off acetic acid. So the plastics that you're looking for, polyester, polyethylene, and polypropylene, and again, these are typically identified by the manufacturer when you're ordering the various kinds of enclosures that you might use for the preservation of your collections. Some of the, and so you have to sort of determine from the onset, do you want to use paper or do you want to use plastic? And in doing so, you need to just think about the advantages and disadvantages, because it's hard to say in one institution over another what the best approach might be. But here are just some of the clear and obvious, I think, advantages to both. Paper is opaque, and that's an advantage in terms of protection from light, I suppose, but a disadvantage if you have a collection that's heavily used, where the images have to be removed routinely from these paper enclosures. It's porous, so it allows for the breathability, which is nice, particularly with acetate and silo nitrate film materials, which really should be housed in paper enclosures, so you can allow them to breathe, trying to avoid plastic enclosures for those materials. Similarly, glass plate negatives, dry plate negatives, should be housed in paper enclosures, because they provide more protection. Plastic sleeve, as you can only imagine, is not really going to be durable enough to protect a glass plate negative. Paper can be weaker, there's no static. Static charge can be a problem in housing materials that have friable media, for example. But plastics are transparent. As I see on the slide here, it says not recommended for salis negatives, and what that means is both salis acetate and salis nitrate negatives. They may have sharp edges. The static of polyester film, for example, again, is a problem if you're housing something that's very fragile and friable. So you need to sort of think about these issues. Are you going to invest in paper or plastic? Another issue really is cost. And for the most part, though, this is something you need to investigate. Paper enclosures tend to be significantly cheaper than plastic. There may be parts of your collection that are heavily used by researchers, and you might decide, you know, I'm going to house those materials in plastic sleeves, often an L sleeve that's sealed on two sides so the image can be easily removed. But other materials are going to be safely housed in plastic enclosures and into acid-free boxes. There are all kinds of organizations and manufacturers who produce these materials that are perfectly suitable for the storage of photographs. Here's just one of many. And in this case, I just urge you to look at their catalogs, talk to the individuals who work in these organizations, ask for samples, because you want to determine the size, the quality, and you want to be sure that your sleeves fit into the boxes that you've ordered. So use these resources and other organizations as well to help you, to guide you in determining the options and the opportunities for the storage of these materials. But some of the basic properties that you want to be thinking about, particularly for those of you who find yourself in the Middle East and Latin America and Asia, where you may not be able to easily order these materials, you really need to find enclosure materials that are available to you readily, that are affordable, and this is something we've been focusing on quite extensively in our work in the Middle East. And how do you judge that? So you're looking for smooth surface paper of very high quality, the kind of paper you might find in a stationary store, for example, that's as close to 100% rag, 100% cotton fiber as possible. There are techniques for measuring the pH of these papers using cold extraction, which is really relatively easy to do, and something that you might, you know, if you do some research on how to measure pH using the cold extraction method, something you might be able to do to ensure that the pH of your paper is at least neutral, or ideally alkaline, that is in the range of 8.5 or so, as opposed to something acidic, such as 4 or 5 or 6. There are other techniques such as the use of lead acetate for the detection of sulfur compounds. Sulfur is something to be avoided because this can cause silver images to tarnish or corrode. So you want to be sure that your paper doesn't include sulfur impurities. There are pH testing pens that can be quite useful to you as well. And then finally, there are other tests for testing plastics. You want to be sure that plastic enclosures, if you don't know if it's polyethylene, polypropylene or polyester, and you want to be certain it's not PVC, that it doesn't include chlorine. The test that you see here, the Bilstein test, is a test that can be done with a copper wire that will detect the presence of chlorines. So there are these sort of low-end, low-tech tests that can be done in various institutions by individuals that will help you to better understand the materials that you're dealing with if you find that you really can't order these materials from archival supply companies. And also, along those lines, if you're dealing with framing materials, we mentioned under exhibition the need to, where possible, frame materials using ultraviolet filtering glass or acrylic. And one example is Optium Glazing, which you see here, which is an acrylic glazing that filters out a significant part of the ultraviolet light. And so be aware of these different materials that are available to you that are used by conservators and museums really around the world that will help to protect photographs. But be aware also of the question that many of you have asked about these photographs that are stuck to glass, that when you're framing photographic materials, be sure to use some kind of a spacer, acid-free rag board, or whatever it might be to prevent that photograph from sticking to the glazing and consider the use of UV filtering glazing or glass or acrylic. So we've certainly talked about this. So again, just to revisit sort of basic general recommendations, separating out these materials using standard size enclosures, thinking about plastic versus paper, understanding the standards and the guidelines, and certainly boxing where you can for extra protection. Photographs can be housed flat or upright depending on their size and their condition. In some institutions, photographs are housed in acid-free files or folders in file drawers. And that can be done as long as there's some kind of spacer every 10 inches or so, a piece of corrugated cardboard or something, acid-free corrugated cardboard, something that prevents photographs from slumping in their box or slumping in their drawers so that when you open a door they don't all fall to the front or fall to the back. So this is ingenuity and innovation and the sort of critical thinking that each of you need to bring to your own institution as you begin to pursue options and alternatives for the safe storage of these collections, whether they're print or negative materials. And Kristen, I'm going to go through six and then I can open up for a few questions, but this is relatively quick. I just wanted to say that as you are thinking about the storage of your print materials, you may also be identifying those materials that will require conservation treatment. Do they have mold or flaking binder layers? Are there poor quality pressure-sensitive tapes or rubber cement adhesives? Are the supports badly deteriorated to the point where they can't be handled safely? Well, certainly this is important if they're going to be exhibited or handled in any way. So you want to begin to establish priorities for preservation as well and to think about issues in their preservation. And some of you have talked about panoramic photographs and having photographs that look like this. This is a rolled silver gelatin panoramic photograph prior to conservation treatment and then following humidification and flattening. You can see it here. And so there are techniques that can be used to treat photographs that are damaged and deteriorated. Much of this must be done by a photograph conservator. But as you go through and rehouse your collection, here's another example of before and after conservation treatment. You want to be thinking about which are the materials that really do require conservation treatment and why and how do you make those decisions based on value and significance and how these images will be used in the future. So storage and considering conservation treatment sometimes sort of goes hand in hand because you want to minimize your handling. So you want to be thinking about these issues as you're going through your collection and certainly always refer to the American Institute for Conservation or if you are the International Institute for Conservation, the IIC, and the various referral systems and information that they have available. They can help direct you to conservators who can certainly assist with all aspects of your work. Before I go on to point number seven, and because of the time, let me ask you, Kristen, if there's any questions, maybe I could take one or two questions and perhaps get through seven before we finish up today. Okay. There was just a question on crayon portraits and what the environment and storage of those might be. Okay. I don't have an image. I haven't shown an image of whoever asked that question. Maybe you could send us an image and we could put it up in the next webinar, which will be our final one, unfortunately. But a crayon portrait is typically an enlargement of some kind. These often measure 16 by 20 inches or larger. They are faint photographic images that are then heavily embellished or retouched with crayon, charcoal, sometimes watercolors, gouache, oil paints. They may be convex in shape. And so they vary somewhat in their condition, certainly in the way they were manufactured, and they do tend to be very fragile. They are the exception to the rule with photographic materials. Photographs are often print materials are often printed on very good quality papers, highly purified wood pulp papers or 100% rag papers. But the exception are these crayon portraits, which are often on poor quality papers, housed in bad environments, often mounted onto linen and in fragile condition. Kristen, what was a particular question on the crayon portrait? Specific to exhibition conditions. Okay. So in terms of exhibition, these are problematic because the paper support is usually of such poor quality, like it has a lot of lignin in it. So like newsprint, when it's exposed to light, these papers will yellow. And so you need to be careful about exhibiting these materials, often exhibiting them at lower light levels, being sure that they're protected with ultraviolet filtering plexiglass, and handling is also an issue. So because the papers are fragile, some of them are convex in shape, and so if they're handled improperly, they can actually crack through the middle. They certainly can be displayed. It's not to say you can't display them at all. And you see them in historic houses and you see them in antique shops all over the world, really. But do be aware of the fact that the concern, really, I would say, off the top of my head, it's really the deterioration of that paper support. Now some crayon enlargements are actually silver gelatin developing outpapers, and they may be less vulnerable to light-related damage. But they're often all hand-colored, so you have the problem of hand-colorance as well. Okay. I mean, there have been a lot of great questions about cold storage and frozen storage, and I think Heather's been keeping up with those questions well. And again, just for everyone to our website, we've done a webinar specific to cold storage, including how to package materials for cold storage, where you can use just a commercial freezer for cold storage. It's just an hour long, and I think it's a lot of really great information. And then the National Park Service also has a great resource on that that we have up on the website. I guess just one more question, because it did sort of spark a conversation, again, on just color photographs and specifically old Polaroid photographs. In terms of storage or separating out from other types of materials? Okay. Yeah. Okay, so in terms of storage, can you hear me? I know that's not a question I was going to ask, because you all tell me you can hear me. Okay, in terms of storage of Polaroids, so Polaroids are another process, another color process. There's a variety of color processes. I haven't gotten into that. That could be, if you guys are interested, if you all are interested, that could be another webinar on just color photography, because there's a range of different processes that are available, and Polaroids are one of many. The storage issues are very similar to in all color photographs. You're dealing with organic dyes that fade in the dark and in the light. And so therefore, ideally, they should be housed, if at all possible, in cool environments or cold environments to mitigate against that damage. They are one-of-a-kind, unlike other photographic processes, in many ways similar to the daguerreotype, really. Not at all in the way they were made, but the fact that there is no negative. And so you want to be careful about exhibition of these materials. But they need to be housed where possible in cool environments. If that's not possible, then just room temperature, low relative humidity. But it is the high temperature conditions that will accelerate the deterioration of these materials. There are different kinds of Polaroids. If you really get into it, there's Polacolor, Polaroid SX-70. These materials have different dark and light stability. It's interesting to note that early Polacolor photographic processes actually have relatively good dark stability.  And that's wonderful. But in general, for the sake of this series of lectures, we're sort of characterizing all color photography under the fact that it would benefit, certainly, from cool storage. Okay, Debbie, I'm sorry to say that. Kristen, can I just jump in here, though, and just say one thing here about Polaroid? Some people refer to Polaroid. I just want to be sure. There's also black and white, of course, Polaroid materials, too. So I made the assumption that that was color. But many of you in your institutions may also have black and white.  They're similar to developing out. It's a silver image. But they were protected with that coating that you would apply. Some of you might remember doing this, or your grandparents doing it, or your parents doing it. I had that really wonderful odor. But that coating protects the silver image from fading. And sometimes you'll see Polaroids, black and white Polaroids in your collection, which are unevenly faded depending on where it was coated and where that photograph was not coated. Thank you. That's a really good point. Debbie, we're just at 2.30. Yeah, I see that. For me, this is a good place to stop on point number seven. So we've gotten through just to summarize where we are. We're on that generic preservation plan. We'll pick it up on Thursday with 7, 8, 9, and 10. And then from there, I will move into a bit of a conversation on fundraising and advocacy, and we'll be perfect, I think, for timing. Okay, and I'm dragging up to the screen now. If you've been watching with a colleague, just let us know who that is. If you're watching by yourself, that's okay. We know who you are. And I've put up a link to today's homework, and you will also find it on the home page. It's hyperlinked now. I know there's so many questions today, but we will be compiling them and then getting to some of these questions and making sure we get to some of these questions in Thursday's webinar. And again, we start at 1 o'clock Eastern time on Thursday. I know we'll have a lot to cover. So I really thank Heather for all her help in answering questions today and for Debbie to make all of this great information available. Anything else, Debbie? No, I don't think so. Thank you all for tuning in. Special thanks again to Heather. And we will do what we can, certainly, to address the questions that have come up today and incorporate them, but also be thinking about other topics that you would like to see explored in more detail and perhaps it's something that we can work toward in the future. Great. Thanks again, everybody. Hope you have a great afternoon. Thank you all. We'll see you soon. Well, or at least be in contact by computer.