And thanks to Mike and Learning Times for making these webinars possible with all their help and production. And to IMLS for the funding for this program that has made it free of charge to all of you. And I'm so glad to hear in the chat that it's been so helpful. So again, we are at our last class for this series and it's advocating for the care photographs. And Debbie will also cover some of the preventive care topics that she ran out of time on last time. And we're so thankful to Heather Brown for being in our chat today and she'll help answer your questions as Debbie is talking and then we'll take some breaks for Debbie to chime in too. So I wanted to just again remind you about our course webpage because we've been, Debbie has been showing a lot of URLs in her slides and we've had some great chat going and we always make sure that we keep our course page up to the current moment with everything that's been mentioned. And so keep checking back because it does change and we put up the PowerPoint slides after each course airs and if you need to find a hallmark assignment you can get links there as well. And just again, if you are interested in earning a Certificate of Completion and a Digital Credential you should get all the hallmark assignments in and again we'll be emailing you today with a link for the recording for today's webinar and the hallmark assignment. In fact what we'll do is we'll send all of them, all the recordings and all the hallmark assignments to date. So if you have not been getting our emails, just put something in the chat box and so we'll make sure to make sure we get it to you by some manner and we have until Thursday, May 30th for all those hallmark assignments to be completed. So keep an eye on that and make sure you get those in. And I have a little surprise that for all of those of you who do get a Certificate of Completion we will enter your name in a drawing for a door prize. It's a copy of Archival Care and Management of Photographs by Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler and Diane Vodokoner. We have ten copies to give away so it's a very useful book if you don't own it already and if you do we can either draw someone else's name or you can give it to a colleague. So that's a wonderful surprise we have for you. And just again remember that several of the Getty publications that Debbie has referenced and has recommended are on sale by Getty but a 30% off sale for all of the participants in this course. Again, information is on the website and we encourage you to take them up on that offer. They haven't really set a deadline for it but just if you could do it in the next month or two I know they'd appreciate that. So again if you have any questions for us that's how to find us at Heritage Preservation and we'll be happy to help you with any of the course logistics. And I just wanted to run that poll that we did last week or Tuesday rather that just didn't work out for us. So I'm going to open that up. We're going to be talking about advocacy today so Debbie just wanted to have a sense of if your institution has sought any kind of grant funding or outside funding for collections of care and Mike I'm just going to ask you to move the poll around a little to make sure it's centered well. Just let us know you can select all that apply and this just sort of gives an idea of sort of what kind of fundraising you may have done in the past and if you don't know that's fine you can just say that or if it's none of the above that's fine too. But this will help Debbie a little bit in how she presents her material today. So that's great. Lots of you sought a lot of different types of funding so that's terrific. And great so much have come from Foundation support. That's really good. Thank you everyone.  Okay we have over 200 people joining us today and I know some of you are watching with others so I know the numbers are probably even higher than that. So thanks for coming back everyone. Okay I think I'm just going to close this out for now and I also wanted to just remind you because again we will be talking about fundraising that on the Connecting to Collections online community if you go to the site, go to the page, so just ConnectingtoCollections.org you will see a topics menu and we have a sub page on that called Increase Support for Collections Care. And so if you go there there's a lot of links to grant programs and other fundraising tips and a couple of the things Debbie has mentioned and of course she's got things on the course hope page too. So that's just another place to quickly find information and with that I will welcome back Debbie. I'm going to close my slides here and bring up Debbie's and then I'm going to drag away the chat box. So sorry about that. All right here we go. And I'm going to just drag away the hello box you've been saying hello in and it's going to turn to moderated chat which as Mike said if you post something you may see it twice once when we get it from you and once when we publish it. So with that I'm going to turn it over to Debbie. Thanks so much Debbie. Thank you Kristen. Thank you Mike and thank you all for joining us on the final which is impossible to believe driving in this morning I thought that can't be possible but this is our fifth webinar of our five part series and certainly been a lot of fun for me. I've really enjoyed following your questions and looking at your homework and watching where you're coming from really it's just extraordinary to me that we're able to reach out simultaneously around the world and I'm so happy to see you all exchanging emails and contacts because in the end the strength of our work is really about all of us working together. So much of this is about collaboration I'll speak a little bit today about collaboration as it relates to advocacy and preservation of our photographic heritage. I purposely although I have a number of slides today I tried to keep my slides to more of a minimum to allow for some more extended question and answer time so we'll see how we do in all of that and again Heather is on board which I'm most grateful for I want to again thank Heather and Greta for their good work and as many of you know Heather's finishing up her second year study in our three year master's level program and this work that she's doing on the webinar is part of her final grade for her second year. So far I think she's doing really well and has been a great help I think to all of us. I wanted to pick up where we were on Tuesday and as you will recall I hope we were talking about preservation planning trying to take all of the information that we've been discussing during the last month about photographic materials from prints and negatives and beginning to think about long-term and short-term planning and how to prioritize the needs that you're facing with your photographic collections which I realize vary quite significantly from country to country and from institution to institution but there's still bottom line similarities in all situations and we began with a 10-point preservation plan I won't review all points but as you will recall the first and most important step in any preservation planning for photographic collections and really for all types of cultural heritage is the vital need to assess the environment and try to do whatever is in whatever is possible to try and control it to try and control in this case relative humidity and temperature conditions to begin to ensure stabilize your collection and ensure its long term preservation. So we spoke about environment and I mentioned there are through all these resources and I thank Heritage Preservation for posting all this information not just our webinar but all of the past webinars and those that are coming forward as well because as you go through the references there's a lot of practical relevant up-to-date concise information that I think will be most helpful to you and certainly significant postings and resources relating to environmental assessment and control but this is vital and as you will remember materials that are color-based that are composed of color dyes require cool or cold storage to reduce the rate of deterioration and this is certainly also true with salis acetate and salis nitrate film. We got to the you know one thing let me just pause for one second and ask Kristen so I don't see a chat box is that a problem or is it just my computer so it's okay for me not to do it yeah I don't think we've had people putting questions yet oh okay yep here's one so they're just listening okay great all right I'm so used to seeing like so many questions that I got worried why didn't see anything all right thank you so we got to all the way up to point number seven on this ten-point preservation plan and the second step the seventh step I'm sorry is focused on the stabilization of glass plate negatives we've spoken a bit about film-based materials and how vital it is because of their inherent instability to deal with those promptly to be sure that you understand if you have salis nitrate or salis acetate film in your collection polyester film which is more modern more recent is much more stable and not really a material that you need to be overly concerned with clearly all photographs have to be handled carefully have to be housed in good quality enclosures but the reality is polyester film does not require cold storage that is required for the long-term preservation of acetate and nitrate film we've spoken quite a bit many of you've asked about you how do you deal with mixed collections how do you divide them and I've said on a number of occasions that where possible you want to separate out your glass plate negative collections from your film-based materials this has to do with not only the inherent instability of of acetate nitrate film particularly salis nitrate film as it deteriorates it's giving off of nitric acid which will attack other collection materials causing silver images to fade and other deterioration problems as well but also has a lot to do with just a fragility of glass and the fact that it's much safer to handle glass as a unit separate from film so you're not constantly going through a collection and encountering glass plate negatives as you're dealing with other materials too so I've categorized the stabilization of glass plate negatives as the seventh point on this generic preservation plan and we certainly spoke I think in the third webinar about different negative processes and I mentioned that there are chlorine and wet plate negatives introduced around 1852 or so and then a dry plate silver gelatin dry plate negatives that were introduced in the late 1870s what you see in the in this image is silver gelatin dry plate negatives and I'm going to ask oh here we go with the pointer okay and the dry plate negative is commercially prepared the image is typically black and white although it may be deteriorated and faded at the outer edges and you see some of that faintly here these plates may be mirrored which is common in the dense image areas particularly at the outer edges and it's just important that you begin to separate these out and begin to think about rehousing them to protect them in many cases you will find these plates in boxes sometimes in their original wooden or cardboard boxes we saw a great image the other day from glass plates oversized glass negatives housed in their original wooden containers but in all situations you really want to separate them from poor quality enclosures boxes and cabinetry and put them into acid free boxes the challenge with glass plate negative collections and really with all negative collections is the information that's found on these historic enclosures as you see here it's an awful lot of really important information and sometimes it's not just the content of the information but it's a handwriting that you need to preserve as well only because in an institution where there's a lot of historic memory individuals may recall that was a session by so-and-so I recognize their handwriting and sometimes that information is useful too in terms of understanding the context and the importance and the significance of a collection so there are institutions certainly that have investigated possibilities and opportunities to scan this information onto better quality envelopes or paper enclosures and that certainly is something to consider or you may simply be entering this information into a database but what you're seeing here is a collection of historic negatives that have begun or not historic negatives not just historic negatives but historic enclosures and you can see that the enclosures have begun to deteriorate as a first step measure they've simply been put vertically into an acid-free good quality box and certainly is a good step it protects them eventually you may want to replace these enclosures or incorporate acid-free paper into the interior of the enclosure probably replacing them will be easier but honestly you know at least protecting them in a good quality box is a very good step and also you'll notice that these negatives are housed vertically and just to mention that you can place in fact it's better to house glass plate negatives vertically as opposed to horse homily unless they get really large and I think I mentioned last week something around there's no real rule here but around 12 by 14 inches or so those plates that tend to be heavy they probably should be held flat but anything smaller can be housed upright just be sure the box is fully packed or there's some kind of a spacer in the box so that the objects don't move front and back and don't shift within the box because you are dealing with a glass support which is fragile and you want to protect it of course to the extent possible from breakage here is an example of a collection of very early glass plate negatives that was provided by one of the participants I'm not sure where this came from nor is it really all that important but it is unfortunately so typical of what you can find in attics and basements and institutions collections that they are simply unaware of this collection is quite remarkable because many of these negatives are very early on in fact likely to be collodion on glass as opposed to gelatin on glass so if you happen to find something like this in your institution well that would be absolutely wonderful and obviously high priority in terms of significance and value and risk and potential access as well because the images that are included on these negatives that actually are in relatively good condition are quite remarkable so you know first step here is to begin to understand what you have is that dry are they dry plates are they wet plates are they a combination thereof and of course remove them from the poor quality enclosure that cardboard box and begin to rehouse them into much better paper enclosures I've mentioned also last week or actually on Tuesday that with glass plate negatives you should be housed in paper enclosures as opposed to plastic enclosures and you're looking for paper enclosures either for flap enclosures or envelopes that test the photographic activity test if you're using an envelope be sure to slide the negative into the envelope with the emulsion side facing away from the seam and sometimes with glass plate negatives it's difficult to identify the emulsion side that's the side that has the gelatin in this case for collodion and silver image from the base side but if you just hold it in your hand with gloves again or just at the edges you'll see that the emulsion side usually is much glossier or shinier than the non-emulsion side we often refer to that as the base side is the non-emulsion or the glass side clearly this is just a great example of what has proven to be a fantastic collection just really extraordinary in the way that we often discover these materials and certainly these materials require rehousing here's you know proper housing of a glass plate negative often collections are looking at digitizing these negatives to make them available and accessible to researchers and scholars to the public for exhibition purposes and that's all fine it's really not the focus of this webinar but just be certain that in doing all this you're really focused also on the preservation of the original materials glass plate negatives again can be housed in good quality paper enclosures in acid free boxes housed vertically or flat marked glass to be sure that researchers scholars in retrieving these boxes are prepared for the weight that's likely to be included in such a box the boxes should not be huge they need to be portable so be careful of that as well don't purchase really large boxes to store glass plates and a glass plate negatives can be housed in room temperature conditions with relative humidity of 30 to 50 percent some of the problems when they are housed in poor quality environments is that you're going to begin to see fading and deterioration of the silver image you might in a fluctuating environment begin to see flaking of the emulsion as well and online again you know trying to share with you resources that you'll find interesting and helpful and at this URL you'll find the details of the rehousing project at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco which is really very well done rehousing a collection of recently discovered glass plate negatives from San Francisco and through this online blog you can follow the decision making that was made the kinds of materials that were used and the final results so you often find these kinds of examples and hopefully you'll find them useful as you begin to work through the needs of your collection and this is also from that same so you can see here the original negatives discovered in in wooden boxes and poor quality sleeves and then rehoused and they've actually also protected the original sleeves as well for the reason that I mentioned earlier that these it was determined that these sleeves include very important information now at the same time that you're dealing with glass plate negatives and a lot of this generic plan is not necessarily only sequential some of this work can be done simultaneously but you may also begin to look at your photographic albums and scrapbooks and these are wonderful materials and objects that chronicle different periods and and the lives of many spoken quite a bit about scrapbooks and albums and the importance of maintaining their context and not separating out less it's absolutely necessary the photograph from the images someone asked last Tuesday about I believe you're talking about these kinds of albums these Victorian albums that typically include cabinet cards so you're seeing here a cabinet card refers to the size of the photograph not the type of photograph and card to visit often at the back someone was talking about how they wanted to be able to read the back of these mounted supports which often include information on the photographer but we're uncertain how to safely remove them there's a little slit that you can barely see if at all in this image but how do you safely get these photographs out of the slit and that's where I was talking about taking a piece of folded mylar and slipping it in I wish I had a slide of that but into the into the slit so that one piece is on top of this photograph and the other piece of the mylar is on top of the photograph behind and then that gives you the slip to begin to carefully remove both of these photographs from this page without damaging the page or damaging the photograph you do want to be sure you put them back however because again it's the order that these photographs are found in an album that are so important here's a great album and boy do I wish I could spend a lot of time telling you about this one I think by now you all realize that I'm a huge Beatles fan and many years ago our program was presented with this album for treatment by at that time our two photograph conservation majors in their second year similar to where Heather is in her study now and I was thrilled I couldn't have been happier really it's a photographic album of black and white silver gelatin photographs of the Beatles you can see it's on that black album page you probably seen in your own institutions or in your own family with all kinds of inscriptions in a sort of a chalk many different attesos some had failed in many cases it's hard to tell from this pages were torn and repaired or photographs were moved throughout the album so there's a lot of wear and tear in history associated with this object and but it was determined that it's very much needed to remain as an album it's sort of chronicled it was assembled by we believe by a woman Pat Hodges who you see here with George she clearly loved George because of the 80s some photographs in the album I think 60 some perhaps if I remember correctly were photographs of George Harrison and it appears this photograph was at the front of the album we assume she assembled it and and it was determined that of course this should be retained as an object I don't have time to talk about the treatment I wish I could it was interesting it had a lot of pressure sensitive tapes that you can see here that began to fail and so we stabilize the album by removing the tapes and re-hinging photographs in appropriate places so that it could be handled so that it could be scanned and and duplicated for other researchers and scholars but it was returned as an album that of course with handling guidelines because these pages are still fragile but it was very much determined that this as an object must be retained and as you can imagine for me it was the culmination of all my passions really from the Beatles to education and training to photographic materials to these ethical dilemmas so it was really great and I hate it to return it but it's now safely back with its owner but you'll see you know a wide variety of albums in your collections here's one of our second year students at TESA examining a curative azeat album which I know many of you have spoken about in your homework questions as well so these are all albumen prints this is an album that was recovered following the Katrina disaster actually on the Mississippi Gulf Coast you can see it's in relatively good condition now but these are albumen prints and and she will eventually be reassembling them and a more traditional and a more recent album certainly here Silver, Gelatin, Black and White photographs adhered with photo corners onto these poor quality pages so what do you do in this situation I would advocate that you not remove photographs from these pages but leave them intact you may consider interleaving the pages with where that's necessary where that may protect photographs from abrasion or damage from adjacent pages in doing so you need to use a lightweight acid-free paper that's smooth and surface and has ideally passed the photographic activity test but be very careful about interleaving photographic albums because in some situations you can break the binding you start adding in all these pages and you may in fact cause the binding to be broken so you've got to look at the spine consider whether in fact you see damage it's associated with contact with adjacent pages whether you assume the photographic album is going to be handled or can you scan it carefully ideally using a book scanner you don't want to put this face down if it's still bound in any way but you need to just think about this there's not one solution to all these problems there are many problems that you will encounter with albums here's another example of a series again of Silver, Gelatin, Black and White prints with some mirroring which you can see we talked about silver mirroring as a deterioration problem you can see it's a little bit here in the dark areas certainly you can see it well here along the right edge of this photograph this may be caused if you were to close the book you can imagine that it is possible that this area here was adjacent to this poor quality paper so this paper may have created some silver degradation in the Silver, Gelatin, Black and White photograph but that's likely not to be progressive if you can house the album in a good quality box if you can protect it from handling handling really is your major concern because these pages are fragile photographs may not be well adhered to the pages but if you could box this minimize handling and store the the photograph in a stable environment it's likely that this deterioration will not continue to progress these photographs are overall adhered to the pages so removing them would be problematic and difficult needs to be done by a photograph conservator and in most situations I don't think it would be recommended and we've also talked about more modern you know this of course was the rage in the 1970s many of you probably have these in your families these magnetic albums and of course these are by the way some of you have also asked about SX70s and Polaroids so this is the SX70 a version of the Polaroid photograph these images are organic dyes and you can see how these pages have yellowed and deteriorated photographs are still very well adhered to these pages and there's really no reason at this point to separate them out the photographs are going to continue to deteriorate if they're not housed in a stable cool environment the inherent instability of Polaroid color Polaroid in this case these images and and it would be very difficult to remove them safely from the album so many of these magnetic albums probably can be retained you want to monitor their condition and and really your greatest challenge is when the photographs start falling out because the adhesive has failed and in that case you may need to simply rehouse them in good quality sleeves and try and document their order and capture all the information as best you can oh let's see I'm hoping you can all hear me I'm going to try and be louder but let us know certainly in one of these chat boxes if you're having trouble hearing it let me just mention number nine because I just have one slide for that and then I'm going to turn this over to Kristen for questions that may have emerged in this last series of images we talked um actually in the very first day the very first webinar at the beginning of May about early photographic processes daguerre types amber types and tin types we called these direct positive images and that was because in all three cases there is no negative the photographer took the light sensitive uh japan's iron plate to make a tin type or the light sensitive silver-plated copper for a daguerre type and placed that support immediately in the camera so these are one of a kind they're often hand colored they may be in decorative paper mats as you see with a tin type on your left or um in a miniature case particularly in the united states as you see with a daguerre type on your right here I just urge you as you go through your collections as you think about your preservation planning to see if you have these kinds of materials many of you will and to be sure that they're identified and that they're housed in some kind of protective enclosure and that you do what you can to minimize handling and certainly be careful about the exhibition of some of these materials perhaps you can exhibit sex and leaves depending on their condition okay Kristen before I get to number 10 but as I get to it I'll leave this slide up and you guys can see how um we always say that owners begin to look like their dogs I love this picture I don't even you know I found it online um and I just think you know there's this great online there's so many great online sites for images this one called look at me the sort of fun people post fun images and sometimes I go there for inspiration but um anyway Kristen let me turn this over to you and see what kinds of questions have come up I see how there's been answering them um but is there anything that I might be able to help with sure so um in those photo albums that have the black pages yeah so those tend to be acidic because I suppose you can't even test it with a ph pen because it's black right yeah they that's that's a great question yes for the most part they are acidic and so it raises this question I'm sure in many people's minds is then why don't we remove these photographs from these poor quality acidic pages but the reality is that acidity it's a problem to some extent certainly in the preservation of photographic materials but it's not the primary problem and um so if you can control the environment if you can minimize handling um it is not necessary to remove all these photographs from these acidic pages and you just lose so much in doing so because of the context and the order and the the um materials that are comprised in these photographic albums so it is true they are likely to be acidic you can't really test them and nor is it necessary the other challenge actually which is a bit beyond the scope of the question but I will um I wanted to mention that of course if these albums get wet that is a problem because the black pages sometimes bleed they're comprised of dies and pigments and so they can bleed onto adjacent photographs and whatnot so that's that's always a concern um but still um there's where disaster planning is so important to try and if you have these kinds of albums to be sure that they're protected in some way in boxes to try and mitigate against water related problems but they are acidic and um but you sort of weigh the pros and cons and in this case determine that these albums should be retained whether those pages are acidic or not okay and speaking of wet boxes um we've had a little conversation going um in the chat you know we've all seen the archival boxes and those are made out of you know some type of a paper product it's a cardboard product um that's archivally safe but if you have a humid environment or if there is a disaster um it was mentioned you know they can be they can buckle or they can um be damaged by moisture so why not store photographs in some type of a plastic container rather than a paper based container um and then we were discussing whether or not they should be you know if they could be clear or not clear but then I worry about light damage so just it's a sort of a big question but um and I you know I think if you use plastic it might retain moisture so yeah yeah when it comes to a box yeah you know this is why I love teaching um and and really teaching around the world because at every moment I am faced with questions and issues and challenges that I haven't really faced before um and there's the other benefits of course of a plastic enclosure in some parts of the world is that um where you have horrible insect problems and other kinds of issues these plastic enclosures can be very useful in this case as well so um I certainly have seen plastic boxes used and used successfully um in various institutions globally and I think you've really Kristen sort of articulated some of the pros and cons I would probably avoid a clear box because of the light related problems now again it depends on your institution maybe storage is always dark and it's really not an issue um but that's something that you might want to um be concerned about the other concern one might have and I just don't have a you know a yes or no answer to this is um can you control the environment in your institution or in the storage area if not is that plastic box locking in moisture in some way because it's not uh as porous as a paper enclosure if that's true then um perhaps uh you could punch a few holes in in that box to just allow for um moisture exchange so you know it's something to sort of think about in this case I would urge individuals perhaps to brainstorm with conservators to look at their options um some of you in your chat box may tell us what you're doing um I see someone writing about Tyvek which is also a material that does um breathe and so that's really a wonderful material that it's um it doesn't allow water to get through but it does breathe to a certain extent so there are different kinds of materials that are available and I think plastic boxes could be useful in some situations and it is very very true that in a disaster if these boxes doesn't matter what you have acid free or not get wet um they lose their stability and you have to be aware of that and so if you're dealing with um the water related emergency you've got to be sure that as you lift a box that it's supported underneath with something that's rigid like a like a wood or whatever because that entire box is likely to fall apart okay and then it came up the other day uh came up Tuesday about metal boxes because then what you know in a fire emergency then maybe the plastic could melt so then you think of maybe going to metal but if metal gets wet then that's a challenge yeah that's a challenge but I think you still have an interesting point of that that plastic and metal are not going to breathe yeah that's your go ahead sorry I'm sorry the disasters is a you know um maybe a lower percentage chance of that happening but daily moisture might be more common yeah I think exactly right you know this is all about prioritization and sort of thinking about what what are your trade-offs and um metal and plastic um may retain moisture and humidity and and perhaps in some situations certainly here's one thing um I would avoid housing acetate and nitrate films in plastic or paper containers because that deterioration is what we call autocatalytic that means it builds up on itself so you want those materials to breathe you want them to be housed in paper enclosures and paper boxes so you're not building up degradation products and you could make the similar argument with other photographic materials but it's not quite as significant so certainly there are many institutions where they're housing glass plate negatives and and paper materials in file drawers in acid-free papers or folders and then they're sort of stacked in the drawer in such a way they don't move as you open the drawer and that's a cost savings it also is efficient in terms of space so I think you can use metal you can use plastic um we often recommend paper-based materials but it's not always the right solution okay well I'll let you keep going and we'll get to more questions a little later okay great um yeah I'm looking to see how I'm doing on time so finally um the tenth part of the um preservation plan is going to be just redressing again issues of color collections and we've we've talked about color a bit um you know we're we're thinking about that it might be really nice to do a separate webinar on just color photography because there's just so much to deal with in these materials generically you're dealing with a dye image cyan magenta and yellow as you see here on a paper or resin coated paper support this is resin coated which means that this paper is coated with polyethylene on both the front and the back but these dyes fade at different rates in the dark and in the light and therefore um one needs to be aware of that and one needs to be working really towards cold storage for almost all color processes it becomes complex however because there's such a variety of kinds of color most color processes are what we characterize as chromogenic color this is true of many of the photographic prints that you're likely to have in your collections all color slides all color negatives as well are chromogenic these dye-based images based on the light sensitivity of silver halides dyes in a gelatin binder and all the problems associated with dye fading that we've talked about and as I mentioned this is true of all your color slides whether they're fugee chrome coda chrome ectochrome they are generically chromogenic color and yet there's many other kinds of color processes and these are dressed beautifully really in sylvie's book which will be published soon by the getty and i urge all of you who have 20th century color photographs to purchase this book because it's really um just a treasure of information on the variety of processes that one is likely to encounter from dye transfer to dye diffusion transfer to polaroid polacolor dye sublimation all these different processes all these different names and you can begin to distinguish one from another but it's really beyond the scope of this webinar but here what's important in terms of preservation planning is to recognize if you have color photography that these materials ideally need to go into cold storage to slow down their rate of deterioration and so i recommend again as we've mentioned before it's really wonderful online videos and information on the use of cold storage it's been published by the national park service and here you can get advice on how to package materials properly to protect them if they're in cold storage issues relating to access and use once you put a collection into low temperature storage you can't immediately access it you have to allow it to warm up so it's important to understand some of those issues as you move towards the possibility of constructing cold storage vaults or more likely using um frost free uh refrigerators and freezer units which are cheaper and more compact all of that is addressed in this document so in the end um you know we've talked a bit about needs assessment and the preservation plan and and that you need to be thinking about policies and procedures improving environmental conditions working closely obviously with experts who can help you and oh there it is um and just a couple of final thoughts on preservation planning um it is vital it can be very complex because you're dealing with so many different materials it requires an interdisciplinary team you know this is best done in your um best done in your institution working collaboration with curators and educators and individuals responsible for development conservators the director the board of trustees you know sort of all all these different constituents those who oversee volunteers you know working to carry out a preservation plan conservation expertise is essential of course we've talked about how you can get that and that plan must be communicated so people understand it and they understand the role that they play in preserving these collections for future generations and you must always be worked on must always focus on developing policies and procedures for your institution in regard to a disaster plan loan policies lighting um exhibition guidelines etc so you want to be developing these in collaboration with conservators and others who can help and being sure these plans are well communicated and again you know going back to what we've talked about they're sort of based on on value and significance on the format and type of the materials that you're dealing with their vulnerabilities future access needs um and how these materials are housed now so you can begin to prioritize and begin to develop these plans that are doable and provide you with confidence and sort of moving forward all of this um does require funding and support and so I want to spend a little bit of time talking about advocacy and fundraising because in the end that's important and essential and I've had the great um really opportunity to work around the world in the preservation of photographic heritage we have um work in the Middle East in Latin America uh in in Asia to a certain extent certainly in Europe I'm most excited about a project we're beginning now with a group of collaborators um working in Africa where there are no photographic conservators so we're focusing on sub-saharan Africa and um this is just a wonderful picture that I just truly love from Benin um where you can see these black and white silver gelatin photographs that are being examined and I hope um with our collaborators to be launching this project next year but we've certainly talked about photographic heritage as a touchstone and this is true around the world we've talked over the course of this webinar about the daguerreotype as you see here in the tin type these direct positive images and it's important to think about these materials and where research is being done I wanted to be sure that you knew that there's something called the daguerreotype research portal which is available online though right now it's down actually and hopefully we'll be back up soon it's an important research initiative that's being um undertaken with the Metropolitan Museum of Art the Church Eastman House the Museum of Fine Art in Boston looking at the work of Southworth and halls and beginning to understand these daguerreotypes how to document them how to um preserve them and we're learning a lot from this project that's certainly informing the preservation of daguerreotypes around the world we've talked about printed out processes from the salted paper print um as you see on the left to the albumen prints on the right both in good and and and perhaps a little bit more faded and deteriorated conditions uh the far right see Mike can you release that pointer for me again thank you um so here you can see that this this object is just a little bit more deteriorated but we've talked about printing out processes and and be aware and follow the work that's being done and and many of the resources that we've provided you with as well silver gelatin developing out photographs this is a great silver gelatin developed out photographs it's obviously been water damaged and is deteriorating um this is mold related damage that you see here it's stained as well and um but still you can see the image and it's still and you know it's not in great condition but it certainly can be uh preserved and and i mentioned Galen Weaver's work on uh silver gelatin uh fiber based materials in the booklet which is available to you which will begin to for those and many of you said in the polls that you have a lot of these materials especially so this will give you a lot more background on proper storage on handling um and on deterioration all these materials we find around the world as well as uh the platinum print which you see here in this case by Gertrich Kasebier there's some really significant work being done from the national starting with the National Gallery in Washington on the platinum process the collaborative effort that's being led by them which involves individuals working around the world to better understand this process how it's made how it's deteriorated what we can do to preserve it and again this collaborative global effort to understand these materials is critical as we work to preserve our collections we've talked a bit about color photography there's much more to be said certainly but i think we've covered some of the essential material and we've referred to the graphics atlas as a great resource for beginning to distinguish one process from another both in terms of color photographic and photomechanical processes as well we've talked about cellulose nitrate film and its deterioration problems many of you have these uh negatives in your collection it's been an awful lot of research that's been done by a variety of organizations and institutions really around the world to better understand the preservation of acetate uh and cellulose nitrate and cellulose acetate as you see here as well the image permanence institute has done some significant work funded by many federal agencies and others including the enter W. Mellon foundation the national endowment for the humanities institute from museum and library services and others that have really allowed us to understand how these materials deteriorate and what we can do in our institutions to protect them protect our collections from long-term degradation understanding these issues is certainly key and recognizing the challenges that we're all facing is also important we are looking for practical solutions and we tried to focus webinar where possible on practical outcomes um but we're dealing with a volatile global economy with photographic materials around the world again i'm most excited about the fact that you all are tuning in from so many parts of the world with so many fantastic collections that really merit our attention the fragility of photographic materials affect the silver images will fade upon exposure to fluctuating environmental conditions that some of these materials are inherently unstable like cellulose nitrate and color dye-based materials that they can be very fragile such as scrapbooks and albums these are things that we need to pay attention to and do whatever we can to preserve them and to balance the need to preserve them against the need for them to be accessible we know that these collections are doing no one any good by being locked away in cold storage forever that's not our goal our goal is to preserve them for the longest period of time but to make them accessible and available through digital copies through surrogates through proper housing um through careful handling practices whatever that might be these are collective responsibilities and hopefully we've began to address these challenges during the webinar and we've talked a bit about the need to articulate value and in your homework we've asked all of you to sort of think about these issues and to um as you began to identify the needs of your collections to always be thinking about their significance because you need to be well positioned to advocate for those materials by sharing with others why they're important why are they valuable why must they be preserved for future generations so articulating value is a challenge not too long ago i worked with a number of colleagues really um around the world and presented a paper in new zealand at a international conference on photograph preservation about our work around the world and i just wanted to share this map with you as another resource what we decided to do is to begin to identify the various photographic preservation projects educational projects research projects outreach advocacy projects that are going on around the world and so there's this google map and the the resources here you can go online and take a look at it um as you click on a different markers information will emerge about sort of what's going on at that site here's an example of the work that we're doing in the middle east so as you click on the the dot you see here the marker this comes up i think i have another screenshot let's see here it is in more detail so this is the work that we're doing i'm going to show you some images from this shortly but in lebanon with the arab image foundation collaboration as you can see here and we list participants we list the goals we list the funders the idea is that you all can use this map as well not only to begin to identify projects and let me back up by saying the projects identified on this map are collaborative and they must include more than one country so we're focused on projects around the world that are collaborative that engage multiple countries ideally more than two but at least two in their goals and purposes and i think you may find this useful as well as a resource because it will give you a sense of sort of what's going on around the world who's involved if you want to get engaged here's the project i mentioned earlier on the research that's being done on the platinum and palladium processes that's been led by our colleagues at the national gallery in washington but includes many many collaborators only some of what you see here the other useful part of the this map i believe that gives you a sense of who's funding these projects so as you're looking for support for your projects you might find this useful we you know had many conclusions really in sort of doing this work and it's continuing the map continues to grow but certainly educational projects dominate around the world as they should because it's all about training and another reason i've been most interested in this webinar to see if this is an effective method i'm anxious to hear your thoughts on this for fundamental sort of rudimentary information on preservation certainly i would prefer to have you all in an auditorium so i could see you and and interact with you live but that's not always possible and we certainly found that in looking around the world there are many many educational projects that are really quite wonderful and significant in their impact there are many projects that have yet to be charted on the map and it's true that as organizations as government agencies as a european union for example invest in preservation conservation you see much more research and collaborative research and training being done and yet sadly their entire regions and continents around the world that are in need of attention which is why certainly we are focusing some of our efforts now in africa this is let me show you this and then i'll take a break for some questions but not too long a break because i want to talk a little bit more about funding but i've mentioned on a couple of occasions our work in the middle east with the arab image foundation you can find out more about that on the map but just to show you some wonderful pictures from these collections in bay root lebanon and we've been working really with countries throughout the middle east these markers here are just representatives of the different institutions that have been involved in the education and training and this is a project that is focused on building awareness about the preservation of photographic materials through education and training we've now taught in a number of countries and this work continues it's really been quite remarkable i believe in its impact and really inspirational for those of us who have had a chance to participate in working with these fantastic collections in the middle east so you'll find more about that and certainly if you google meppy the middle east photographic preservation initiative it will take you to our website and where there's actually information posted there as well and those who are from arabic countries we have some information that's actually posted on preservation of photographs in arabic so perhaps that will be useful to you as well in all of these projects and we've been involved in many of them um collaboration is really essential and i believe it's true within an institution within a certainly within a state within a country um and as we work in collaboration we will be better positioned to preserve this photographic heritage i'm not going to get in um to sort of a lot of discussion on collaboration because it's beyond the scope certainly of our webinar but i just put this one image up um just to sort of begin to summarize some of the issues with collaboration and it's interesting to note that strong collaborative projects you don't start with the funding you begin to really understand what you're trying to do um and then you seek out the funding and so in your own institution as you begin to develop your short and long-term plans don't worry immediately about the funding begin to really think about what you're trying to achieve and why and why this is so important and then begin to think about where you might be able to secure support if it's needed externally to uh move forward on some of these projects with that note one final um section before i break again for questions and then um chris now come back and and finish up on on fundraising there is a lot of information out there on fundraising and in fact um heritage preservation will host a whole another webinar series in september i believe on fundraising for collections care and preservation and so i hope many of you will sign up for that but i wanted to draw your attention to this really wonderful compilation almost a booklet by maria gonzalez we commissioned her actually to do this work she has her masters in library science and um has done significant work in preservation of library materials and as part of that project part of the google map really um we commissioned maria to pull together uh information on funding for photographic preservations and issue photographic preservation and issues relating to collaboration our thinking was you know we can talk about all this work being done around the world but we want to inspire more work and we don't want people to say oh there's no money there's no way to raise money for this so maria has prepared this most amazing document which is available online and the um the resource will be available to you um certainly through the connecting to uh collection's website here's the table of contents and you can see what i love about the work that she's done which is very different from some of the other publications that you'll find on funding all of which will be very useful to you there's no doubt about this this is really tailored to photographic materials and she begins by talking about things that we've discussed preservation priorities um how to to think about sustainability how to think about uh value and significance what's going on around the world how you can you connect your work to global initiatives and issues that might resonate with funders and um and so i hope that you will take a look at this and um read it very carefully and think about the issues that maria addresses in the many many links that she includes throughout the document um talking again about the work of unesco about uh it is very global in its focus but it's very useful to those um certainly in the united states and our colleagues around the world um so it's available i won't talk about it in enormous detail but i think it's a great resource for you with general resources as you can see here um you know looking more broadly at where you might go for support and then something that's you know you're probably more used to seeing which is just a list of here are some of the organizations and institutions that fund art and culture that may support preservation that may have an interest in photographic materials with all the websites and you then can begin to uh review this and see what makes sense you have to understand the mission and goals of these institutions not all the institutions on this list these potential funders will support your projects and you want to start small and start locally but i think you'll find this to be most useful and i'm grateful to maria for her excellent work and doing all this this then leads us and christin maybe um i should just keep going forward with um a little bit more in fundraising what do you think i think that's a great idea okay so this leads us you know with maria's work as a backdrop and hopefully this is all connecting in your mind the homework has allowed you to sort of think about what are your priorities um what do you want to do and now you're starting to think about how can i collaborate how can i connect with individuals my institution or how better yet i wish i had you all in one room um how can i how can you all connect to each other there are many of you online today who can help others and um and that's important regionally um certainly that you've been making connections so continue to do that continue to collaborate and as you begin to do that think about case statements think about what you're trying to achieve in your institution identify short and long-term demonstration projects with your photographic collections that will help you to begin to demonstrate to others what needs to be done to preserve these materials so identify projects that might be small or large that vary in cost it may be simply rehousing a collection of glass plate negatives to make them available to researchers and scholars but you've got to be sure that people understand why you're doing it why um what the results will be and that you publicize that work so you want to start thinking about this um this will lead you to to funding and support we hope and i i want to be sure you're also aware of this wonderful document that was prepared by heritage preservation um sort of resulting from an updated following the heritage health index it is filled with great suggestions on how to generate support for collections care how to create as it says here new audiences um how to engage individuals in the work that you're doing and in fact this whole subject of public outreach and advocacy is so key to the preservation of photographic collections is also a subject i love um as is true with fundraising but um there'll be a whole another series of webinars in the fall posted by heritage preservation and learning times um that focus on public average and you want to be sure to to as you think about your photographic collection think about how can you engage the public in the preservation of these materials they relate obviously to photographs and they want to see them preserved um for their own benefit for the benefit of others i wanted to also mention here this is our own heather who's online um she's been very active in um thinking about how we can extend our reach in photographic preservation and um and looking at new technologies and social media for doing so and um we hope that she'll be involved in one of the webinars in the fall for sure and this is just a snapshot of part of a poster that she did for that same conference in new zealand and um i had not asked um we have not really made this available yet but we can talk about how to do so it probably was made available um to wider audiences as part of the webinar in the fall but um heather and others have really thought about how can we use social media and new technologies to extend our reach and to engage others in the work that we're doing so i wanted to be sure to mention that particularly since she's online today and her work has really been significant sample case statements things to think about you know elevator speeches how are you going to get people interested in what you're doing these are just a few you know we understand our images the world through our images but they're at risk of being lost um they expand our understanding of the world we're facing near immediate catastrophic loss of our early 20th century negative collections why because of the deterioration of salis acetate and salis nitrate film so thinking about um you know what is it how are you going to get people's attention you have to be careful however um that you don't paint a crisis people do not want to give necessarily i mean certainly in a disaster situation they're very engaged in giving and helping but in general they may not want to give to an institution where you're just saying you know this guy is falling in photographs are all deteriorated we have no idea where to start you know we need your support no they want to give to uh institutions and individuals that have really thought about their issues can prepare and present a plan that seems doable um and that they can engage with they understand why it's significant they understand why these objects need to be preserved so these case statements thinking about you know what are you going to do what's the link um are important and you can think about that as you begin to identify the kinds of projects that you're working on consider fundraising from a multitude of sources federal agencies humanities organizations and and also in terms of state humanities arts organizations and arts organizations for those of you who are in the united states if you go to their guidelines you may not see preservation or conservation listed but that doesn't mean that they won't support those projects look at what they support which is most likely education and outrage and think of how preservation can connect to that so you need to be creative and innovative in your thinking cultural tourism foundations etc i don't need to read you the slide but it just shows you there's a variety of sources that are out there and you want to again start locally maybe with small family community-based foundations that really can connect to your institution and as you begin to build success as you begin to cultivate individual donors and many of you have done that based on that poll um that will create more opportunities for you because success creates more success be sure that you do your research as you identify as you use maria's document and think about your projects and identify resources you know do the research that's required to understand who these potential donors are what they give to what their mission and goals are who have they awarded grants to in the past what are the amounts of these grants you might be able to get copies in some cases understand the the goals why they give and this is true for donors too individual donors what is it that connects them potentially to your collection be sure you understand how these applications are going to be reviewed what the guidelines are and if you can connect with an individual who might be able to provide you with more information do so you know fundraising is all about advocacy and you must be an advocate for that collection um and so don't hesitate to reach out and seek advice and support and and all of you as well in this really wonderful community that Heritage Preservation has created through this website through this work that's supported by the imls that's your community use that to help you know think about strategies for funding that what has worked and what hasn't how have institutions engaged the public identified individual donors worked with foundations or corporations it's all about building relationships really and whether it's relationships with a foundation or corporation an agency an individual program officer and it's also about sharing your passion and clearly all of you are passionate or you wouldn't be tuning in to these webinars which I worry at times are just deadly dull because all you're seeing is these images hearing me speak and the chat room but hopefully engaging enough but clearly you're passionate to have stayed on and to have stayed with us so that's what you want to share why are you involved in what you're doing why do you feel what you're doing is so important and people connect to that and particularly if they feel that you've thought about the issues that you have a plan that it makes sense that it's been well researched this is all really important and also individuals foundations corporations federal agencies they want to invest in education awareness and outreach and so you need to connect your work to that it's not just about taking a collection and putting into cold storage and ensuring its long-term preservation yes that's important but so is making that collection available and accessible to young children to future generations to local communities so be sure that you're speaking about those issues and thinking about those thinking about how you can use new technologies and online opportunities to share your collection I've seen so many great examples recently of websites where every week they post historic photographs from their collections or from their communities and people start logging on where they get they automatically get a connection which perhaps through Facebook or another another link that sort of alerts them to the fact that something new has been posted it keeps people engaged and interested it allows you to sort of share your collections you may use it to post collections that are in need of preservation but again be sure in doing so that you outline a plan that you understand what needs to be done so it doesn't look like you're just you know saying we've got so many problems here we don't know how to deal with it so and of course promoting stewardship is something that you're all doing and doing so well so these are just some you know basic thoughts last night I had I had a lot more here but I was I was worried about the time and I want to leave ample time for some more Q&A that might relate to really anything that we've talked about over the last five sessions but a couple other points here is you do need to understand if you're going to corporations and some corporations particularly local corporations may be most helpful to you in preserving some of these preserving these collections and some of these demonstration projects but understand what a corporation is thinking about they are looking for the most part for name recognition something they can sponsor they want that visibility they want to connect to communities they want to demonstrate that what they're doing is important and useful and clearly that's always true with conservation of preservation of photographic materials so you've got to be thinking you know how can I connect to that corporation and ensure that they are credited for the work that they're doing in a visible way that the community can respond to in comparison when you're fundraising with foundations they may not be as interested in name recognition they're more committed to their mission what they're about what they're trying to achieve and how can you help realize that mission and donors individual donors can be one or the other some are very interested in recognition and naming something after their family for example and others want to remain completely anonymous they certainly want to be thanked though in some way whether it's publicly or privately and that as we all know is really the key to success as my Nana would say and you saw a picture of Nana Nana was the one with the hat and the purse Nana was the one who told me that every thank you know it should be delivered within four days of the receipt of the gift and I think had some important for fundraising as well it's all about donor cultivation it's all about engaging donors in the work that you're doing and involving them in one way or another so identifying and this is true for individuals in this particular slide but you know who are those prospects who are the individuals in your community or in your institution or researchers who use your collection or connected in some way who might be interested in what you're doing and you can talk to them and update them and and get them involved and seek out their opinion talk to them about you know I'm thinking about these three projects but not entirely sure which one to start first what do you think so you develop that relationship you see here this is obviously a cycle and then you begin to ask for support and of course you acknowledge by thanking them nurturing that relationship keeping them involved giving them updates telling them what's happened you know we've just rehoused this entire collection or because of your help we've been able to exhibit this photographic album whatever that might be and then of course this begins to spiral and move very quickly and you can begin to develop more success and the success is grounded on your knowledge of preservation and working in collaboration with your donors with your institution and with experts in the field certainly finally it's important to just abide by grant writing rules and there's so many publications here and this will be detailed I'm sure in following webinars but some of this is just common sense but I wanted to particularly draw your attention to this this point articulating measurable goals this is all about again developing projects that can be measured that you can sort of evaluate their success evaluation is really key in fundraising now and so you want to be able to demonstrate that this project has been successful and presenting a clear well-researched budget is also important so if you need to rehouse a collection of photographic paper prints using polyester sleeves compare prices and and be able to say you know it's going to cost this for the materials and that's based on this kind of research so individuals believe that they're really donating to to institutions that are care deeply about spending their money wisely but a lot of this is is common sense so I think I do have concluding remarks Kristen as you've seen but why don't I open this up for a little bit of Q&A I just need to be sure I have five minutes or so at the end okay great I'm gonna I'm gonna pull these over then now and then while moving away for your your grand finale that's just the link to the homework assignment and actually the homework assignment is our course evaluation so even if you aren't pursuing a certificate we would really appreciate it if you would go to this link and and complete the course evaluation it really helps us and helps us tell IMLS why this series was important to you and if you have any suggestions to us it helps us make improvements for our next series which will start at fault and then I'm gonna I'm gonna drag over our place where we can put if you're watching with folks today but Debbie we had several questions about labeling and so just briefly I know Heather's been handling a lot of it but if you were housing photographs or even negatives in some sort of enclosure like a sleeve a mylar sleeve or a plastic or a paper sleeve you know what would be your ideal for labeling I mean you we're talking about using soft graphite pencil for labeling the backs of prints I mean would you use labels at all would you use any kind of a Sharpie marker at all yeah I think I would you know and I'm glad you this is an important topic that we didn't get into we probably should have we still need more time but I would say that a soft pencil is probably the best that yeah I think you really do want to label your photographs for security reasons for information informational purposes many institutions are necessary that they label the materials but it needs to be done not with a Sharpie pencil but or Sharpie but rather a soft pencil and you have to be careful in doing so particularly with unmounted photographs in that what I would recommend is that the photograph be placed face down on a piece of mat board that has some soft you know has some resilience and then you can carefully write on the back if you put too much pressure with a hard pencil you will actually see that writing through the front of a glossy silver gelatin or even unmounted albumen print so use judgment be careful if you can label the enclosure that may be the better option but there are many institutions where labeling is necessary or you know what do you do when you have photographs in plastic sleeves you can in that case I suppose use a Sharpie but I'm hesitant to recommend that but the reality is it it may be your only option and I guess I would prefer to use pencil on the back of the photograph I don't know what Heather has said well I guess the Sharpie or some other type of labeling for a sort of a Mylar sleeve yeah I guess the concern is any kind of marker that you might use might have some offgassing but then if you use a label even a foil back archival label and it comes off of that at the time then you've lost the information so what about labeling things that are in sleeves and then Robin brought up a good point that sometimes contact sheets or negatives would you did use some sort of a grease pencil or China marker yeah I mean I think all of those possibilities are fine I would prefer this is just my own again you know what you all are you're getting my recommendations so it may be important in this case to do some more research and see what other photograph conservators might recommend in this case but I personally would avoid labels only because I've just seen too many institutions where they failed and then all that information has been lost there are also random situations where it adhesive from labels will actually transfer believe it or not through enclosures particularly even plastic and cause problems down the line so I think it is preferable to mark the enclosures to mark the object using a pencil depending on the object and to avoid some of those foil based labels that were so popular and probably are still available readily through supply companies they aren't terrible however and certainly the other big thing with the storage and labeling all these issues is don't redo something you've just done recently you know look to see what's most important and and even if these labeling labels are not ideal they're probably not terrible and they're not going to create horrible problems for you going forward okay just and then just sort of going back to some of your earlier presentations about photo ID you know we talked a lot about the graphic atlas and how useful it's a very useful website to see examples of different types of photography and hopefully you know make comparisons to what you have there's not any place where you can upload images can you and have help in identifying you know what that's a great idea I know just make some create some work for the image permanence institute right yeah um you know it could be a wonderful resource really and in some situations it's hard to identify a process through an entirely just through a digital image but not in all situations and you can sometimes distinguish an album and print from um a silver gelatin printing out paper by looking at the whites of the highlights I don't know of any um source for doing that it would be something certainly to pursue um I I had to say this but um certainly if some of you have images and you're just curious you can I suppose you can forward them to me I could take a look at them but I I can't be doing that forever but I'm certainly help you know willing to help where I can okay I think that that um but I do think you know here's where it's so important to bring in experts to find photographic conservators in your region who can help you with this because sometimes what you just need is someone to sit down you know I've tried to do what I can online but it's of of course much more effective if you can sit down and say here's an album and print this is what you're looking for this is how you distinguish it and I want to say also that there are many wonderful workshops that are being offered by regional conservation centers and private individuals from the Image Permanence Institute to the Conservation Center to the Northeast Document Conservation Center to the Balboa our Conservation Center to Gowan Weaver I mean these individuals that we've mentioned as resources and places are often offering excellent process identification workshops and so you know seek these out because sometimes what you need is just looking over your shoulder saying see this is what you're looking for and then it becomes much clearer that's great and we do our best to is to keep on top of what kind of online training and workshops are happening with collections care and put them on the calendar on the Connecting to Collections website and if you are personally involved in any any efforts like that always let us know we'll be happy to put it up on on the calendar so I mean this this Recess website can become something that's very useful to all of you because sometimes it's hard to keep track of all the educational opportunities but there are many and we're just fortunate to have this one free of charge they aren't necessarily all free of charge but they are often priced accordingly recognizing you know what what institutions can afford and it's a wonderful investment in your own education and in the preservation of your collections. Thanks and yeah we're constantly updating it and are open to suggestions so it's really for it's a community for a reason so do always keep in touch and let us know how we can help you. So I guess one last labeling question and that was those blue pencils often seen in archival supplies you know I see that I see that note here from Connie I don't know about those I just don't know much about them yeah in my experience they're they're pretty faint and I'm afraid you would might one might be tempted to press down on them yeah I mean the pressure is a concern I guess I would just urge all the got many people online who probably have experience with these and maybe you can serve I just don't have enough experience to comment on them necessarily but perhaps someone else who's in the community online can respond in terms of your own experiences. And I don't know how much they're reversible I mean that's one of the reasons there are several reasons using just a number two graphite pencil is recommended and one is that it can be removed yeah especially if you've if you just do very very light pressure. Yeah and I would say I have I have not used these blue pencils so again I can't comment with with significant authority but they are probably not very reversible I mean it's very hard once you add a pigment to whatever that substrate kind of waxes substrate to remove it and and so that that would be an issue yeah and also I would want to be sure although I'm imagining it's certainly true because you're someone is saying these are available through a conservation supply company but they've looked at this but you want to be certainly don't bleed because in the event of moisture or a disaster you want to avoid any kind of materials to the best that you can and of course you can't always do that because you inherited these collections with all kinds of inscriptions which is often why they're so fantastic but you want to try to certainly avoid adding inscriptions that might bleed upon exposure to moisture okay it looks like I mean some people thank you all for writing in you know it's hard for me to follow this chat but I can do it now you know are talking about how they use lead graphite pencils or soft pencils and which are lead graphite which I think is really your best bet okay the but I do see let me just say one of the things christians is coming in and it's true pencils these soft pencils will not necessarily work well on resin coated papers you do have to find another because remember the resin coated papers are paper that's coated on the back with polyethylene so it's hard sometimes a soft pencil will work but not always yeah and then someone was just asking about cased objects obviously you don't want to write on those yeah yeah don't I mean closure labor yeah and where you can label the enclosures and certainly with cased objects you should be able to do that because you don't have hundreds of thousands of cased objects so there is a great example of where you want to label the enclosure and if you if you putting these into decorative folding boxes of some sort um you know perhaps take a thumbnail shot of the image put that on the outside so you don't have to open the box all the time to see what's inside and that can protect the the cased objects from additional handling looks like there's a lot of good comments here on these various pencils so you know yeah yeah and I think I mean usually the conservation supply catalogs are very they do provide a lot of information and I think their customer service is usually very good yep so if it doesn't say it's specifically developed for photographs um it's always important to check yeah Eric had a good point about the blue pencils actually being developed for purpose so yeah you do need to understand as you look at these materials what what their goals are and and and also again you know conservators are happy to help and provide advice and so these kinds of questions usually you can find an answer for it by reaching out okay um let's see I just said we just have a few seconds so um I guess we had a few questions about cold storage and you know if you had to prior to if you had color photographs or negatives and you wanted to put it into cold storage um but you are worried about the color deteriorating rapidly um and wanted to scan them what would be a you know what would be your priority and I think in the chat we sort of help that person by saying you know try to do some digitization as you're able but um but prioritize maybe getting them into yeah cold storage your goal should be if you you know if you can begin to you in some many institutions are going to have to raise money for cold storage so you might not be able to move things immediately into cold storage but you want to try and get those collections into cool or cold storage as soon as possible you can begin digitizing certainly at any point but digitization is really for access to make those materials available to others and cold storage is for preservation and so that's going to be your focus what can you do to preserve this collection for future generations and then how can I in doing so make this collection available so it can be used by future generations for research or whatever it might be so it is you know this is where this is where it becomes a challenge but also a great opportunity to really begin to balance these issues and decide where where can you start and of course the other thing is sometimes you will start where you can find the funding you'll have a plan in your mind of what you want to do and someone will say you know I would love to help you with cold storage and help to purchase a frost free refrigerator and that's on your plan so you might go forward and do that immediately and even with a cold I mean I'm sorry a small collection I was under the impression from the national park service document that even a home grade refrigerator or freezer yeah home grade freezer is possible and frost free refrigerator is also possible but you just have to follow the guidelines and obviously this is dedicated to photographic materials and not used in combination with other things that I have seen as well but yeah I mean there are this is what I like about the national park service site is there's some great recommendations there that are transferable and that are cost effective it's not only a cold storage fault and when we were in Abu Dhabi not too long ago they had a whole series of frost free refrigerators that they were using for the storage of their collections and you certainly see that in institutions as well yeah and that website also has video so it shows you how to wrap things correctly talks about how long you need to bring it back to a different temperature once you remove it so it really I promise you it will answer 99.9% of your questions yeah it was very very well done yeah so we should maybe Kristen I should go back finish up these slides yeah let me let you I can stay on a little bit longer but then we can sort of finish up with a few images that's not okay great so we're winding down we only have what looks like three or four minutes left and I just wanted to summarize for all of you a couple of key points that hopefully we've addressed and have been helpful to you and the importance of course of promoting careful handling and collection access in your institution always work to secure your collections against emergencies we didn't talk a lot about disaster planning but disaster planning is key you know you can invest all this money into these storage units and then have a major disaster so be sure that you are prepared for local and larger emergencies and disasters do what you can to empower your staff and volunteers you all can't do this on your own there's an awful lot of work to be done but you certainly again can excite others and get people involved and use volunteers where they can be helpful and and certainly seek expertise and we've talked about the importance of engaging conservators and others and building collaborative teams this is all important in the preservation of these collections we know certainly that preservation connects generations here's my grandma who I showed you I think in the very first like anyway here's my grandma looking at her album and the photographs are just so fantastic in the way that they do connect all of us and we've seen it for those the United States has been watching the horrible stories from more Oklahoma and people going back to their homes to find photographic materials and albums and whatnot I mean these are materials that connect us and so I urge you to share your passion and engage others in your work so that we can serve these memories together collaborating with others is always key and we've talked a bit about that today and using this community and that you all should continue to find ways to pursue learning to review this website which I think is a lot of great information with great thanks to Kristen and Jenny and Heritage Preservation to Greta and Heather as well who helped to develop these resources use these because I think they'll help you and bring you to other sources that will be equally helpful always think in your mind about prioritization how to prioritize your efforts how to think about the preservation of these materials are so magnificent quite beautiful and share your vision and be vigilant don't give up don't don't worry if there's not funding there's things you can do with and without support keep demonstrating progress keep that short and long-term plan in your mind and you will make progress so craft those short and long-term plans that we've been referring to throughout the homework and use them develop them or find them keep them brief and talk to others photographic preservation is essential across the universe and it's just been so delightful to have so many of you engaged in this conversation from Guatemala to Belize to Bogota Columbia to Scandinavia and Pakistan I mean throughout the United States of Canada Mexico it's really been remarkable and so I end with two great images and I'm sure that you all will continue to do this work eight days a week and here of course is Paul with a camera and yet again so I thank you for your attention for your enthusiasm for the good work you've done on the homework for your many questions and answers and I'll turn this back over to Kristen but also want to thank Kristen, Jenny, Heather, Greta and Mike for all the work that they've done to make this seem so seamless and thank you for your attention. Thank you Debbie we really appreciate your help and I hope all of you appreciate that you've gotten great five great webinars from really one of the leading teachers of photo conservation in the country and it's not the world so I really appreciate Debbie's help today and we couldn't have done it without Greta and Heather helping in the Q&A so thank you for your great conversation there and again keep checking that course page we'll keep making sure we get the links on it all the homework assignments will be there and you've got one week now to get all those homeworks in I see a lot has come in already so thanks everyone and thanks again to Mike and Jenny for their behind the scenes support and we will let you go with that and look for emails from us in the coming weeks thanks everyone thank you all


What if you're afraid of solitary confinement? Go within. Meditate. Adramas. Meditate. Like the people that have remained sane while they've gone through extended periods of solitary confinement are the ones that meditated from what I've seen, from the political activists that I've followed, the people who've been persecuted, right? Meditate. Meditated, meditation is solitary until it's not, right?