From Gray Areas to Green Areas:
Developing Sustainable Practices in Preservation Environments
go to symposium web-page

An interesting - and increasingly pertinent - perspective on preservation and sustainability. Arising from a symposium organised by the Kilgarlin Center for Preservation of the Cultural Record at the University of Texas, Austin, papers that were presented are now available online.

From the introduction to the symposium proceedings:

"A fundamental assumption made in the preservation community is that achieving the right balance of temperature and relative humidity is the best strategy to prolong the life of collection materials. The chemistry behind that statement may be quite accurate, but it requires that we balance more than just degrees and percentages. If our tightly controlled HVAC systems contribute to global warming, do we come out ahead? Does it make sense to apply these standards to every climate and economy? [...]"

These are questions which we dismiss at our own peril.

Link from Conservation DistList.
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