Interdisciplinary Planning for Energy-Efficient Cold Storage

FAIN: PF-50350-13

Historical Society of Minnesota (St. Paul, MN 55102-1903)
Shengyin Xu (Project Director: December 2012 to January 2015)

An interdisciplinary study of energy-efficient cold storage options for film, magnetic media, and microfilm collections related to the history of Minnesota.

The Minnesota Historical Society requests $40,000 to conduct an interdisciplinary study of energy-efficient cold storage options for select collections in the Society's headquarters building, the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul, MN. The levels currently recommended by the International Standards Organization (ISO) for film materials -- photographs and slides, film, microfilm, video and audiotape -- range from 36F to 70F and 20-50% relative humidity. Presently, the History Center maintains levels at 62??F and 36% relative humidity, which while standard for general collections, are not ideal for all film media. Using a single protocol for all collections also produces excessive energy loads. The planning grant would be used to thoroughly investigate the feasibility of and plan for a cold-storage area envisioned as a separate vault within the larger storage area, both to attain optimum environmental conditions for audio-visual collections and to reduce energy consumption.