Burke Museum Environmental Monitoring Program

FAIN: PG-50799-10

Burke Museum Association (Seattle, WA 98195-3010)
Robin K. Wright (Project Director: May 2009 to October 2011)

Funding supports the purchase of 11 environmental monitors and climate analysis software to evaluate the stability of 41,451 objects in the museum's ethnographic collections which focus on North and South America, Oceania, and East and Southeast Asia. Additionally, a training workshop for the museum's staff in the installation and operation of the monitors and data retrieval and analysis will be conducted by an environmental preservation consultant.

The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, located at the University of Washington in Seattle is the leading natural history and anthropology museum in the Pacific Northwest. This grant will support the purchase of data loggers and software needed to develop a comprehensive environmental monitoring program for the ethnology collections storage areas and for permanent and temporary galleries of the Burke Museum. This grant will also fund training for ethnology staff in the proper installation, operation, retrieval and analysis of data obtained. The Museum seeks to replace outdated hygrothermographs with state of the art preservation environment monitors (PEM2) from the Image Permanence Institute (IPI). Improving environmental conditions for the Burke Museum's ethnology collections is a critical priority and will fulfill recommendations made by conservators Barbara Roberts and Catharine Hawks in a 1992 General Conservation Assessment.