Environmental Monitoring Equipment for the Archival Collections of the Macalester College DeWitt Wallace Library

FAIN: PG-50854-10

Macalester College (St. Paul, MN 55105-1899)
Ellen Holt-Werle (Project Director: May 2009 to August 2013)

Funding supports the purchase of environmental monitoring equipment and supplies to preserve an archive and rare book collection including 300 linear feet of records and publications, 27,000 photographs, 1,500 audiovisual recordings, and 1,300 film reels documenting campus life and the culture of the greater Twin Cities area.

Macalester College's DeWitt Wallace Library proposes to purchase dataloggers and a visible and UV light meter for the college's archives. Acquiring these items would allow for development of a systematic environmental monitoring program for the area where archival collections are stored, contributing to the Library's goals of improving storage conditions and better preserving the Archives collections. The Archives has done some very basic tracking of temperature and relative humidity, but purchasing dataloggers and a light meter and establishing a regular monitoring program were recommendations which came out of a 2008 NEH Preservation Assistance Grant-funded Preservation Assessment Survey, and which are a priority now written into the draft of the Archive's Long-Range Preservation Plan.