Local History/Genealogy Department Environmental Assessment Project

FAIN: PG-51111-11

Onondaga County Public Library (Syracuse, NY 13202-2009)
Barbara E. Scheibel (Project Director: May 2010 to November 2012)

An environmental study of the library's historical collections storage area. Materials date from the 1700s to the present and include over 43,000 reference volumes, 160 maps, 3,000 photographs, and numerous manuscripts, scrapbooks, and newspapers documenting the history of Syracuse and the New York, Pennsylvania, and New England area more generally. Included are original letters from William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, William Seward, Lucretia Mott, and Frederick Douglass.

The Central Library of the Onondaga County Public Library has been monitoring the temperature and relative humidity levels throughout the building using PEM2 dataloggers and Climate Control software for over one year. The data recovered from these dataloggers has revealed unacceptable variations in the temperature and relative humidity levels in the compact reference room in the Local History/Genealogy Department. This room houses the library's oldest and most valuable collections. This room was designed with its own HVAC system to ensure that this collection be at constant, optimal conditions of temperature and relative humidity for storing books. The data gathered over the past year has shown that this HVAC system is not working properly. If funded this grant would enable the library to hire an engineering firm to study the system and make recommendations to fix the HVAC problems and ensure optimal environmental conditions for LH/G compact reference room.

Associated Products