[Nhcoll-l] [EXT] how to clean birds nests ?

[René Corado]

Hi Benoit,

We have a collection of ~20,000 nests. We never dust or vacuum any nests, I won’t recommend it. I placed every individual nest in plastic boxes or sealed them in plastic bags before I put them into cabinets. When I arrived at the museum 37 years ago, several thousand nests were wrapped individually in newspaper and storage in cardboard boxes, the newspaper protected them from the dust until I put them in plastic and into the cabinets.

Best regards,
René Corado

On Sep 14, 2022, at 6:34 AM, Valerie Tomlinson <VTomlinson at nature.ca> wrote:


Hi Benoit,
My last work place had several projects on dust, although it wasn’t a Natural History museum. In one project they dusted everything in the store. It was one of the smaller stores, but it still took over a year to complete. If you dust everything in your collection, plan on a multi-year project, and since it would take so long, perhaps add on some value-added work like upgrading storage mounts or catalogue records.
Another dust incident happened immediately after that project, so from that we came to the conclusion that it wasn’t necessary to dust everything in the stores. A lot of the time, most of the damage is already done by the dust and removing it can cause more damage. It is only worth dusting if the dust is actively/rapidly causing degradation (enhancing mould growth or corrosion, causing significant surface scratching, etc.) and/or the item is going on display, or the item is otherwise in use and the dust will interfere with that use. If the item is just sitting in storage with no plans for use in the near future, and the dust is not causing significant continued degradation, then dusting may wait for a request for loan, display, or research.
In such circumstances it is better to focus on preventive measures, such as improved storage to prevent dust accumulation, such as: improved HVAC filtration; storage in closed cupboards; storage in boxes; or the use of dust covers.
A dust monitoring project in the new store may also be something to consider. Dust always happens, so it’s good to know how much, what kind, where it builds up, that kind of thing. Then you’ll have some idea of how frequently you’ll have to think about dusting.

As for your bird nests, because of their fragility, I would take the preventive approach. If it is not scheduled for use in the foreseeable future, then focus on improving the storage and packing. Only dust selected items where the dust is truly interfering with use, and/or is causing continuing damage.

That’s my 2 cents.
Valerie Tomlinson

From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of MELLIER Benoît
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2022 8:40 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: [EXT][Nhcoll-l] how to clean birds nests ?

COURRIEL EXTERNE. Ne cliquez sur aucun lien ou pièce jointe à moins que vous ne connaissiez l'expéditeur.
EXTERNAL EMAIL. Do not click any links or attachments unless you know the sender.
Dear all,
Here at Angers Nat. Hist. Museum (Western France), we are working on our collections before their complete relocation in a new storage building. Among all the tasks, one important is cleaning the specimens. Most of all are dusty and sometimes dust is easy to remove sometimes it is not, it depends on the kind of the specimens. My question concerns birds nests : did some of you experiment birds nests dust off ? Some restorers tell us to wrap the nest with a net and use a vacuum. I will appreciate your answers and your experience sharing about this.
Thanks,

Benoît MELLIER
Zoologie, Sciences de la Terre et Préhistoire
[image001.png]
Direction des musées – Muséum des sciences naturelles<https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mus%C3%A9um_des_sciences_naturelles_d%27Angers> // Ville d’Angers
43 rue Jules Guitton – 49100 ANGERS
Tél : 02 41 05 48 53 Courriel : benoit.mellier at ville.angers.fr<mailto:benoit.mellier at ville.angers.fr> www.angers.fr/museum<http://www.angers.fr/museum>

[image002.png]<https://musees.angers.fr/lieux/evenement/70103-meteorites-entre-ciel-et-terre/index.html>

[image003.png]  REJOIGNEZ-NOUS !   [fb] <https://fr-fr.facebook.com/pages/Mus%C3%A9es-dAngers/154456081255227>   [twi] <https://twitter.com/Museum_Angers>  [pin] <https://fr.pinterest.com/MuseesAngers/>  [image004.png] <https://instagram.com/musees_angers/>
www.angers.fr<http://www.angers.fr/>       www.musees.angers.fr<http://www.musees.angers.fr/>


[https://www.nature.ca/sites/all/themes/realdecoy/images/splash/splash-logo.jpg] <https://nature.ca/>

Saving the World with Evidence, Knowledge and Inspiration. (click to learn more)<https://nature.ca/en/about-us/museum-corporation/mission-mandate>
Sauver le monde avec des preuves, des connaissances et de l'inspiration. (cliquez pour en savoir plus)<https://nature.ca/fr/sujet-musee/mission-organisation/mission-organisation>

cmnEmailFooterDefault.

_______________________________________________
Nhcoll-l mailing list
Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l

_______________________________________________
NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
society. See http://www.spnhc.org for membership information.
Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20220914/885927b3/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 268 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20220914/885927b3/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 108415 bytes
Desc: image002.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20220914/885927b3/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.png
Type: image/png
Size: 8528 bytes
Desc: image003.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20220914/885927b3/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image004.png
Type: image/png
Size: 2692 bytes
Desc: image004.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20220914/885927b3/attachment-0003.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 268 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20220914/885927b3/attachment-0004.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 108415 bytes
Desc: image002.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20220914/885927b3/attachment-0005.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.png
Type: image/png
Size: 8528 bytes
Desc: image003.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20220914/885927b3/attachment-0006.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image004.png
Type: image/png
Size: 2692 bytes
Desc: image004.png
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20220914/885927b3/attachment-0007.png>