[NHCOLL-L:1827] RE: Mold in the desert

[Simmons, John E]

You can't get rid of mold spores.  They are always present in the air.
Freezing probably won't kill them, either.  Concentrate your efforts on
controlling the environment so that the mold does not grow again.

Monitor the materials in the boxes carefully for the next year or so to
watch for mold growth.  You should consider taking the objects outside (or
to an area ventilated directly to the outside) and removing them from the
plastic one by one to check for evidence of mold growth.  If there is any
evidence of mold on any of the objects, you should clean it off.  This
should be done after consulting with a conservator, or at least after
careful reading of the literature.  Several safe methods have been worked
out for removing mold from objects, depending on the substrate (e.g., using
ethanol and polyester swabs).

The high humidity spike undoubtedly led to the mold growth problem.
Consider investing in a datalogger for the storage area to monitor for
future spikes.  Several models of dataloggers have alarms that could be set
to alert you if the humidity and/or temperature got into the range that
permits mold growth.

Good luck!
John

John E. Simmons
Collection Manager, Natural History Museum
and
Coordinator, Museum Studies Program
University of Kansas
Dyche Hall
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
Lawrence, Kansas 66045-7561
Telephone 785-864-4508
FAX 785-864-5335
jsimmons at ku.edu
www.ku.edu/~museumst/

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim White [mailto:tim.white at yale.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2003 10:19 AM
To: nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu
Subject: [NHCOLL-L:1824] Mold in the desert

This just in.....

A small institution nearby has found a mold invasion (probably due to a leak

behind the wall) that has spread from the wall to nearby boxes.  We plan to 
throw away the boxes, but wonder what steps we need to take with the objects

(mostly textiles) which were stored in the boxes.  They were in plastic bags

in the boxes, and we can't see any sign of mold in the boxes.

We plan to freeze the objects, but wonder if anyone can give us info on the 
time we need to leave them in the freezer.  Any other ideas to make sure the

mold spores are gone?  

The room is temperature controlled (about 60 F) and humidified (around 40% 
ideally, but with some variation---sensors show it got above 60% at one
point 
this winter).  Should we keep it at these levels, or change anything?

Thank you for any input.  We aren't used to dealing with mold here in the 
desert.

Dr. Laurel Casjens
Research Curator
Utah Museum of Natural History
Salt Lake City UT 84112-0050

casjens at umnh.utah.edu